Cleveland & Helen

This weekend we took a trip up to Cleveland and Helen, Georgia.  They are both very unique towns.  Cleveland is home of the Cabbage Patch kids--Babyland General, and do they take their dolls seriously!  Babyland General is designed to look and feel like a real hospital!  They even have "deliveries," where a "nurse" will make a big production about a new baby being born. 

I had thought that it would be more like a Build-A-Bear type deal, where you can customize your doll and pick different outfits.  Babyland General was a big store, true, but it was way beyond my expectations.  Zuri had a blast, though.  Oddly enough, she really wasn't interested in the dolls, and went straight for all the stuffed animals.  Go figure.  She found a stroller and fell in love--she raced across the store with the stroller and was so cute. 

There is a reception area and a nursery!

Here is an incubator.  You can't tell from the picture but it has humidity controls and everything.

They had several rooms set up just for the dolls.  They had rooms where you could "nurse" and change the dolls.  

Zuri saw the cabbage patch doll in the swing and ran over to help push the doll!  It was so cute--she just had to rock the doll!

She found the stuffed animals and didn't want to let them go.

She finally found a doll she liked and was pushing it around in the stroller.  One of the "nurses" saw it and was commenting how adorable Zuri is, and Zuri stopped, handed her the doll and then pointed back to the stroller.  The nurse laughed and put the doll back in the stroller for Zuri.  It was so funny.

 This doll is one of several in display cases in the "waiting room."  She is worth $15,000.00.  Crazy.

In Cleveland we also saw many things which are characterized with the "south."  I saw my first Piggly Wiggly (one of my favorite movies is Sweet Home Alabama).

Another big thing down here is boiled peanuts (or as many signs say--"boiled p-nuts").  J brought some home one time and I didn't particularly care for them, but then, I am not a fan of nuts.

We saw this sign at a Burger King and laughed.  Got Ribs?

The second place we visited was the town of Helen, which has been made to feel like an old German town.  Many of the signs are in German, and the architecture of the entire town is the old-time German look.

There is more to do there than just shop, though.  The Chattahoochee river flows through town and you can rent tubes and float down the river.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to go tubing at the time, but we are going to keep it in mind for another weekend!

On our way out of town we saw this random gazebo type thing in the middle of a cow field.  It is some sort of Indian mound.