Girls Weekend in Atlanta

This past weekend, Jessica and I headed down to Atlanta to spend the weekend with Julie. If only Jennifer had been there too, that would have been great! Next time...

Jessica and I left Spartanburg around 2:00 and arrived at Julie's a little after 4:30. The drive down was pretty uneventful. We pulled off in Commerce, GA to go to the Outlet Mall there, but what we didn't know, was that it was Tax Free Weekend in GA, and the mall was a mad-house! I didn't even park my car. I dropped Jessica off at the Gap Outlet, so she could run in and see if they had a dress she wanted. I just circled around the parking lot looking for a spot, and before I even found one, she was out of the store, and we were on our way. The mall was so busy, they had police officers directing traffic at the entrance.

So, right when we got to Julie's, was got on SKYPE to talk to Jennifer in Germany. We ended up talking to her for over an hour. It was so good to have us all together.

There were a lot of things we could have done in Atlanta, but we ended up not really doing a whole lot. Just hanging out and being together was a lot of fun.
Friday night we decided to go to Stone Mountain to watch the Lasershow Spectacular. You can bring food into the park, so we went and got subs to bring with us. When we got there it was a little rainy, so we ate our little picnic in one of the covered dining areas. Right after we finished eating, it started to Pour rain. we were luckily in a shop at the time. The Lasershow starts at 9:30, so around 8:45 we went to the car to get our chairs to set them up on the lawn. Because of the rain, it wasn't very crowded, so we got great seats to watch the show. The Lasershow was really awesome. It wasn't what I expected at all, but it was very cool. I didn't take any pictures while we were at Stone Mountain, but I got this one off of their website.
Saturday morning, we slept in a little, and then decided to head into the city. We went to Underground Atlanta. It really wasn't was wonderful as I was expecting it to be, so we didn't stay very long. We were all getting hungry for lunch, so we went to The Varsity for lunch. Well, let me re-phrase that. We tried to go The Varsity for lunch, but it was so crowded, we couldn't even get in the doors. The lines were going from the cash register out each entrance. Julie and I had eaten there before, but Jessica hasn't, so we took her inside just to see it. We could not believe how crowded it was. The Braves were playing at 4:00, so we assumed the crowd was all from the baseball game. Since we couldn't eat lunch there, we decided to venture out to The Original Dwarf House. (Thank God for the GPS, without it, we wouldn't have been able to do any of this.) Since Andrew is a proud Chick-fil-A employee, I figured I should visit this historical location. The following is from Wikipedia:
The Chick-fil-A Dwarf Houses are a full-service variation of the typical Chick-fil-A restaurant. In addition to the full-service dining area, Dwarf Houses also have the normal fast-food service area as well as a drive-through. The menu at a Dwarf House is similar to the normal menu. However, surprising to many loyal supporters, the menu at a Chick-fil-A, Dwarf House contains an option to buy a Steakburger and/or Hamburger.

Here is my Hamburger that I got.

The menu also features deep-fried pies, in flavors such as peach, apple, and sweet potato.

I didn't get the fried Pie, but I did get the Strawberry Pie, which was wonderful!

One notable difference at the Chick-fil-A Dwarf House is a "Dwarf-sized" front door that children and some small adults can use to enter.

Here we are at the front door

The original Dwarf House in Hapeville, Georgia, has the atmosphere that all the other Dwarf Houses aspire to. It is located across the street from a Ford plant that produced the last Ford Taurus, which Truett Cathy bought as a thank you to the Ford plant employees for decades of loyal business. Thanks Wikipedia, I couldn't have explained it any better.
After The Dwarf House, we went to Ikea, since Jessica had never been to one before. If you have never been to Ikea, you don't know what you are missing. But be prepared, it is very overwhelming. We had fun just walking through it, and dreaming. The neatest thing happened in Ikea though. As I was walking around, a girl passed me that looked very familiar. When I looked again, I realized who it was. Her name is Jessica Turner, and I have been reading her blog for probably a year and a half. She is a great scrapbooker, and I really enjoy reading her blog. She is from Nashville, and just happened to be in Atlanta for the weekend. After much deliberation, I decided to talk to her. She was super sweet, and so excited that I read her blog. It was kind of like meeting a celebrity. It is someone I read all about, but never expected to meet. Of course my friends thought I was crazy that I got so excited. But fellow bloggers understand.
After Ikea, it was time to go home. We were all exhausted. When we got home, we crashed on the couch. Julie had this game called Bananagrams, which is a lot of fun, that we played a bunch. Jessica decided to use all of the letters in her own private game. When she completed it, she said that it was definitely Blog Worthy, so here is the finished product. So we started playing, and before we realized it, it was 8:00 and we were ready for dinner. We ordered some pizza, and rented a movie and just had a nice low-key night. Sunday morning we slept in, and just hung around Julie's until it was time to head back to South Carolina. We left around 2:00 and were back to Jessica's by 4:30.
It was a great weekend, and much needed weekend. My friends are wonderful, and they truly are a blessing. Looking forward to the next one!