Hot Time, Summer in the City!

Something recently reminded me of when we went to Atlanta this summer, and with all this extra time I have on my hands recently, I thought it was about time to blog about it. Bethanie decided to go ahead and get married on us this summer. This is something my close friends don't do very often, so naturally, we couldn't miss this occasion. Janna, Darren, and I flew down to Atlanta a few days before the wedding and got to check out the city. We didn't go on a Segway Ghost Tour of the city, unfortunately, but we did have a few adventures (and may or may not have seen the ghost of Margaret Mitchell).

The Waffle House was delish. And gave us great hats. A Southern classic. We do have them in KC, but not on every corner like in Atlanta.

We also visited the Olympic Park. I remember being very sticky at this point, even though it was still fairly early in our adventures. Atlanta is a very humid place.







Special shouts out were given to our favorite moments from the 1996 Summer Olympics, hosted by the great city of Atlanta. Mine was of course Keri Strug and her miraculous vault landing.





Underground Atlanta held such wonders as "Mysteries of the Unknown" . . .




. . .and Mark Teixeira jerseys for 50% off, thanks to a trade earlier that week. Janna took advantage. I think she was not the only one.

We got to fulfill one of Darren's life goals in seeing the Braves play at Turner Field, where it just happened to be Wild West Night.

Very exciting (on both counts-checking off the goal, and being able to do so on a theme night).





I always appreciate a good theme night.


The weather threatened to be inclement, but it was not enough to drive away die-hard fans like us (mostly Darren).

Clint Sammons had a good game and we loved him. We also loved how the scoreboard showed the players decked out in western garb for Wild West Night (where, incidentally, Jewel sang the national anthem).

Also exciting was the fact that the Braves won.

Darren treated us with a lot of trivia and statistics about the team, the players, the stadium, baseball in general, etc. I remember little to none of it now. Sorry. But it was interesting at the time.

Katie joined us for Day 2 in the South, after an experience on the way to the airport that taught us that a GPS is not actually omniscient. I don't have the pics from our adventures that day, but we did visit the Margaret Mitchell Museum, including a (unauthorized) self-guided tour of her house. In the basement, the Gone With the Wind photos transitioned to a Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibit. Except there was not really a transition at all. And since we were not taking the official tour with a guide, we never really figured out the connection. Except this: apparently, MLK Jr. once sang in a youth choir at the premier of the Gone With the Wind movie.









Am I missing the connection here?



We also visited Martin's house and burial place. Very cultural.

We also had the mission of obtaining a garter for the wedding reception. I am pretty sure we were the only white people in the entire mall when we went to buy one.

The heat took a lot out of us though, and Katie needed a bit of a nap at the Marta station as we waited for Valerie to come pick us up for the bachelorette party. We had not seen Val all summer and were very excited to see her. She drove down from Charlotte for the wedding. I'm pretty sure Katie is dreaming about the tender reunion here and Janna is just not one to always show the full extent of her emotions. I was very excited, and probably was showing it behind the camera.

Extra Special shouts out to Valerie for being willing to drive us around (we obviously loved the public joy of Marta, but it was nice to have a car to get to the places the 4 train lines and various bus lines did not go, and on our own time schedule) and to her wonderful, generous, highly educated sister Maria, whose car Val was using this summer.


Bethanie all decorated for the party.









At the party we met Randon's sister Shawney. A couple hours later, on the way home, we asked her to be our best friend. We really like her. Shockingly, she did not seem to be scared away.

I suppose I should include some pics of the wedding day. It was the reason we were there. (This is why I never blog...it just takes me so long and by this point I just want to be done.)

The happy couple.



















Marci refused to smile for the pictures. I somehow, being an awesome photographer, caught this special moment where the true feelings of the bride and her maids were displayed. It was hot (the only way it could have been more humid was if it was actually raining--which it did just a short while later). And this was only the beginning.














It was so fun to be able to be there. So in the friends-getting-married count, we are now at 2 down, 7 to go. I have good company.

[Note: The 2 and 7 refer to the 9 of us that go back to the dorms/Lib Square. However, it was hard to actually narrow it to those 9 because some of those have temporarily left us while others have joined us since then. So maybe let's just leave it at this: My close friends tend not to get married. It's a trend we are still resisting.]