Paula Deen Road Trip

Waiting in line

The boy's and I took a 9hr road trip to Savannah GA to see Paula Deen and her son's, Jaime & Bobbie for the 25th anniversary of their restaurant, Lady & Son's.  The trip there went perfect.  We got to our hotel and Reagan and I both needed to use the bathroom.  I locked the keys in the car due to trying to keep Gideon from falling out the back while I was unloading stuff and keeping Reagan out of the street and needing to use the bathroom. Thankfully we have Roadside assistance with our insurance and he was there in half an hour.  I choose our hotel and paid more than I could have at a different hotel because it had a pool.  We didn't even get to use the pool because of locking the pool toys in the car and it was storming outside. =(  We drove to eat at Paula Deen's restaurant only to find out that you really need to make reservations!  We would have had to wait 2 hours.  And this after we drove around and around looking for parking.  We ended up walking to Leopold's ice cream shop and Reagan had peppermint ice cream.  I tried a few different kinds but didn't get any because it just seemed too rich for me at the time.  I was very hot and tired.  Reagan didn't even eat all his ice cream. 

Gid's first time facing front, so he could watch movies with Reagan

Gid finished Reagan's ice cream

 I then drove around trying to find a bookstore to buy a book for them to sign.  That was a headache.  I had already ordered a book online and it didn't arrive in time.  I got the boys back to the hotel where they had a little bit of a hard time going to sleep.  But we all managed.  I woke up every hour due to various reasons.  We all got up, loaded and out of the hotel by 6:30am.  And we were in line a smidge after 7am.  We were 3rd in line which was pretty cool!  Jaime showed up early and took pictures with people.  Reagan got a bunch of "awww's" when he spontaneously gave Jaime a hug when he was holding him.  Jaime's son is 3 too.

I must have been a little star struck because I didn't get to say all I wanted to to Paula and her boy's, combined with sort of being scooted along in the whole process.  But we did get some good pictures with them.  Paula and Jaime held Gideon.  I'm really bummed I drove all that way and didn't say what I wanted to, or somehow made it last longer.  But it was a fun time either way.  She signed a fan, and 2 pictures I brought for her to see of Reagan eating butter at a restaurant.  I'm going to return the book I bought to save some money, since they signed anything.  I thought they would only sign books.

After the signing we had some time to kill before our reservation that I made the night before.  There was a water fountain area that kids were playing in by her restaurant so I took Reagan over there and I stood next to the water to get the spray when some horrible little kid stepped on one of the water and got me all soaked! That got me pretty ticked so we left and I decided to just check and see if they would take us before it was out turn.  Thankfully they did and we got a nice private area for most our dining time.  We ate at their buffet and Reagan ate free.  I tried everything they offered.  I had her fried chicken, baked chicken, collared green's, lima beans, black eyed peas, jambalaya, and ooey gooey cake.  My favorite was her green beans, sweet potatoes and banana pudding.  When we sat down they gave us ho cakes and garlic biscuits.  It was very yummy.  She opened another resturaunt in Pigeon Forge so I will be eating there again when I go there for a Home school convention in a few weeks.