FRIDAY BLANKS, IT'S BEEN A WHILE!

1.  I am  , to this day, still afraid to look into a mirror in the dark after the boys on my bus, when I was 5, told me about Bloody Mary  .

2.   I have always   wanted to live in Europe   .

3.  I hope to     one day make a living doing something I love  .

4. I can    bend my index finger backward to touch the back on my hand. Yep, it's as gross looking as it sounds .

5. I dream of    ,right now?, my wedding. Mostly that it will just magically appear and happen without me having to do any planning or anything. That would be ideal.

6. The way to my heart is   through tacos (veggie style). And puppies  .

7.  I am passionate about   vegetarianism .

HERE FISHY, FISHY

Wow, we had a banner weekend of Atlanta museums. Friday at the art museum, and then Saturday at the Atlanta Aquarium. Not too shabby!

Our new friends, Mike and Erin, had a couple free passes that they let us use so we decided to finally check it out. Luckily the passes also let us hop in the members-only line and skip the two-hour wait in the ticketing line, because I'm not sure we would've made it through that.

Once we got inside, it was huge! There were about six themed sections branching off of the two-story main lobby area. We didn't know where to start, so we just dove in to the exhibit closest to us. We got through about three exhibits in an hour before calling it quits. Partly because we were on a time crunch and partly because I'm pretty sure every child in the state of Georgia was in the aquarium on Saturday. It was a complete mad house.

My suggestion? Definitely leave plenty of time to visit the Atlanta aquarium if you're in the area. But go on a week day during the school year, not a Saturday in the middle of the summer. Unless you have kids and understand or enjoy that kind of craziness. I'm sure we'll appreciate it someday :)

JAZZ AT THE ART MUSEUM

The third friday of every month is Jazz night for members of the Atlanta High Museum of Art. This past friday was our first time attending and I must say we were quite impressed.

From about 5pm - 10pm people of all ages gather for food, cocktails, and live jazz in the first floor of the art museum. As the band plays, people chat, catch up and enjoy winding down. The best part is that the museum itself is also open for the event. So not only did we sit to enjoy a glass of wine and jazz, we also walked through the museum for the first time with the music lightly playing in the background.

And the other best part? We have two guest passes for guests to come visit! ;) AND there's a really fun/delicious Mexican Cantina around the corner from the museum, called Tin Lizzy's that we will most definitely stop at. Have I twisted your arm enough yet??

FRIDAY FAVORITES

1. Morning run and CrossFit workout.

2. The dark purple smoothie I made directly after said workout, but drank too fast to take a picture of...whoops.

3. The sweet little engagement package from my sis that I found in my mailbox last night:

I might already be half-way through one of the magazines with nine pages flagged...

4. It's Friday (duh) and Pete's taking me on a date to the Art museum for some live Jazz music tonight :)

5. Freshly painted nails.

6. And this guy hanging out at my feet as I'm typing this...

Have a great weekend!!

JDs

Besides getting engaged I have other VERY EXCITING news...

Jason's Deli is all over Atlanta and back in my life!!

And it feels so good.

You might remember the lengths I would go for Jason's Deli from this post. Well it's still about 30 minutes away from where we live outside of Atlanta, but at least there is more than one in the state. We're moving up! And although it's far I've already managed to eat there twice...and it might have been in the same week. Yikes.  It's just so good!

The worst part is, see right now we live about 30 minutes south of downtown Atlanta while we house hunt in Atlanta. The time alone limits my trips there. But if I've already been to JDs twice and it's that far away, what's going to happen when we move and we're much closer?!? Scary thought. :|

MRS.

I'm going to be a Mrs.!!!

I think it's just starting to become real. Eeeeeee!

It all went down Saturday night, with leisurely appetizers and cocktails with our friend (and Pete's co-worker) Brad. Pete and I had found this cute little restaurant in town, Season's Bistro, that reminded us so much of one of our favorite restaurants back in West Chester; they have live music on Saturdays so we had made plans to head over there with Brad and I thought nothing of it.

Around 9:30pm Pete and Brad step outside to "check out the blue Lotus sports car" that was parked outside when we arrived. You know men and their cars, I still thought nothing of it. 

About 5 minutes later, Brad walks back in without Pete, but when I ask him where Pete is he just tells me the sports car's owner was the valet guy and he offered to take Pete for a spin around the block in it. Oh, ok. That's nice of him, I think.

Until 15 minutes later when Pete walks back in the restaurant, and I see him walking up to the stage where the live music is happening. He gets on the microphone and calls me up to the stage.

The rest is a blur, because I immediately started crying and didn't stop for a good 2 hours.

He made a really cute speech in front of everyone, but once I wrapped my mind around what was happening all I heard with him down on his knee was "I love you so much, will you marry me?" I squealed out a "Yes" and the musician played a song for us to have our 'first dance' as an engaged couple. It was pretty cute. Apparently the musician, bartender and Brad were all in on it...and I had no idea!

