Another Fun Weekend

Janie and Adam came for a quick visit this weekend.

Friday night we went to eat at Fellini's - a great pizza place, where apparently, the love story of Adam and Janie began.

ah, love.

(Janie, I will be sure to mention this time around that in the above photo there is in fact, no pizza on the table yet. Just me and my love, but not on the table, in chairs.)

After yummy pizza we headed to the Braves game.



Adam and Janie usually force us to ingest some form of junk food when they come to visit;) Sometimes it's Dairy Queen and Dunkin Donuts, and other times it's Sonic banana splits and a bag of Reese's Pieces. Friday night happened to be gummy worms, Raisinettes and Krispy Kreme donuts. The boys ate theirs before we made it to the stadium, but I shoved mine in my purse for later. This is what resulted:

flat and delicious!

One sugar coma later, we sat through rounds and rounds of "the wave". A group of kids in our section was intent on generating a successful wave. I'm not sure if this is from round nine or round nine hundred.

We made it all the way to the ninth inning and then the rain came. Lots of rain.


We took cover and the boys were kind enough to walk through the rain to get the car.
What great esposos!

The rest of the night involved more food, lots of laughs and a 3am bedtime.
We love when Adam and Janie come to visit!

In other weekend news . . .

Janie and Adam hung around for a little while on Saturday.

Amy and Nathan came to visit and see the casa.

David and I had a great, cuddly date night including our favorite Mexican joint, a fun movie courtesy of our new favorite place for rentals - Videodrome, and big bowls of chocolate ice cream.

I attempted to run off the ice cream with my first 5 miler of my 1/2 marathon training program.

David's mom came to visit and took me out to lunch while David finished up his studio project.

AND we picked Natalie and Josh up from the airport and had a little midnight birthday party complete with mini strawberry shortcakes for Natalie!

It was another fun weekend amongst the many fun weekends we have when friends and family come to visit!

Friday

Time for friends to come and visit. It looks like a Braves game and general good times are on the agenda. I'm sure pictures will follow!

When I was a little girl . . .

. . . I would have been obsessed with this book:


After all, I am the child who wore my pink, sequined ballet costume three or four years in a row at Halloween, insisting that I was a fairy princess.
I hope our child is into fairies, because boy or girl, when we have children, I will own this book and force my child to look at it with me every night!


(the book is available at Anthropologie)

My Food Obsession

I know everyone is not a fan of beets, but I happen to LOVE them.
I love them steamed, roasted, chilled and yes, even pickled.
They're messy to prepare and their vibrant hue seems to stain just about every inch of me when I'm peeling them, but they're delicious!
My current beet obsession has taken the form of a roasted beet salad. It's incredible!
The salad is composed of roasted beets, red onions, toasted walnuts and goat's cheese on a bed of Boston Bibb lettuce (our preference, but arugula or any other green is good as well) with a lemon-olive oil dressing. Yum!
This is pretty much what it looks like, minus the tomatoes, but those would be a nice touch:


It's healthy and delicious! Try it.

image via italianfoodforever.com

Oh, I know.

Just a brief post.
Some quotes to think about.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
-George Eliot

Truth is our element.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Two of my favorite authors.



And some lovely flowers to brighten the day from absolutely beautiful things.
Her florals always make me happy.

We Live In Burrrrnesville

We spent our last week before David starts Fall semester visiting the Asheville area with our friends, Jonathan and Milan. Jonathan and his parents were kind enough to let us all stay in their amazing mountain home.

We spent the first day driving to North Carolina. We stopped in Asheville and walked around the downtown area. Asheville's architecture is beautiful.






We had dinner at a great little seafood pub. Then we headed to the mountains.


Jonathan showed us around the community and then took us to the neatest tree house, ever! It's on the top of the mountain.


It's several stories with a little living area at the top. It had a little bed and a little iron stove and little shelves. I was pretty excited.


After the tree house, Jonathan took us to his home where we watched the sun set from the porch.


Day two began with beautiful morning mist.


We lazed around, went for lunch at the mountaintop clubhouse, and then . . . I got to hold Cornelius the albino corn snake in the clubhouse nature center.


After lunch we took a short hike that had to be cut short because of the oncoming downpour.
We spent the rest of the evening looking at the views and playing air hockey and pool in the clubhouse game room.



On day three we spent the morning in a pretty little "secret" park. It had a working water wheel, a little pond full of rainbow trout, and beautiful flowers.


Then we headed back to Asheville and toured the city and had yummy cupcakes!





We did a lot of walking - I was tired.


We decided to take the scenic tour home, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's pretty amazing. It has the best views of the Blue Ridge Mountains I've ever seen.


The sunset was unbelievable.


We decided to resume our hike on our final morning.
Milan decided not to go - I think she must have caught wind of some plan Jonathan and David hatched to murder me. The path on the old growth forest loop was the path from hell.
It started out innocently enough.


But then it began to get a little too vertical for me.
This is me about to have a heart attack.
Nice plan, you two.



At least we got to see some amazing views and I counted the hike as one of my runs for the week - I promise, it's not cheating!


We loaded up the cars and headed back to Georgia. These three start school tomorrow. I feel like this was our farewell tour for the next four months. I don't expect to see them between the hours of 8am and 9pm, but maybe I will just have to tag along during studio time like I did this summer. Thanks again Jonathan and Milan for a great weekend!

When suddenly a girl her skin the color of a pearl

Happiness Is . . .

1. the Dekalb Farmer's Market
2. chocolate covered raisins
3. watching 500 Days of Summer with my love and good friends
4. eating ripe figs off of our very own fig tree
5. cleaning
6. having an exciting new goal
7. writing in my planner
8. finding and enjoying new music
9. giving books as presents - you can never go wrong
10. having David all to myself for 18 days

I wouldn't do, without you.

An Education

This is going to be an amazing film. The actors are wonderful. The story is interesting. And the costumes are beautiful!













images via movieset, collider, and aceshowbiz

Trés Bien

Thinking about all things French lately.
David and I are planning to learn the language for a possible future extended stay in the country . . .
I would be perfectly content to spend the rest of my life in this french abode.

Weekend

David wrapped up his summer semester this past Thursday, so we decided to take a trip to the mountains to relax and spend time with family.

I love our drive to the Cates' home.


The house is beautiful all year, but I really love it in the summertime!


Friday night we visited the Blairsville courthouse to listen to blue grass. It was really fun - they played lots of traditional southern tunes and everyone sang along.



We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing. We slept in, explored the mountains and went blackberry picking in the rain - it was wonderful!




We returned home with our bounty and made homemade blackberry cobbler . . . yum!

After a great weekend with David's mom and the always adorable Murphy . . .


. . . we headed to Athens to reunite with some of our favorites for Aaron's birthday.



As usual, Aaron wouldn't let me take a picture of him. I guess I will forever have to post pictures of his elbows.


One of my favorite highlights of the trip - getting to see Natalie - I've missed you!


We had a fun, relaxing weekend. And I have 13 more days to enjoy with David before Fall semester starts. I'm sure I'll be posting more about our adventures!