One Step At A Time...

So this weekend I had a session with 10 month old Anthony. His mother, Stephanie, had replied to my models wanted post on t.a.g. IT PHOTOGRAPHY. But it was one step closer in building my portfolio. It was a learning experience. I think my next kid session I will be a little more prepared. It was fun though. He was so precious.

It was a bummer today. I was supposed to do Jillian's session but the weather was not good.

Oh, Friday I went on a tour at the Atlanta Police Crime Lab. My forensic firearms and toolmarks instructor, Don Mikko, set up the tour for our class. It was neat. It was good to see what the atmosphere would be like. I still love the field but I would rather be the one on the field not in the lab.  But if I did work in the lab I think I would like my specialty to be firearms. But I still don't know.

But since nothing else really happened this weekend I will talk about what is to come for this week. 

Guess who's birthday is in 3 days!? James'!!! I hope he has a good birthday. We are going out to eat with his family Wednesday and then we are going to Taste of Atlanta Saturday. I've got to go to Nicole's bachlorette party Saturday night but Sunday we are eatting at Uncle Jerry's for James, Ronnie and Uncle Jerry's birthday. But we are going to get a monitor for his game room for his present.

I'm excited about Taste of Atlanta. I will taste plenty of food and take plenty of pictures! So keep an eye out. Time to watch 666 Park Avenue. 

Fernandina Beach

Another trip that I never posted. Sorry...

The weekend after my birthday weekend we went to Fernandina Beach with James' family. I wish we were there longer, it was nice to see a different part of Florida. It was beautiful. The historical parts and the nature. The little downtown area was nice. We ate lunch at Timoti's. It was a little seafood restaurant. I had a shrimp po boy and James had a crab burger. It was good. The place was a neat little restaurant.

James' Crab Burger.

Anchor at the bay.

Bag I got at a little shop Downtown. 

 The beach house we stayed at was really nice. It was off a lagoon. It was so peaceful. If James and I were to go back and stay longer I would want to go back there. That night we went to a restaurant that was right down the road, like in the little community. It was called Plae. It had really extraordinary food. It was good.

Caesar Salad

Scallops and Potato

Escargot

I had the escargot and I could just swim in it. I wish there was a restaurant near us that had escargot similar to it.
The next day we went to the beach and just hung out. That night James, Michael, Ariel and I went to an Ciao Italian Bistro which was really good. They kind of blew us off at first because we had a 7:30 reservation and we showed up 4 minutes late, we had passed it. But we ended waiting 20-30 minutes after our reservation time before being seated. I also think they looked at us and just saw that we look young. But the food was good. The server must have been new, he seemed really nervous but he did really good.
It was another good trip. I hope to go back and see more of Fernandina Beach.

Birthday Trip - St. Louis and Nashville

Something I just realized I never posted my birthday trip, which was in July!! So James had planned a birthday get away for us. We went to Nashville, TN and then St. Louis, MO. Nashville was ok. We met up with Katie and David at the mall and walked around the mall. It was a really nice mall and they had a lot of Hello Kitty stuff so I was O-M-G'ing a lot. So if you are in TN and you are looking to shop I recommend this mall. It was awesome.

 But before we met up with Katie and David we ate at a place called Arnold's. It's known for it country cooking. It was packed out and good, real good.

James' is the top half, Mine is the bottom half.

 That night we went Downtown and walked around. It wasn't really our scene. A lot of blues, jazz and country bars. There was one shop that I was absolutely in love with but I cannot remember it's name or if it has a website. It guess you can consider it a "hippy" store. It had organic stuff and hand carved items and jewelry. But we ate at a place called Demo's.

It was ok, it wasn't the best. We had another restaurant picked out but we didn't know you had to have reservations and dress REALLY nice. So it was a last minute pick.
The next morning we hit the road for St. Louis but before leaving TN we tried this really awesome organic sandwich shop. I wish we had something similar to this in our area. We probably have something like it in Atlanta but I haven't heard or seen anything similar to it.

Tofu, Egg, Everything Bagel Sandwich.

 When we arrived in MO we got settled in our hotel which had an amazing view.

The hotel was so nice and it was packed with Cardinals fans and there was also a concert thing going on that weekend under the arch but we didn't go to it. For lunch we went to Schlafly Tap Room.

Beer Sampler. Beer and Cheddar Soup.

Falafel.

Lamb Burger.

Inside the Lamb Burger.

 James and I started off with the beer sampler. And we are not dark beer fans but their dark beer was really good. It taste like oatmeal. I was surprised. Then I tried their beer and cheddar soup which was phenomenal! I should have just got the bigger size bowl for my whole lunch. For lunch I had a falafel, I never tried one and I've heard of it. It was good, it was different. And James had this amazing lamb burger. It was probably the best burger I've eaten. It was juice and you could taste all the flavors. It just melted in your mouth.
We had the smart idea of walking back to our hotel after lunch. Which by the way was WAY too far. But we ended up taking a lot of pictures of the different buildings and pictures at the City Garden.

