Atlanta Safari

Well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, that I am crazy behind in my blogging. When I started noticing my blog listed last on other people's blogs (as in NOT updated recently).. I knew it was time to fix it. I had all kinds of intentions of writing up the blogs during the week while working in Pensacola with no internet. But when we got to Pensacola, we were informed that we did have internet. I got sidetracked, then after multiple evenings of messing with the configurations on my computer, still no internet, and no blogs. Oh well.

On to the point of this actual post. My parents and sister came to visit me in Atlanta! I was so excited to get to show off the city and our home. My mom helped us move in so she hadn't seen our place since I had gotten everything set up and all homey. It was my dad's 1st time to see our place and his 1st real time in Atlanta. I think he had stopped by Stone Mountain once back in the 70s or something.. :)

I had a great time planned for us, including hitting up multiple Atlanta eats, some favorites and some new ones. We of course hit up the Marietta Diner.. a must see for anyone who comes to visit us. Just a warning for any of you who are considering it.. (Mindy!!!!)

On Saturday we spent the morning checking out one of the local malls then heading down south of Atlanta to Pine Mountain for the Wild Animal Safari. The highlight of the weekend! Originally I had thought Pine Mountain was a lot closer.. so we were totally gung ho. Then we discovered it was really about 1 hour and 45 mins from our apt. Once we discovered that, we strongly considered changing our plans, but since we had nothing else in mind.. we just went on ahead. TOTALLY WORTH IT!!

We rented this beat up old 15 passenger van with no legit windows. Just openings where the windows should have been and bars to keep you from falling out.. or to keep the animals from coming it. Whichever you considered more of a problem. We purchased 2 large bags of animal food and began our journey. We were immediately greeted with all kinds of animals ready for some yummy (or not so yummy, in my opinion) food. There were all kinds of slobbery tongues making their way into our van. Unfortunately we were able to feed the zebras or any other horse-like animals... but we did get to pet them!

After the drive-thru animal safari, we headed to the walk about where we had tons of fun picture opportunities and some fun animals to see - including kangaroos! The kangaroos were a bit boring though, as we waited for about 10 mins before seeing one even pretend to jump. Lame. Close to the end we came across one of the walk-workers who so kindly let us (well everyone except for me, since I 100% refused) hold her yellow (I have no idea what kind) snake.

And since it's been a month since then... I don't remember too many more details than that. Oh except for the fact that we went to see 'The Box" which was a totally odd movie. Anyways... so here are some pictures from our weekend to show just how AWESOME it truly was. We're anxiously waiting our next set of visitors so we can check out even more eats and hot spots of Atlanta.

So here are a few snapshots of our eating fun in Atlanta. Don't those cakes look DELICIOUS?? yum yum. and those funnel cake fries.. and those garlic butter rolls. oh my.

A few snapshots of the fam enjoying the animals on the safari. Check out that giraffe! He was so curious!

Pictures of some of the beautiful animals. They were so much fun! Look at the little fawn with all the white spots! So cute.

Some of the fun props in the walk-about. We enjoyed them thoroughly. :)

and the beloved snake. take note... I was not included in this. Snakes completely creep me out. I'm surprised I was that close without hyperventilating.

Complete Atlanta Safari Album

My Little Squirrel

Newton is actually a little squirrel. He likes to collect acorns in our apartment complex while we are out on walks. He gets extra excited if he's able to sneak them inside without me remembering to make him spit them out. I usually let him keep one to chew on for all his hard work. Gotta love him!

Who Dun It?

Our class from church had a Who Dun It? murder mystery Halloween party this year! I had never been to one... so I was pretty excited about it. Aaron and I had originally signed up to just be detectives, but Aaron was asked to join in as Constable Painting - a bumbling English police officer. I decided to try to match up with his costume some, and found the perfect firewoman costume - I say firewoman because it was a dress! We each got some pretty spiffy hats from Party City to complete our ensembles. We were even able to get Aaron a bobby! He was an English police officer after all. The place was hoping with all kinds of fun costumes, including a group dressed up as the Scooby Doo team! Now they were some real detectives! They even won the most creative costume and shared their prize of glow in the dark bracelets with the rest of us. There was tons of great food as well to keep us occupied in between rounds of Who Dun It. My favorite was the awesome mini pumpkin cheese balls. They were amazing. I will be making them soon... probably not as pumpkins though.
The murder mystery went great. It was pretty hilarious listening to everyone try to do fake accents and such. We even suspected Aaron for a little while. Come to find out, it was Jeremy, the local townsman, Who Dun It.