Teary-eyed and oh so happy

One of the best parts of getting engaged, besides being able to spend the rest of my days with my best friend, was all the love and well wishes we got from family and friends in the days following. Seriously, we were completely overwhelmed. It was awesome!!

One of my favorites might have been my little niece wearing her "I love my Auntie" outfit in honor of me and Pete...

So precious! And of course we had our first dinner as Mr. & Mrs.-to-be...

We know, it's super classy and completely random...don't be jealous. Pete just got a grill and is currently trying to grill anything and everything. Hence the carrots. Who grills carrots? I have to admit, though, they were actually pretty good; they tasted like hotdogs!

HAPPY WEEKEND

Homemade Frozen Banana-Mango Daiquiri

Yes, it's as good as it looks. :)

And I'm just a little bit proud of the homemade (and healthy!) recipe if you can't tell.

I finally felt comfortable enough to take myself out for a long bike ride this morning while pete had to work for a couple hours, so I think I deserve it. Nothing like drinking back all those hard-burned calories! I guess that's what weekends are for...or so I'll keep telling myself.

I hope you're all having a great weekend too!

If not, go whip yourself up a frozen banana-mango daiquiri...it's sure to turn that bum weekend right around!

CROSS FIT

I'll be the first one to admit, I was never a huge CrossFit advocate.

My friend Hannah was a huge CrossFitter (?), but I just wasn't convinced. Mainly because it is pretty expensive. Too expensive for my wallet. I was happy with my $19.99/month membership to Planet Fitness.

That said, I will also be the first one to admit that I've caved.

Pete mentioned he wanted to try it and right before we moved to GA I happened to get a Groupon deal in my inbox for 74% off three months of unlimited CrossFit classes right around the corner of our apartment complex. I'm such a sucker for good deals; we both ending up grabbing the Groupon and started at CrossFit Essentials last week.

Let me just tell you...I thought I was in OK shape, and this stuff is kicking my butt!

It's definitely no joke, but it's so fun and I think it'll be a great way for us to make some friends around here. Fingers crossed! (for both new friends and my sore muscles getting less sore...:/)

4TH OF JULY

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July.

We sure did! 

The day started with homemade brunch at home then we picked up GA fishing licenses and went to Jackson Lake to do some fishing. We actually ended up finding a really great spot! It's called Lloyd Shoals Fishing Pier and we had the whole place to ourselves! We didn't catch anything, but had so much fun and are hopeful for next time.

To finish off the day we had an impromptu cookout complete with burgers (beef & veggie), sweet potato salad, roasted veggies, corn on the cob, potato chips, a berry pie, a couple neighbors, and some fireworks that we could see in the distance.

It was perfect.

HAPPY 4TH!

SHE'S A GEORGIAN

It's official.

Two hours, quite a few iPhone games, and a sore tushy (not used to sitting in a plastic chair) later, I got my Georgia license!

I just love that there's a peach on it; so cute. 

And I'm also very thankful they didn't make me re-take a driver test. Sadly, I'm not sure how that would've gone. :\

Next up: License plates.   

BIG TEX & BERRY PICKING

This past weekend was our third weekend in Atlanta...I can't believe it. But the first one that we could actually spend exploring the area. The first weekend was move-in, and the second Pete had to work all weekend, so we were pretty excited to do some sight-seeing.

It started off with breakfast, homemade by Pete.

So delicious. And the perfect fuel we needed to go berry picking! Probably one of my favorite things. Despite the heat warning that it was going to get up to 107 degrees, we were determined. So we woke up early, ate our breakfast and got to Southern Belle Farm by 9am to pick blueberries and blackberries.

We thought we would beat the heat. 

We didn't. 

It was still hot as heck. But so much fun and it kept a lot of the crowds away. We were two of maybe ten people out picking. And we managed to fill a whole bucket each of blueberries and blackberries!

We might have even had a little blueberry war with each other using the berries that had already fallen off the bushes...Kara vs. Pete (obviously this war was instigated by the latter.)

Let's just say, he has much better aim than I do. Kara did not win the blueberry war.

After berry picking we checked out the Tanger Outlet Mall that's just down the highway from us and then ventured into Decatur, GA which is a cute little town just east of Atlanta. The atmosphere is a neat mix between Austin and West Chester, which we loved. Live music, little eclectic shops and restaurants, but also a bit of a metropolitan city feel.

We walked around for a bit and stopped for lunch at Big Tex Cantina. What a cool spot. Not only because the walls inside were covered in little metal longhorns, but also because their waitstaff was so nice. We had a blast.

We Spent Saturday night at home, inside, because when it's 110 degrees outside, there's not much else to do but hop from A/C to A/C.

And Sunday, we did just that. We went out for brunch and then caught the matinee showing of TED (my second choice of movie's to see, but I couldn't get Pete to step foot in Magic Mike...understandably I guess.). But Ted turned out to be a pretty funny movie. Slow at times, but very cute. I'm a sucker for Mila Kunis, though, and put her alongside Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane's voice impersonations...sold.

The rest of Sunday was spent relaxing...just the way I like it.