Roughing it, and...not.

This past weekend, I went with the Lynns and Leslie to Atlanta for a girls' weekend! We left Friday afternoon and stayed through Sunday morning. What a blast! More on that in a minute. But first, what did John Michael and the babies do while I was gone? Well, Uncle Nathaniel was in town, so they did what he does best - went camping!

Okay, so I have to admit that when John Michael first told me that they were going camping, I thought to myself, "Phew! Dodged a bullet with that one!" Camping is not necessarily my idea of the most fun in the world. But I have to tell you, after hearing about their campout, I am super sad I missed it. According to all the grownups (JM, Nana & Papa, and Uncle Nate), Addie and Landon had a blast and spent a couple of hours in the tent talking and singing with one another. It brought back awesome memories of my childhood and my brother and I singing (loudly) at the campground some songs with choice words (nothing too bad, but we replaced half of the words to "Hotel California" with the word "fart"...hehehe...my parents were mortified to say the least :)). ANYWAY, John Michael took plenty of pictures, so here goes!

And about my NOT roughing it...we had so much fun in Atlanta! We ate, ate, ate and shopped. We started out Saturday morning at H&M and hit bank. It was definitely an "on" visit. Then we went to Ikea where I got some shelves I've been drooling over for months. That made for a cozy ride home in Lynn R.'s Saturn Vue - good thing Lynn D. and I love each other so much :) I was practically in her lap for the ride home. HA! Anyway, we then went to Flip Burger where we had awesome burgers and the most amazing milkshakes ever, made with liquid nitrogen. I got the Strawberry Shortcake one, Lynn D. and Leslie split the Nutella & Burnt Marshmallows one, and Lynn R. got the pistachio one. Mmmm...I need to figure out how to recreate those. Sans liquid nitrogen, of course, 'cause that's just crazy talk.

After lunch we went to Lenox Square where I got to see my "favorite friend" Elizabeth!!!! Oh how I miss her. I only got about an hour with her but we had a blast :)

Then we rushed to get ready for dinner at Woodfire Grill. I don't watch Top Chef, but it is Kevin Gillespie's restaurant, who apparently was second place on a season. Lynn D. and Leslie are huge fans :)

Hmm. I don't know if I have words as to how amazing this meal was. We opted for the five-course tasting, which meant that we didn't know what we were getting - for any course - until they brought it out to us. They brought each course and explained what everything was. After dinner (and after Lynn and Leslie telling our server how much they enjoyed watching Kevin on tv), they gave us autographed menus, complete with a header that said "Happy Birthday, Lynn." It was so much fun and we had lots of things I never would've ordered from a regular menu (quail, pork belly, beets, bison, sunchokes, I could go on - there was a lot of awesome food). I would very highly recommend going. Plus, the service was wonderful. Our server's name was Kristen so that probably had something to do with it, no?

We went to a rooftop bar after dinner where we enjoyed the "supermoon" and the amazing weather. Plus, I ran in to one of my closest friends from law school, Matthew, and his fiancee! What a small world! He does not live in Atlanta, but they were flying out of the Atlanta airport the next morning to go on vacation. Crazy.

We headed home late Sunday morning. Although we had an awesome time, I was quite excited to see my sweet little family! Addie and Landon had had a blast with Daddy, Uncle Nate, and Nana & Papa. I didn't get quite the overly excited greeting I was hoping for, but sometimes even mama can't compete with camping and being spoiled with love by your uncle and grandparents :)