Botanical Gardens

 

Clay and I went to Atlanta to meet up with Lindsey to go to the botanical gardens.  It was a perfect day for being outside.

 

 The giant plant sculptures throughout the gardens were amazing.  They were in the process of making a huge cobra that will eventually coil over the walkway but it was only partially finished.

 

 The tulips were still in bloom and gorgeous!

 

The fishes fountain rotated on a platform.

 

There were several environments inside.  The plant above has its roots dangling in the air and somehow absorbs its nutrients from the air.

 

 

 

 

 

Clay and Lindsey took the time to smell the flowers.  

We were all watching a big bullfrog in the pond and Lindsey asked me if I thought it was moving toward us.  It started ribbiting and she jumped behind me all scared.  I tried to get the frog all blown up and making noise on video but he wouldn't perform for the camera.

 

 
After a beautiful day at the Gardens we all went to eat at R Thomas.  Delicious food!  We made a pit stop and got another sit on top kayak on the way home.  Woohoo, can't wait to get out on the water!

Fun with fun.

 
Clay and I went to see Guster last month, and this month (2/15) we cashed in on my Christmas gift and went to see Fun. at the Tabernacle.  We had plans to try a new restaurant but after sitting on 75 in traffic for a long time, we didn't have long to eat so we stopped by the Varsity for a quick bite before the show.

 
The Tabernacle is definitely one of our favorite venues.  The only downside is that it is not much fun to go during the summer because it gets very hot inside.  So, we try to find concerts there during the months of October-May.   This was perfect weather for a Tabernacle concert.  We showed up about and hour an a half before and show and the line of much-younger-than-us-hipsters was already wrapping around the block. This was the first time we have experienced this, also it was our first attendance at a sold out concert here. 

 
We got great seats on the front row up the upper balcony!  They played a nice mix of songs from their older album, Aim and Ignite, and their newer one, Some Nights.  My favorite song of theirs is the gambler.

This is one of the songs probably familiar to you from the radio, also the title track from their newer album.

 

 
We had a great time! The performace was very energetic, the crowd was having a blast-singing along, the live performance lived up to the studio recordings.  We had seen them on Saturday Night Live before Clay got me the tickets so we knew they would not be as bad a Gwen Stefani or Train live.  Clay enjoyed it so much he was already checking out where we could see them again close by on the drive home that night. 

Date Night (Dinner and a Concert)

 
We started out the night at the Porter Beer Bar just up the road from the Variety Playhouse (behind it we snagged some super great parking for $2).  We found this place on Yelp, it had excellent reviews and we were not disappointed.  There was a Giant, I mean GIANT beer selection which Clay looked through and decided on a white Thai beer that was recommended per Yelpers.  I saw that they make their own Bloody Mary mix and infuse their own vodka (4 pepper vodka) so I had to try a Bloody Mary which was very good, you could really taste the peppers but it wasn't so hot that I didn't enjoy it.  They come in pint or quart options.  Before the meal I had already decided on dessert.  For starters we had foie gras for Clay and goat cheese fritters with honey.  I loved the bacon jam that came with the foie gras!  The goat cheese fritters were very tasty, the little bit of sweetness from the honey was just right and we even took a little of the stone ground mustard from Clay's plate and had it with bites of the goat cheese and honey....amazing!

 
For our entrees we had the black bean and quinoa burger with house pickled onions and Belgian fries, and beer brats and house made sauerkraut.  Out of these 2 dishes, the fries were what to write home about.  Perfectly crispy and fantastic flavor!  The burger was good but texture was a little mealy for my liking and to me the beer brats were a little sweeter than I would have liked, not bad, just a personal preference.

 
Then to desert....I was surprised, the one desert I had been pining over since we arrived was the PBJM, a peanut butter custard with apple cider jelly, shortbread, and burnt marshmallow.  However this was a disappointment, the whole dessert lacked significant flavor.  I was expecting something with a little more zing on my tastebuds.   That being said, the other 2 were fantastic!  The cranberry bread pudding and brownie with beer ice cream and salted caramel were super duper!  The atmosphere of this place is really nice and cozy, decor is interesting, the ceiling in the back is really high so although it is cozy it doesn't feel stuffy.  We also have good service, prompt and helpful.  This is a definite repeat for us!

 

This was my first time at Variety Playhouse, and it was a great experience.  Parking was really easy, and convenient.  It was a general admission show and we got there about 30 minutes early and got nice seats.  The front few rows and side rows were plastic chairs the middle section was good old concert hall style chairs.  We went to see Guster who is touring with 2 string players at this time.  They put on a fantastic show!  The music was superb but they were also entertaining.  The lead singer made jokes and kept things light.  They engaged the audience, even agreeing twice to play Chinese fire drill where they switched instruments several ending up with instruments they didn't know how to play and the drummer singing quite hysterically out of tune.  Clay and I both very much enjoyed our experience and next time Guster is playing within travel range we will be there.

