Mialkowski Family News

Halloween 2025 trip to Highlands, NC.

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:41:54 +0000

Video starts once we reached Hwy 441.

Hope everyone had a good Easter weekend!

Roger — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:43:49 +0000

We went up to the Dillard House in Dillard, Georgia yesterday and ate Easter lunch. They bring you a dozen different dishes (lamb, fried chicken, ham, salisbury steak, various veggies and salads) and you get refills on whatever you want more of! Even let you take all the leftovers home! After lunch Lily rode a horse called Chocolate Frank and we participated in the Easter Egg Hunt at 2pm. As if that wasn’t enough, we walked some trails at Tallulah Falls State Park and got to see the falls from a couple of viewpoints. Tall cliffs for sure. We’re in the market for a used mini-van/suv/wagon-type vehicle so if you know of any good ones for a couple of grand, lemme know! In February, we went to Jekyll Island to scatter ashes of a member of my wife’s family. We rented a 9 passenger conversion van and I drove everyone to the island and back to the Atlanta area. About 7 hours each way but we stayed down there the whole weekend. We all had a good respectful time. I was able to start my ’94 Honda TRX300 (4WD ATV) a couple of weeks ago and it ran like a champ. I’m getting someone to check out the electrical charging system on it because it drains the battery. Soon I’ll get my ’84 Honda ATC200 (3 wheeler!) running with the help of a good man called “Possum”. That thing is a monster that can’t be stopped. I’ve driven it through mountains, streams, deep in the bush. Looking forward to using that for yard work around the compound.

Hey y’all, come check out my wife’s next Art Exhibit!

Roger — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 01:16:37 +0000

Upcoming Art Exhibit is just 7 days away!

Not quite a year since the last post…

Roger — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:30:45 +0000

Well, well, December 1st, 2010 is upon us. It’s been almost a whole year since I last posted something on the blog. What have we been up to? My mother died in February, sold my Harley to pay for the trip up to Chicago and funeral expenses, turned 41 on April 7th, Easter at The Dillard House and Lily hunted eggs, camped at Rabun Beach Campground which included swimming, canoeing, and fishing. Lily got a free t-shirt from the water cops for wearing a life jacket – like I’m gonna let a toddler loose in a canoe on the lake! Went tubing in Helen a couple of times. Took Lily fishing at a couple of places and caught 1/2 a dozen trout while she napped. Had a multi-family vacation in eastern Kentucky (dry county – drag!) and then moved onto Bowling Green and hung out there for a couple of days. There was a real nice amusement park called Beech Bend Park around Bowling Green that had fun rides and a water park too. Let’s see, what else, Katherine has been showing her art at a few events/auctions, the girls have gone to the Atlanta Zoo a couple of times along with Yellow River Game Ranch, Gwinnett County Fair, Lily turned 4 years old in October, Katherine got rear-ended in the Volvo, twisted my back a little bringing down Christmas gear, just the usual day to day, year to year stuff. What’s new with you?!?

Merry Christmas Eve

Roger — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:46:36 +0000

It’s gonna be a wet one down here in Georgia tonight. Lily and I went food shopping to get tonight’s and tomorrow night’s dinners. Tonight we are having a fillet of Scarlet Snapper. I’ve always heard it called Red Snapper so I’m not even sure that this is really Snapper. We are done with all of our Christmas gift shopping so no last minute runs to the stores are required this year. Tomorrow’s dinner consists of a leg of lamb so that should be quite tasty! I’m off until January 4th, 2010 so that’s gonna be a nice break. I need to finish (start, actually) working in the yard to get the leaves taken care of. I think I’ll be burning them this year as my back yard trail has a couple of downed trees in it that I haven’t had a chance to chainsaw up yet.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Roger — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:10:20 +0000

I, for one, would like to truly show my thanks to my wife and my child, for putting up with me and my antics! We had to have lunch/dinner at our house this year with just the 3 of us because Lily has an ear infection and I have a snuffly nose. That’s OK! Katherine had us buy a fresh (not frozen) turkey the other day and that bad boy cooked up in 2 hours and 15 minutes flat! Needless to say, it had some counter time to “mature” while Katherine made us some wonderful sides, i.e. shredded beet sautee with apples, delicious – no MSG – stuffing, and Italian green beans. It was all very tasty! Oh, what? I forgot to mention desert? Why, yes, my wife also baked both, a pecan pie and a pumpkin (no, scratch that, Paula Deen calls it a Thanksgiving) pie. Good work to all on this day’s work! I’m taking a few days off to enjoy this meal.

