A Weekend in Georgia

This weekend, my parents took Peter and me to Georgia.  We had decided to have a little mini vacation while it was just the four of us around.  We drove down to my Grandmother's house Friday afternoon, and spent the evening visiting with my grandparents.  Peter and I were glad we got to see them again before we go back to school in just a few short weeks (this summer has seriously flown past for me).  Saturday, after we went for a nice long walk with the dogs, PawPaw brought us Krispee Kreme donuts, and Bambutter made maple link sausage.  Yum yum!  (and so nutritious! :-P)

Next, Mom, Dad and I went to Target, where we bought Peter some back to school shirts and some new shoes.  He had been looking at these red shoes at Target for months, and since the shoes he had planned on wearing that day had gotten wet on our walk, I decided to go ahead and get these for him.  This seemed like a great idea...until he wore them without socks and got blisters!  Poor Peter :(

We chilled a little longer at Bambutter and PawPaw's, then went to the Mexican restaurant so Dad could get some ceviche.  Then we headed down to Stone Mountain!

We arrived with great plans to do all the available activities and have an exciting afternoon...unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate.  The only thing Mom really wanted to do was the SkyRide, so we headed there first.  We got there and discovered that it was closed due to storms in the area!  Well, Peter and I had planned on doing a few activities we knew Mom couldn't do, anyway, so we headed to our first choice: the Sky Hike.  However, we quickly discovered it was also closed due to the weather.  

By this time, Mom and Dad had gone back out to the car to get our blanket, so we picked out our seat to view the laser show, and Mom and Dad decided to hold the fort, while Peter and I went to see what was open.

We headed over to "Butterfly Adventures!" where they let you feed and hold any of the butterflies contained in their butterfly room.  The line was somewhat long because this was one of the few attractions still up and running, but it wasn't too bad.  I was wearing my Superman t-shirt, and the Park Worker who explained the rules to our group kept calling me Clark Kent.  He also asked Peter where his batman shirt was--this was doubly funny because I had considered buying Peter a superman or batman shirt at Target that morning (so we could match lol) and decided not to. 

We were given butterfly feeders (which we were assured were not q-tips, but were, in-fact, official butterfly feeders lol) and set loose on the butterflies.  

The butterflies rather liked Peter; one landed on his head and just chilled there for quite a while, until I tried to pick it up on my butterfly feeder and scared it off.

Apparently, this butterfly approved of Peter's new shoes.

Me attempting to convince a butterfly to climb onto my feeder.

Finally, I'm actually holding one!

Pretty butterfly

 When we first attempted to play mini golf, the weather had it closed down, too.  But it opened again!  We decided to play, even though it was raining a little at this point.  I told Peter, if we hadn't had so much trouble finding open attractions, we probably would have been doing something inside, out of the rain.  But as it was, we were just so glad it was open, we were willing to do it in spite of getting wet!

While playing mini golf, we discovered the other attractions had opened!  We went back to my parents, and Peter volunteered to stay at the blanket so that Mom, Dad, and I could go do the SkyRide, since that was the one thing Mom wanted to do.  We were a little concerned the line would be long since it had just reopened, but we managed to beat the crowd and get right on the lift! 

The view out of the window on the way up the mountain: 

The Atlanta Skyline

Proof that I made it to the top.
We didn't take a picture of anyone else up there...oops.

 It was kind of funny to watch Mom inch her way toward this fence; she didn't make it all the way down to it.

If you look really close, you can see Peter reading on the blanket
at the top of the lawn! ;)

Coming back down (Mom had to close her eyes for part of this lol)

After I got off the lift, Peter and I raced over to do the Sky Hike.  Scariest thing I did that day.  We didn't get any pictures since we had to lock our stuff up and Mom and Dad were both back at the blanket.  You were harnessed in, but you had to make your way across this skinny ropes and boards.  I was a little nervous.  Or a lot nervous.  

Peter, on the other hand, went up and did the highest part of the sky hike.  Not me.  I bailed after doing the middle set.

Peter and I picked up our food (Mom had gotten tickets that included a meal in the park and free refills of coke beverages all day!) then went to chill with my folks while we waited for the laser show to start.  We had picked up some glow sticks for cheap at Target that morning to have for the laser show, so we got our glow on!

Mom and Dad in front of the mountain, waiting for the show.

Peter, me and Mom with our glow sticks in front of the mountain!

Love my sweet hubby!

This carving is actually A LOT bigger than it looks.
Apparently, they once held a dinner party on top of Lee's shoulder.

So, we were a little bummed at the laser show.  We had these high expectations from our previous visit, and they were not met (well, Peter hadn't been before, so I think he enjoyed the show all right).  The biggest problem was the fireworks that went with the show.  The slight breeze we had had all evening from the storms just disappeared, so the smoke from the fireworks stuck around, blocking the lasers.  And about the time the smoke would clear enough to see what was going on, they would shoot off more stinking fireworks!  We couldn't even see the part where the lasers trace the carving, and then make it seem to come alive because of the smoke.  There was a pretty cool effect where they made it look like the mountain crumbled to reveal the feet of the horses on the carving and they moved for a minute.

At one point, while we couldn't see for the smoke, Peter decided
 to make the sign of the Deathly Hallows using our glow sticks.
 Yes, we are HP dorks, thanks for asking :)

Handmade Invitations

So, I was looking for a craft to do with the girl I'm nannying for this summer.  She had been talking about her birthday coming up and the party she was going to have, so we decided to hand-make her invitations!  She said she liked turquoise and gray, and we both liked gray chevron with turquoise accents.  

