Exciting things coming up...

I am very excited for this weekend to begin!! My brother is flying in from NYC tonight, and we have a full weekend of Atlanta activities planned:

THIS guy is coming to town.

Friday: Dinner with our parents at Miller Union. I have heard so many great things about this restaurant from different blogs and other websites. It is supposed to have killer cocktails, so you better believe we will indulge!

Saturday: Decatur Beer Festival!!! I am most excited about this activity. The bf has been talking about DBF ever since we started dating, since it is his favorite beerfest in Atlanta. I have not been to this one, though I've visited my fair share of other fests in the city. We were lucky enough to get our tickets on time, before they sold out (within 2 hours!). Lots of old friends and new friends are attending, so it should be a glorious day. Oh, and the weather is calling for 75 and sunny... hello, perfection.

Do you think real elephants will be there? :)

Sunday: Brunch with the family and bf at Mosaic in Buckhead. I've actually never heard of this place; it was all my mom's idea. However, when I checked out the menu online, it looks pretty delish! Plus, it has the "largest pet-friendly outdoor patio in Buckhead", which means we get to bring Cooper!

You get to come, too!

I will be giving a full report next week about the greatness of the weekend. Until then, I may be a little bit MIA... Have a great weekend everyone!

Family Reunions are the Greatest

I consider myself lucky enough to have a family that I am very close to. Last weekend, my cousin Shane got married, so my mom's whole side of the family traveled from all over to Winston Salem, NC to celebrate. It's always so exciting when we can all put our busy schedules aside and see each other. We had people coming in from Georgia, Minnesota, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, and North Carolina. We pretty much covered half of the country, wouldn't you say?


The whole family, after the wedding


My mom has three sisters, so between their husbands and kids, their kids' spouses and significant others, and grandma, we made up a grand total of 23 people (I think?). Much of the weekend was spent in the hotel, only because there were too many of us to go to restaurants. It was pretty great though, because it gave everyone time to catch up, eat pizza and drink wine. Saturday afternoon, we were feeling a little stir crazy, so we headed out to a WS fair. There was lots of food, drinks, and entertainment, so it was great to walk around and see the sites a bit!

My favorite couple spotted in WS.. Coca Cola pants!

As for the wedding itself...it was beautiful! Of course there were tears, mostly coming from the females of the group, but what's a wedding without them? Afterwards, we all headed back towards Winston Salem to an old post office turned reception. It was awesome! A very cool reception location. There were fabulous appetizers at the beginning (bacon wrapped scallops, bruschetta, asparagus in phyllo dough, etc..) Inside the wedding, there was actually a candy bar! Something I've never seen before, but you can imagine everyone's excitement when they got to reenact their childhood memories of filling up the plastic bags of candy at Sweet Factory - only it was free! The only downside to the candy bar was the amount of crack-induced kids under the age of 8 that immediately hit the dance floor in a sugar-induced craze... but that's a different story :)

Holy candy, batman!

By the end of the weekend, everyone was exhausted and dreading the drive/flight home. I was so happy to see everyone, since it only happens every year or so. I took the bf along with me to meet the whole  family, and lets just say he was given the seal of approval by EVERYONE! I had no doubts that he would be completely adored and embraced by the family, but it was still nice to get official approval from grandma ;)

Some photos of the weekend:

My dad takes 1,976,753 pictures at weddings, so I caught him in the act!

Cousins enjoying delicious food

Me and my momma!

All the sisters - can't you see the resemblance?

I brought my moves straight from ATL.

All 9 cousins before cramming into the photo booth

I suppose I'm teaching my parents the electric slide?

More cousin dancing...



My favorite bro!



J4 showing off his moves

 Looks like a pretty fun time, eh? We kinda like to dance...

Chow Down at Chow Baby!

On Wednesday, I got roped into helping my parents move some furniture in their townhouse in Midtown {because of my new bootcamp guns, of course}. In return, my dad said he would take us to Chow Baby for some dinner! I introduced my parents to this place a while back, and my dad just loves it now.

The way Chow Baby works is, you basically make your own lunch or dinner. You grab a bowl up at the giant buffet looking line, and pick your choice of carb. Brown or white rice, lo mein noodles, chicken noodles, and a few others are some tasty options. Then comes your veggies. There is pretty much every type of veg imaginable: baby corn, spinach, peppers, beans, cilantro, bok choy, mandarin oranges, and a million more.

After you get your rice and veggies, you get to the sauces line. There are also tons of sauces there, and you can even mix them up to make it fun! At the beginning of the line, all of the sauces and their associated nutrition facts are listed on the wall, which is useful to know which ones are decent to eat and which ones will make your pants not fit the next day. There are also a bunch of "recipes" of ways that you can mix up the sauces to make new flavors. It's like art class, but so much better.

Girl in green shirt spilled sauce all over my feet. Not pleased with her.

After sauces, comes protein - Sausage, beef, pork, chicken, salmon, scallops are some of the options you have. You get a separate bowl for this, so not to put all that raw food next to all your veggies, and then you are able to put some seasoning on the meat too.

Chow Baby chefs!

After you drop your food off at the chef area, you just go back to your table and hang out until the food is ready. They bring it over to you all cooked together in its deliciousness for you to chow down on!

I'm a skilled chopstix user, until I get too impatient.

Personally, I love the black bean garlic sauce on mine. 2-3 scoops of sauce is perfect, with tons of veggies, lo mein noodles, and some chicken and beef. I also went back for some seconds to try the thai bbq sauce, which was pretty tasty as well. Yes, that's right - seconds! You can go unlimited times, but to be honest, you'll be pretty full after the first bowl :)

After dinner, we went back to the townhouse so I could say bye to this little guy, Cooper! He's my parents' pooch, whom I often puppysit for :) Love him!

Happy Friday everyone!

Anyone have big plans over the weekend? I am going ziplining in North Ga tomorrow morning.. A post to come next week!