Only the Good Notes

Tag Archives: getaways

Christmas #2

After an amazing Thanksgiving in the mountains, then Christmas #1 with my family, and a quiet New Year’s Eve at home (just the two three of us), we are now preparing for Christmas #2 with Todd’s parents back up in the North Georgia mountains…in the cabin where we got engaged!

Travel schedules didn’t allow us all to be together this year for Christmas, but that is the plan for our holidays going forward. :)

Now that we’ve stayed in this cabin we know exactly what they have – and don’t – and what we need in order to cook and be comfortable. We’ve established our menu and I’ve created a document that serves as our meal planner, shopping list(s), and our packing checklist.

We’re all going up for a long weekend later this month. Getting very excited!

I just hope the weather dries out and cools off. I want our winter back!!

 

Our wedding venue

The Ritz Carlton Lodge at Reynold’s Plantation. It’s very special to us…we spent Valentine’s Day there last year and had the most glorious weekend, and we absolutely fell in love with it.

Five things I love most about The Lodge:

1. The staff and the service…so friendly, and just absolutely stellar all the way around. And, the chefs prepared everything specially for us the entire time we were there to ensure that we had a gluten-free yet still completely awesome dining experience.

2. The rustic-meets-5-star ambiance.

3. It’s less than 2 hours from us, so we can go whenever we want.

4. They are pet friendly…yes, Shiloh WILL be in our wedding! Think flower girl meets ring bearer meets Golden Retriever. :)

5. The chiminea dining experience. Last year we had dinner by the lake with our own private fire in a chiminea and butler for Valentine’s Day. It was a made-to-order 3-course meal, and we were tended to all evening by our own private “butler” (a Ritz Carlton employee with a golf cart who came down periodically to check in, bring us our next course, more wine, firewood, blankets, etc.) It was just the most amazing experience! This is what we are thinking of doing for our rehearsal dinner – only this time on a larger scale with the entire family. How much fun will that be?!?

Let the planning begin!

The Lodge

if it's good enough for Carrie Underwood... :)

view from the infinity edge pool

Thanksgiving in the mountains

THIS is where we’re headed for four days and three nights and we cannot wait! We made sure to find a place in the North Georgia mountains that is pet-friendly so of course we are bringing our baby girl Shiloh. :)

We plan to spend our time in the kitchen cooking up a storm, drinking wine, snuggling up by the fire(s) watching holiday movies…enjoying the spa…relaxing on the decks and enjoying the views…and maybe going on a few mountain hikes.

Now we’re just counting the days!