Labor Day Weekend

Taco Mac with Em and Al

  I have already talked about the Big Peach Sizzler that I ran on Labor Day (best PR for a 10k then), but I failed to mention that some of my best friends came into town too! Emily drove up from Florida and Katie drove down from Nashville to come to the season opener for Auburn versus Clemson. Though the game was a total bust, we had a great time together! 

Mimosas on Saturday morning

Nosebleed section

Lovely Allison

Ashley, Katie, Allison, me, and Elizabeth

War Eagle!

  Of course, we ate at Tin Lizzy's and then once we got home on Sunday night, none of us could sleep so Emily, Katie, and I all stayed up talking. We even called Kate and made her reminisce about our old apartment in Auburn and lots of our memories since we couldn't convince her to come down from D.C. We even practiced some Pinterest hairdos (the waterfall, shown below). And we completely wore Wrigley out! I miss my girls so much, but the weekend turned out pretty wonderful (well, of course, not including the game)!

Celebrating Friends

   Back in July, I headed to Jackson for Kathryn's engagement party. It was held at Colonial Country Club, where I had my wedding reception. They impressed me with their updated food and one of Kathryn's mom's did a great job with the floral arrangements on all the tables.

sisters

 We had a great time getting to hang out with everyone over the course of the evening! I was the spastic photographer and some people were probably wondering what the heck I was doing as I was snapping their pictures all night long, but I had a blast capturing the night for Kat and Dave. It made me really excited for their big day next year in April!! Hooray!!

My bestest and our moms

Bestest and sisters

some of Kat's bridesmaids

This pose will more than likely be recreated come reception time

The fabulous couple

  And just because I thought it was hilarious, I have to add in these pictures from the next day. Wrigley absolutely hated swimming in the pool, but would hardly move because he hated the life jacket even more! Penny stayed away because as soon as I let them outside, she went running out the door and fell in the pool. She swam like a champ to the steps though, so no worries!

"Get me out of this darn thing, woman!"

Trip to Nashville

I am really surprised that I still have followers because I've been so bad at updating this blog, but I do have one main reason why I disappeared over the summer. Patrick's job actually took him to Australia and I am a little weird about people knowing when and where my every move may be, especially since I was home by myself this summer!

Anyways, Allison and I took a trip up to Nashville over the summer to visit with Katie and Tyler. Neither Allison nor I really wanted to drive and we found a solution: the Megabus! It had just recently come to Atlanta and we decided to try it because it was super cheap and we figured we would be together if anything went wrong, so why not? I think it cost us about $10? I can't really remember, but it was ridiculously cheap! 

It's a very cheap because you get picked up on the street (not from a station or something like that) and get dropped off on the street wherever you are going. It added one more hour to the normal trip had we driven, but it was so nice not to have to drive! Neither of us was tired after we got to Nashville because we could rest on the bus and we didn't have the stress of driving!

We scored a bench seat up on the upper level of the bus and it was neat being able to see the sky through the skylights and didn't make you feel very cramped at all! Al brought us sandwiches for lunch and we had one stop right outside Nashville to drop off some people, but it seriously wasn't bad at all! If you need to go somewhere for the weekend, I would highly recommend it because you can't beat the price and it truly wasn't bad! (I know it helped having Al with me though because we were able to share a seat together and not having to seat with some weirdo.)

We ate dinner out on Friday night and then went downtown to a few bars before calling it a night. We had a great time and were highly entertained during our dinner as we sat outside on the breezeway and saw a couple of homeless people getting arrested for being out of control, I'm sure.

 During the day on Saturday, we drove down to Franklin to eat lunch. I forget the name of it, but it was amazing!! We walked around downtown and it was so cute! There were so many adorable shops and we had a great day until it started raining on us a little. Oh well! We went back to Katie's house and enjoyed sitting around and catching up before dinner at a fantastic little restaurant! It was nice to get out of Atlanta and enjoy some quality time with Katie, Allison, and Tyler!