Racing and crafting

Things have been a little different at my job lately, my partner at night moved to day shift on another floor and in order to have coverage on more days they asked if I would work 5 eight hour shifts per week or 11p-7a Monday-Friday so that is what I have been doing lately.  I had already signed up for the Kaiser Permanente 5K race in Atlanta for Thursday Sept, 13 so I asked if I could just come in a little late that night.  So I came home Thursday morning, slept a bit and off to Atlanta I went. 

 

We got there super early to make sure we could get parking since the race was going to be so large.  It was a warm day but there was a nice breeze and we checked out the Expo and hung out listening to the music until Jason's Deli arrived with our box lunches.  We chowed down and then walked back through the Expo again to see what else had been put up since before.  I met my new boyfriend, Mr. Broccoli.  Then we warmed up with the group exercise.

 

This was a HUGE race, when we lined up you couldn't see the front or the back of the swarm of people.  The race started at Turner field, made a loop around the capitol and then ended back at Turner.

 

It was slow getting started due to the sheer number of people that were participating, however it started to open up a little into the race.  We finished in 35:45 which was pretty good, I have not run in 4 weeks, yikes!  The marathon training burned me out from running so I decided to drop it.  I think I may do another half though, I enjoyed that length and the training was not nearly so time consuming.  

 

The sunset was beautiful at the end, we grabbed our t-shirts and headed out, stopped for a delicious milkshake on the way home.  I stopped by the house showered up and headed to work.  Running this race definitely has me wanting to do more 5Ks!

I made Arnetra's baby Zachariah a present the other day and took it to her at work.  I used the caps off of vials from work that I had saved for a long time and never knew what to do with them to cover the frame.  I made the background with fabric and cut out of scrapbook paper the moon and caterpillar.

 

We had a nice time at the Generous pour event at the Capital Grill in Atlanta.  Thank you Yelp for bringing us another fantastic elite event!   After a beautiful glass elevator ride to the 8th floor we were greeted by the staff, Kathleen, and some rose.  A little later the stations were opened up for sampling.  They had a total of 9 wines to taste and some delicious light bites.  The lobster and crab roll was perfect and the bite of Clay's filet roll was so tender and flavorful, I wish that I had gotten my own but I was pacing myself. 

They had a drawing for a free dinner for two and Kathleen (the Atlanta community manager) sadly did not choose our name. 

 

We sat at the bar for most of the evening.  Clay was sad that he was not able to have an old fasioned here.  The bartender deferred to the wine tasting, no mixed drinks here.   We talked with a new Yelper to us, Helmut and also caught up with Steve and Dee again (they are with us in the first picture at the top). 

 

The marinated roasted tomatoes were my favorite item of the evening though, they were perfect!  Although the desert wine was delicious too.  It was almost like wine made from rum raisin ice cream, very sweet and had a strong taste of fruit.

 

I got these photos from the Yelp flickr site.   

This one I snapped in the elevator, too bad you can't see the view!

Where have I been

 

The last week and a half has been very busy, plus my laptop went on the fritz so I have been a little absent in the blogosphere.   Clay and I attended another Yelp elite event at Lime Fresh in Atlanta.  We had a good time and visited with 2 other Yelping couples.  The spread there was great!  Guac, salsa bar, tacos, burritos, key lime pie, sangria, and margaritas for free.  We also spent some time just running around ATL on last Saturday.  We hit up Petsmart and visited with the humane society puppies and got them some chew toys, then we were going to go back to the Book House Pub, but sadly we were too early and they weren't open yet.  Next, we found ourselves in Inman Park and decided to hit up Fritti, which we had seen before when going to Dad's garage theater but never tried.  We have been missing out, what a fantastic meal.  We ate out on the patio and didn't even mind the heat because the food was that good!  We started with calamari which was crisp and not chewy and sausage risotto balls that were innovative and delicious!  We shared a pizza with several cheeses, ham, artichokes, and olives.  Yummy!  1 pizza was 8 decently sized slices, so it was perfect for sharing.  It was so warm that we couldn't turn up the opportunity for gelato and we were very glad we didn't.  The pistachio was the most flavorful that I have ever had and the lime-raspberry was sweet and tangy and so refreshing. 

 

We decided that evening that we would come back on Friday for a Braves baseball game and headed south to go pick me out a kayak.  I tried the one that I thought would be my favorite but the foot pegs pushed in on my ankles and were very uncomfortable so I tried on the small and cheapest *yay* just for giggles and it was so much more comfortable and it was super light.  I can actually pick it up over my head to carry it.  Plus, it is green and looks like a watermelon.  We strapped that baby to the roof and headed home.  I spent the week working and hanging out with Stacie.  It was Claire's last week in Georgia so we had a little festivity for her at work and then I went out to eat with her and Bekie on evening.  