Pre-party. Newton and I sporting our Halloween costumes. Shortly afterward I gave Newton the costume for a chew toy. It was a bit snug, so I was pretty such it wasn't worth holding on to till next year. And I got it on super duper clearance at Target. He loves chewing on it.. especially the velcro part. Weird.

Well you know who we are... and our costumes are quite obvious. :)

The Scooby Doo Group. They did a great job.

The best cheese balls I've ever had. Delicious. I've already inquired for the recipe.

The Who Dun It characters

He did it!!!

A complete murder mystery album

O' Shucks!

Happy Fall! We had yet another fall celebration! In order to keep with the tradition of pumpkin farms and corn mazes, we gathered up some friends and headed to Uncle Shucks! It took us quite awhile to get there, as multiple Uncle Shucks popped up on the GPS (what?!?) and we had to take a few long, windy roads, but we finally made it. The lines were crazy long. but that's ok. The girls utilized the time to take a few pictures while the guys waited. How nice of them.
Once we were finally inside, we grabbed some delicious fall farm food. They had all kinds of delicious stuff, including funnel cake, but we had to pass due to all the goodies we had ready for us back at the Tarpley's house.
Of course we did a corn maze, which of course we didn't finish... just wandered around until we were tired of it. And of course each couple chose their own pumpkin to carve . Once back at the Tarpley home we snacked on homemade carmel popcorn, turtle pumpkin pie, special recipe apple cider (including red hots!) and made some carmel apples - which we were too full to eat. After filling up on goodies, we gathered round the table to give our pumpkins some life. What fun times in such wonderful weather with wonderful friends.

The girls enjoying the sunflowers. One of the many pictures while the guys were waiting in line.

Georgia has some beautiful sunflowers!

Just some of the delicious farm food selections.

Check out that beautiful sunset!!!

The guys showing off the pumpkin selections.

Aaron and I with our little punkin. Slightly dirty.

Jenny and I getting the caramel ready for making caramel apples!!

The group - minus Jon, working hard on the pumpkins.

Showing off our handy work!!!

Finished products. Ours is the one of the far left. Cyrus. He was supposed to have 1 bottom tooth... but Aaron forgot it. oh well.

The Complete O' Shucks Album

Apple Festival

Aaron and I were able to celebrate the incoming of fall at the Apple Fest in Ellijay, GA - right at the the Blue Ridge Mountains. We went with a group of friends from church - a.k.a the Discover Atlanta Group. The best was eating all the crazy junk festival food. Loved it!! We had a wonderful time, even though it was absolutely freezing.

Our fun group displaying the apples!!

Jill and I showing off our Ginny's Fudge and Nuts purchases.... we even got to taste test some of the fudge!

Aaron and I sharing some Apple Dumplings! So good... worth eating icecream in 40 degree weather.

Fried Oreos!!! They taste like oreo flavored donuts. I'm so glad I tried one. I wish I could have had all 4!

Just a picture of apples - It was the apple festival afterall.

Complete Apple Festival tasty photo album

Sisters in the ATL!

Lucky me! My sister was able to come visit me for a fun and exciting weekend in Atlanta. We met after I got off work on Friday to watch Glee before heading off to grab some delicious pizza at Fellini's. We didn't really know what we were doing so we ordered the Sicilian pizza.. which we thought just meant it was larger in diameter. We didn't realize it also meant that it was about 3 inches thick!! It was hard to eat much of it, so we ended up bringing home leftovers for Aaron to have for lunch over the next week. After pizza, Rachel and I dropped Aaron off at the apt and headed off for some good sister time. Dessert at the Marietta Diner. Yep, that's the place I mentioned here that had the amazing looking desserts. I finally made it back to try one and it was so worth it. Rachel and I split a piece of their Strawberry Shortcake and we still had leftovers! Gosh it was melt-in-your-mouth amazing... I will be going back soon. After dessert, we rented the worst movie ever - Management. I was pretty much a goner about 15 minutes into the movie. (not too much of a surprise, for those who know me). I just can't believe Aaron and Rachel actually stuck it out.
Saturday was a great day as I got to not only show Rachel some Atlanta sites, I was able to experience them for my 1st time as well. We ate lunch at a somewhat disturbing, creepy place called the Vortex that came highly recommended. I will say that the burger was definitely worth the creepiness. Afterward we finally arrived at the aquarium!!!!!! It was awesome. I was a little sad that the whale and penguins were gone, due to construction, but everything else was great. All of the animals were so interesting to watch and read about. And that had some really neat rooms to watch the animals from. (it's possible that this may have been my 1st time at an aquarium.. maybe that's why I was so fascinated) It was a really cool place and I was quite impressed by it. (not quite so impressed by the price.. but I'll get over it.) Apparently there will be a dolphin exhibit in late 2010. Dolphins are Rachel's favorites.. so I guess she will be back to visit then. :)
After recuperating from a long day at the aquarium, we headed for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant that was totally delicious. (We ate so good that weekend!). After dinner, Rachel and I headed to Stone Mountain for their famous laser light show. It wasn't the coolest thing in the world.. but a good experience anyways. Plus we got to spend time wandering around the empty grounds taking random pictures with the cool props they had all over the place.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend spending time with my sister. I miss getting to see her on a regular basis.. but hopefully we'll get to have random trips like this occasionally enough. :)