 We also enjoyed Katie's new addition, Momma G. She was quite hilarious and is kind of like a "dog-cat" as she will chase after rubber bands that you throw to her. I love it and I was able to take medication to keep my allergies away from her. Hooray! Thanks, Katie and Tyler for such a wonderful weekend!

Momma G

Auburn Versus Georgia

  This year we were able to go to not only the Ole Miss game, but also the Georgia game. Pat and I were going to drive up to Athens just for the day and hang out watching the game at a bar with our friends, Stephen and Erin, but my parents were able to find us tickets. My parents actually flew into Atlanta on Friday and drove up to Athens to meet one of my dad's friends and his wife for the weekend. My dad has decided that he wants to go to every SEC football stadium, so when one of his friends offered him tickets, he jumped on the chance.

  We drove up on Saturday morning and grabbed the tickets from my parents' hotel, Hotel Indigo, which I think I want to stay at the next time I go to Athens. Patrick and I finally found the lot we were supposed to park in and made our way slowly towards the stadium. We saw my parents on the field (their friends got them sideline tickets too) and that was about as exciting as the game was for us unfortunately.

Can you find my parents yet? Look to the immediate right of the kicker's net. There they are!

  We got to see Kate who had flown in from Orlando and Allison and Stephen found us in our seats too. After halftime (or maybe the 3rd quarter), we left our seats to go sit with my parents and ran into (literally, almost!) my dad who was coming to find us in our seats. We went back with him and sat with my parents and their friends for the remainder of the game.

  Then we met up with Stephen and Erin outside the stadium and went downtown to find a place to eat. The first place we went had a "five hour wait" which very well could have been, but that seemed a bit much for us. We wandered down the road to another favorite place of Stephen's and Erin's, Transmetropolitan. We were standing in the very long line for a while until Stephen decided to go upstairs to get a pitcher while we waited. He came back downstairs and told us he had spoken to a guy who said we should order the pizza as take-out and then bring it upstairs to eat it there. Well done, my friend, well done! We followed his advice and our pizza was ready in 45 minutes, which was much quicker than waiting in line as all of the people directly in front of us were still waiting at the counter to order! We were even able to grab a booth (though we had to clean it ourselves-the bartenders weren't the best waitresses) and enjoy our drinks while we waited. After that, we finally headed across campus to our car and left Athens. It was a late night and long day, but we had so much fun! Patrick also enjoyed his first time in the stadium and my parents enjoyed their virgin visit to Athens too.

Weekend Recap

  On Friday, I had to work so I finally got home around 11:30 and Pat and I caught up on The Sing-Off. Do you watch it? Because you should start if you don't. I'm rooting for the oldies, Northshore, and the Dartmouth boys; that lead singer can rock it. If the Dartmouth boys don't win (too many, maybe?), then I definitely think he needs to get himself another group and sing; I would buy his cd for sure. And the old guys, well, I just love them. I think they are adorable and they are the quintessential a cappella group.

Mustache glasses

We found Stephen!

  We spoke to Erin who ended up having two tickets to the Decatur Beerfest on Saturday. Erin has been to this festival for the last four years and raves about it, so I was excited to see what all the buzz was about. And it definitely lived up to the hype! Stephen was on a bachelor weekend for one of his friends and we met up with them down there for a bit. The square was a really great location for this festival because even though it was packed, you didn't feel like you were jammed in there with everyone. We got to sample a few really good beers and a couple not so great ones which Erin and I poured out. We rode the Marta down there and unfortunately because of the unpredictability of public transportation here in Atlanta, it took about an hour, but we finally made it and started a great afternoon! The weather was beautiful and not too hot and we enjoyed walking around the square.

The brewery that was the reception site for Kevin this summer

Love this girl!

Boo.

ATL from the Marta

  We finally headed back and ended up getting back to our house around 6pm, just in time for Pat to start mourning the would-be loss of his team. Allison came over and we rooted our Tigers onto victory. It was ugly and I think I suffered several mild heart attacks, but we will take it!

After the exhausting game!!