Which I recommend everybody to see, the artwork there is a site to see. But the buildings in St. Louis are so detailed and old I love it. We had mentioned to each other that if we would have known St. Louis was going to be awesome we would have went straight there. We could also see us living there. But anyways!! We tried going to the arch but all the tickets were sold out. We tried to take a hotel's shuttle bus but they weren't taking anymore people or something so we took a regular taxi and I'm surprise this taxi driver didn't kill us and is a taxi driver at all. We told him we wanted to go and he asked us where it was at...Really we don't live here and we don't work here. And he had like this crazy German accent I was laughing the whole time. I wish James would have recorded it. But we had to change our dinner place again. We didn't know you had to dress really nice, like dress pants and ties. But we ate dinner at a sushi place called Wasabi that night and it was horrible. The service was rushed and they were rude. I believe we walked in at 930ish maybe and they closed at 10 and they were just rushing us and I would not recommend anyone to go there. Maybe go at lunch, maybe there aren't rude at lunch time. Their saki was like drinking chemicals.

James had gotten me a glove for my birthday.

 And we planned the next day to go to the Arch bright and early. So we got up as soon as they opened and rode up into the arch.

Door to get into capsule.

How high up we were.

View from the top. Our hotel is the cylinder one.

View from the street.

We grabbed lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse for some really good BBQ. They had a line wrapped in and out of the building.

Brisket Sandwich, potato salad, and fried corn.

Rack of ribs, beans and sweet potato fries.

 Everybody that goes to St. Louis HAS to go there. The meat just feel off the bone and melted in your mouth. There potato salad was really good. And our last stop which I don't know how I was able to eat it but we got frozen custard at Ted Drewes.

The lady didn't hand it to me upside down like they say on TV. But it was good and creamy. I didn't know what flavor to get so I just got Oreo, my go to when I have no idea. You can never go wrong with Oreo.
It was a good birthday. I wasn't a normal birthday but I liked it, it was different and new. We wanted to see more places and I wouldn't ask to do it on any other day than my birthday. I had a really good time. I appreciate my husband for the time he took to do all he did for it. he is the best.

But that sums up my birthday trip that I never mentioned. Hopefully many more to come.

Mud Crusade 2012 - Hampton, GA

September 15th James and I participated in the Mud Crusade at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, GA. You could tell this mud run was low budgeted. It wasn't bad or anything. I think it would of have been fun if Ronnie and Michael or other friends did it with us. This time it was just James and I. We did this one in an hour. Right at an hour. Yet again I wish it was lower but we didn't train. Or atleast I didn't, if James would of left me he probably done it less than 30 minutes. There was only 1 obstacle I didn't do in this one. It was the monkey bars because when I went another person had went and they grabbed the same bar and it rolled the bar and I had fallen. Well not really fall I jumped to a wooden pool and just latched on and slide down instead of falling into the mud. (hehe) I don't have the 1 picture we took but I will post it later.

Gladiator Rock 'n' Run 2012 - Moreland, GA

 On September 8th James, Michael, Ronnie and I participated in the Gladiator Rock 'n' Run 6k. It was intense. The obstacles were a little bit harder than Warrior Dash. James ran with me this time. Our time was 1 hr and 23 minutes. I would have liked it to be lower...a lot lower but we didn't really get to train for this one. I think Warrior Dash will always be my favorite though. I don't know why. There were 2 obstacles I couldn't do in the Rock 'n' Run. I couldn't climb the 14 ft rope but we were given an option of climbing the rope or doing 10 burpees. I did 10 burpees. And then at the end there was a wall that had 2 ropes on it and you had to get over that and I couldn't it was way to slipper and muddy. And I had to arch in my shoe, it was flat bottomed, I couldn't put my arch in the knots to try and get up. And no one to push me up either :(. But hopefully next year, I plan to get a lesser time and do all obstacles. I have to build that upper body strength and lose some tummy. I also think I need to go to the doctor. Like a heart doctor or something. Make sure everything is okay.

James, Me, Michael, Ronnie

Shirts we got.

My husband and me, he's a beast. I love him.

Medal and back of bib.

Dragon*Con 2012

So Labor Day weekend James and I attended Dragon*Con 2012. This year was our 3rd year and it gets crazier and bigger every year. We were there for 3 days this year.  We stayed at a really awesome hotel called Twelve. Pricey but really nice. We usually don't stay in hotels that nice. It was like an apartment. Hopefully next year we can actually stay at one of the host hotels. But if not I would want to be back at that hotel. I dressed up all three days. The first day I dressed up day of the dead, second day I didn't dress up during the day only for the night and I was Batman's girl and third day I was Steampunk. Pictures are on my Facebook. We had a really good time. Saturday we meet up with Jaim and some of his friends. Kind of had his mini somewhat bachelor thing. I think he had a good time. Jaim dressed up as Quailman from the Nickelodeon (I don't know if I spelt that right) show Doug it was awesome.

James and I attended some panels of our own interest but we were together in most. We attended The Guild, The Walking Dead and Vampire Diaries panels. Those were really funny. Costumes this year were amazing. I didn't get to take too many pictures this year. I think because I was dressed up myself. I will have to make James the camera man next year.

I've already started planning for next year. Next year I'm trying to get our own group of 10 or more people. That way we can hang out, be with friends, and share hotel rooms. 

Twelve Hotel (excuse our stuff)

Living Room

Living room and kitchen

bedroom

bathroom

full kitchen

living room

Day of The Dead

Walking Dead Panel

Face shot

Vampire Diaries Panel

Business Batman

Batman's Girl