We headed over to Hobby Lobby and looked through all their scrapbook paper!  We found this cute gray chevron paper, as well as some blue (it's brighter than it looks in the pictures).  We also found some turquoise envelopes, and she loves fleur de lis, so we got some stickers to use to seal the envelopes.

Here is the final product!  I think they turned out really cute.

Celebration!

Last night (which just so happened to be the anniversary of our engagement), Peter and I went to see Despicable Me 2!  It was very cute.  After, we went to the empty Target parking lot and Peter had me practice starting Kira's car, which is a stick shift.  It was somewhat nerve-wracking, but he says I did well.  I felt very cute.  My bangs were kind of greasy looking from the day, so I pulled them back, and my hair had been in a braid all day, so it was wavy.  I wore a black shirt (black is a good color on me), along with the red jewelry my sister made for me.  I also borrowed my mom's red purse.  I felt very put together.  We tried to take a picture in the car.  At first we didn't think the speech commands were working because I had turned down the volume and the flash was off, so we had several pictures like the one below.

Then I turned the flash on.

The outfit

Peter strikes a pose

Today is Independence Day!  We went to the Ward Breakfast this morning and had a very good visit with a couple of the members.  We relaxed most of the day.  For lunch/dinner (it happened at about 4pm) I (yes, me!  Mostly by myself.  Peter peeled the potatoes, and Dad peeled the eggs) made bbq roast, potato salad, and baked beans.  I also made homemade ice cream, which Dad froze for us.

My dessert was red, white, and blue!  

Happy 4th of July!!!

Charleston

Yesterday was our 6th month anniversary!  So, in celebration, Peter and I left Friday for an overnight trip to Charleston.  We went to Charleston for a day trip during Spring break the first time Peter came to Rock Hill to meet my family, and we really enjoyed it, so we wanted to go again for our 6th month marker.

Between family visitors, schoolwork, and work, I was not ready to leave as early as I would have hoped on Friday morning, and I didn't get all my homework done before we left.  I tried to do some of it in the car, but the internet on my phone was being really slow, so I had to finish it once we got to the hotel.  I also forgot the credit card mom had put the hotel on when I switched wallets back at the house!  Aaah!  Oh, well.  It all worked out.  Our hotel was very nice.  Through AAA, we got a discount for the room, and when we checked in we got a little packet of maps and Charleston information, as well as two cold water bottles and two little snacks.

At the hotel we looked up and set up a reservation for a Ghost tour for 9:30 that evening, then I did my homework.  We spent a little bit relaxing in our room.  The whole trip, it was really nice to be able to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted, without having to worry about going to work, getting homework done, or anything of the like.  Then we headed downtown and found a place to eat dinner before our ghost tour.

The ghost tour was less than scary.  Our tour guide spoke so matter-of-factly about the ghosts that she had seen and the ghosts that were supposedly in these haunted places that the stories weren't really scary.  We were somewhat disappointed, although the tour was at least somewhat informative.

Saturday, we slept in until my alarm went off at eight--the curtains in the room kept all the light out so well that we didn't know what time it was until then.  We took our time getting breakfast and getting out and about.  We went to the mall that was across the street from the hotel and meandered a bit.  We splurged on an Auntie Anne pretzel, a smoothie and a julius from DQ.  Yum!  Then we headed down toward the beach.  We stopped at an outlet mall because I wanted to find a hat for the beach, but we never did find one I really liked.  

The beach was so much fun, even though it was really busy.  We parked, changed, and headed onto the beach.  We actually found a place to set up camp rather quickly for the number of people that were there.  We lathered up on sunscreen and waited a bit for it to sink in, then grabbed our boogie boards and went out into the water.

At the beach, before we got into the water

We played around in the waves for a good while, then came back to our blanket and towel and relaxed for a while.  Peter actually fell asleep, so I read my book.

He woke up about the time I realized we should probably reapply our sunscreen.  Although we didn't realize it at first, he got burned pretty bad.  He's a nice shade of pink today.

We changed again and went back downtown.  We went to my current favorite Charleston seafood restaurant: The Noisy Oyster.  We went there during Spring break last year, and their shrimp was so good I had to get some more.

After the beach at the Noisy Oyster

Peter seriously studying the menu.  

He doesn't like fish. What can he possibly order?  ;-)

After that we just kind of wandered the market area.  We got ourselves a magnet for our trip magnet collection we started at Biltmore on our honeymoon (although I don't know if we remembered to get one in San Antonio...we'll have to do that next time).  We finished up with ice cream and headed back home.

My ice cream was a salted caramel, and it was tasty!

On the way home, I hear Peter (showing that he's not from the South) say, 

"Walls of trees!"

We had lots of fun.  It was nice to get away for a bit and just spend time together.

Strawberries! Yum!

I know I said I would be better about blogging this summer...obviously that hasn't happened.  Anyway, the first of June, we finally got to go strawberry picking!  We got two baskets full.  They were very yummy.

Since then, Peter and I have both started working.  Peter is helping a carpenter build decks.  I am nannying for the family I mentioned in my last post, and I will start the internship on Tuesday.  I will be keeping busy this summer between those two things and the class that I'm taking.  I'm also still doing some make up work for my TA position from this past semester at school.  Aaaaah! I really hope to still have some play time.

The girl I'm nannying loves loves loves nail polish, so I will be having awesome nails this summer.  I'll have to take some pictures and post them.