Business Vacation

Roger — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:24:11 +0000

Well, we got back to Georgia yesterday late afternoon. (5:30pm). On Saturday, Nov 7th, I was notified by strangers that my mother’s other son (my brother I guess some would say) had died. I was given his case number for the Cook County’s Medical Examiner’s Office. On Monday, Nov 9th, I rented a mid-sized SUV so we can go up there and check things out. I knew we would be stopping by my friend Mark’s house in Wisconsin to pick up some of my mother’s boxes that she had in her studio welfare apartment in Elmwood Park, Illinois which was a directly adjacent suburb of Chicago. Mark and Sherry (Mark’s significant other) were gracious enough to let me store boxes at their house. I had rented a trailer to bring back some larger items a few years ago too. Anyways, we left Georgia Tuesday afternoon (2pm to be exact) and headed north up to Horse Cave, Kentucky where we stayed at the Horse Cave Motel ($40). It’s pretty much the exact half-way point between Atlanta and Chicago. We left the next morning (Wednesday) and got into Chicago probably around 3pm or 4pm. We headed straight to the CCMEO so I can provide a positive I.D. Nowadays, you don’t have to go into room to view dead people. They position a video camera over the deceased and display it in a viewing room on a LCD or PLASMA widescreen TV. I had been told he was found in a decomposing state and I was not able to provide a positive I.D. because of that. We left and went to our hosts, Larry and Bambi who put us up for the next couple of nights. I did have an e-mail that contained a picture of the deceased and our mother dating as recent as 10-30-2009 so I printed that out (in color) and the next day we went back to the CCMEO and I asked Katherine (my wife) to help and see if she can I.D. him or not. She did say it was him, but I needed to be really sure so I asked the Chicago Police Department to follow up and proceed with finger printing him. A day later the detective called me and confirmed that it was him. At that point I was able to go to my mother who is in a nursing home, due to her stroke which caused her to be blind, and let her know that his death had been confirmed. So basically, that’s what we’ve been up to the past week.

Lily’s Birthday

Roger — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:44:04 +0000

Well, Lily has officially made it past her 3rd birthday! It was yesterday and we celebrated with a couple of pizzas and watching Madagascar 2. Her big party will be this Sunday. Come one come all! Oh yeah, BYOB…

Backblog 2009-06-20: Gone on Safari!

Roger — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:19:09 +0000

This place called Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia was having a Father’s Day special price for dads so we decided to take advantage of the deal. It was just 2 hours away from our house. We got there and bought our tickets, Lily was free since she’s under 3. With enough time for a bathroom break, we got in line to wait for the safari bus. Katherine didn’t want to take our own car. Didn’t matter to me, I would have liked to brag that our 1989 Volvo station wagon was rammed by a water buffalo. The bus had it’s windows taken out so it was more airy which was good. We bought a little bag of animal feed pellets (they didn’t let us take our carrots for the animals) and began throwing them down on the ground for wild boars, emu, bison, zebras, deer, giraffes, rams, longhorns, etc. It was like an hour and a half tour through the lands. It kinda reminded me of Jurassic Park. Once we got back we went walking around in their walkabout zoo which had lions, and tigers, and bears, etc. It was really hot out that day so we had to hop back in the car and head towards the house. It was already like 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch so I saw a billboard for Cracker Barrel so that’s where we went! Click on any of the below thumbnails for a larger picture.

Now that’s a Saturday!

Roger — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:38:59 +0000

Some time Friday I checked to see what the goings on in Helen, GA were for Saturday. And I found one of my favorites happening Saturday. It was the Shriner’s Parade. So I was going to take Lily there because Katherine had to work. Katherine called me at 11:20am on Saturday saying that she is coming home because her appointment was a no show. The parade started at 2pm so we were cutting it close since it takes likes and hour and a half to get up there. So I popped in our GPS and we got outta here around 12:15pm. We arrived at 1:45pm and were on scene in our standing spot on the bridge at exactly 2:01pm. The parade didn’t actually start until 2:05pm so we made it with time to spare! The parade lasted for 45 minutes and it was pretty warm out. The day before Katherine was looking up the prices for tubing the Hooch. We found that Helen Tubing was only $3 so we decided to hit the river. It lasted about 2 hours total and the water level was just fine, we bounced off other tubers that were stuck to keep us moving. Can’t wait to do that again. Click on some of the below thumbnails of the parade to get a larger picture.