Apparently some of the best pizza in town. It was pretty yummy. I'm still looking for the next Charlies - now that was some good pizza. Another good reason to visit Searcy in the near future.

The 100% awesome Strawberry Shortcake. Anyone want to come visit and split it with me??

Here it is: the famous Georgia Aquarium!! Aaron wasn't featured in too many pictures that weekend - thought I would throw that one in. :)


My beautiful sister and I checking out the jellyfish. They were pretty cool.

One of the spectacular views we had... too bad my nice camera was dead.. sad.

The fireworks that followed the laser light show at Stone Mountain. They were pretty awesome.

One of the many places that we decided to take pictures at while we were at Stone Mountain. We were covered in hay after that.

And so begins our silly sister shoot. :) fun times.

Of course Newton wanted to join in. haha

and the traditional Rachel & Newton picture. Aren't they cute?

Complete album of the awesome weekend!

Doin' the Charleston

Things have been crazy busy in the Howell household lately. I finished up at my job in Nashville and made the final move to Atlanta. Aaron and I decided it would be a great opportunity for a just-because/yay-i-have-a-job/we're-finally-back-together little weekend get away to Charleston, SC. I figured it's a great time to go visit Charleston since we are so much closer to it now and because things at work weren't too crazy yet and because Aaron had fall break. Everything looked good. :) We had originally planned it for the weekend before I started work but due to the weather forecast of constant rain, I decided otherwise. Aaron and I had a wonderful time driving out to Charleston, enjoying each other's company in the car as we talked about all kinds of stuff.
Saturday in Charleston was filled with all kinds of site-seeing. We walked all around the parks, including Waterfront and the Battery. We then strolled along the water enjoying the sun beginning to set on the water and gazing up at the beautiful homes along the shore. There were so many fountains and trees that were absolutely beautiful. We also enjoyed checking out all the great architecture throughout the city.
On Sunday we spent most of the day at the beach just enjoying walking with the sand between our toes and watching the water crash on our side. There were some pretty amazing homes along the beaches as well that were lots of fun to look at.
All in all we had a wonderful time eating some yummy food, seeing some beautiful sites, and spending some quality time with one another. I can't wait to go back, the weekend just wasn't long enough!!

My absolute favorite picture from the trip. I went to take a night shot of it and when I got there, the lights weren't on! After awhile of trying to take the picture using the back lights.. I was about to leave when all of a sudden the lights were on. It was perfect. :) I love that fountain!

Some of the beautiful architecture that was all around Charleston.

Lovely trees and buildings. I loved looking at it all.

I loved this fountain too...

I especially loved watching the kids play in it. (and a dog too!)

Some of the beautiful homes along the coast near Battery Park. They were so lovely and grand! I wish I could have seen inside some of them!

Posing in front of some of the houses on rainbow row.

In front of the pineapple fountain.. just couldn't get enough. This was after Aaron got to sit on a park bench for 30 minutes or so under a big shade tree, reading a book. It was nice under those shade trees... a bit warm elsewhere. I was off checking out the dolphins! yep, that's right.. I saw dolphins. :)

Eating lunch at Poe's Tavern. Aaron said that I always find the most hole-in-the-wall restaurants. possibly true. However, this one was recommended by a friend. Good choice! It was absolutely delicious. The inside was plastered in all kinds of pictures of Edar Allan Poe and the bathroom stalls were lined with all kinds of writings. Crazy but delicious place.

Enjoying the views of the beach and the lighthouse. Some random stanger offered to take this picture for us... however he snapped a few of himself before he did. funny man.

Enjoying the sand between my toes.

Doin' the Charleston - a picture diary