So, when we made our plans last week to go to the Braves game little did we know we were going to be in the midst of a heat wave, but we are hard core so off we went Friday into the 100+ degree temps to cheer on the Braves.

 

We arrived and met Eric and bought our tickets *cheap nosebleeders* and headed up into the rafters of the stadium.  Profusely sweating but still having a good time we proceeded to watch the Braves get their asses handed to them until the 7th inning when they got 4 runs to tie it up.  Unfortunately the Nationals brought scored again and the Braves weren't able to come back.  We all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves and it wasn't that bad considering the scorching temps.

 

After the game I was a bit peckish so we were trying to decide on somewhere to go eat and since we attempted to go to the Book House Pub the other day and they are open until 0200 we headed over there.  We encountered a sketchy parking situation but managed to get in and get a table.  The vibe was different than when we were there at dinner time but other than having to yell at tablemates to be heard it was a nice time.  Our waitress even scrounged up some house made chips for us even thought the kitchen was closed.  I enjoyed a spicy bloody Mary while Clay and Eric tried a few beers.  Clay was disappointed that they didn't have the banana nut bread beer that he enjoyed so much the last time we were there but found a new favorite, the watermelon beer.  We tortured my sister with pics of this beer because I remembered her Facebook post from earlier in the week lamenting her lack of access to said beer.  We were still munchy when we left, the chips didn't quite count as dinner, so we hit up the Zesto close by for our first experience there, then we headed home, surprising Killer at about 0300.

 

Today was even hotter and Clay attempted to talk me into doing yardwork, haha haha.  Needless to say that didn't get done.  Tomorrow is supposed to be around 104 but our crazy selves are heading out for a kayak excursion on the Ocmulgee.  We are going to put in at Lloyd Shoals Dam and take out at Wise Creek.  We are taking lots of water and hoping that the whole river hasn't evaporated or we will be miserably portaging a whole lot.  This run is supposed to take about 3 hours, I am betting on more like 5-6 counting a picnic lunch for us.  We shall see!  Me and my watermelon mobile will be hitting the water for the first time. 

Eddie's Attic

 

We went to see Scotty Cram last night at Eddie's Attic in Decatur and had a blast.  I lucked up by seeing the post on a friend's Facebook page and got tickets about a month ago.  It ended up being a sold out show.  He is a friend of a couple of my Radio Shack friends from college.  I remember them talking about their friend Scotty and loving to hear him sing.  I finally got to hear him last night years later and I know what they were talking about.  He sings with so much heart and his songs are real and you can definitely relate.

Jeb and Cam were there and it was so good to see them again!  I am so glad we were able to go.

Atlanta Movie Tour Date Day

 

 

Last week I caught a deal on travel zoo for a walking dead tour of Atlanta.  It seemed right up Clay's alley so we decided to do it this weekend.  This morning when I got off work we headed up to Atlanta to see some zombie hot spots.

 

The group met up at Castleberry hill parking garage did a short walking tour over the railroad tracks heading into town.  That area was featured in Walking Dead then we hopped on a bus to be shuttled around while we were informed and entertained by a guy who had the luck of being a famous zombie in the show.

We went to several spots around town but my favorite was the Goat Farm which is an artist community and a venue for events.  This was a fantastic place!  I got gobbled at by this guinea hen when I stopped to take the picture then it ran away, I guess it was camera shy.

 

 

 This photo of us is taken from the same location as the still shot from Walking Dead. Unfortunately our heads are too big and take up most  of the photo = )  We were super hungry when we got done and decided to head over to Decatur for Art B Que.  What a treat!  There were several food trucks so we had a variety: a little tamale here, hot dog there, Farm Burger sloppy joe here, King of Pops there.  Clay had a tasty pineapple habanero pop and Thai tea, I had a blackberry ginger lemonade and banana pudding pop, so good!  It had gotten very hot in the afternoon and the cool breeze from the morning had moved on so we didn't linger and listen to the music.

 

While we were up in the ATL we hit up Whole Foods for some items that are a little hard to get in Macon.  We saw a neat looking place called the Book House Pub and after shopping we had worked up an appetite and had dinner and some drinks there.  Clay had a jalapeno infused tequila margarita as his Cinco de Mayo celebration and then a delicious banana nut bread beer.  I was sleepy after the long day after work so I had 2 ginormous cups of coffee.  Clay was so excited they had duck on the menu and he was not disappointed.  I was let down by my chorizo burger (dry and bland) but the Guinness mac and cheese, lamb and risotto balls, and hand cut fries more than redeemed my experience.  This place was so cool and we for sure want to go back here.