Happy Father's Day

Father's Day...Oh how I'm such a daddy's girl..always and forever. <3

For Father's Day I got him some baby Jack Daniels, cigars, a trip to the gun range and brunch. We ate at Atkin's Park in Atlanta for brunch. Not a bad place. I got the Fried Green Tomatoes Benedict and he got the Pulled Pork Sandwich. Not that the food was bad but we should of tried their chicken biscuits because that's what everybody was ordering. After that we walked around to the shops next the restaurant and drove around Atlanta for a bit. Then we went to Range, Guns & Safe in Forest Park and we shot some zombies. After that we headed back home. It was a fun Father's Day. And I'm so thankful to have an amazing Father. I love him with all my heart.

Trip to Helen

I'm a little late on posting this but one weekend in May James, Dustin, Christi and I spent the weekend in Helen, GA. We stayed at the Loreley Resort right off of the little town. It was a nice little condo. So we went to the little town walked around and went to the shops. Got some coffee at Higher Ground Coffee (sorry to say Starbucks..their Carmel Macchiato is better than yours...) and checked out the grocery store. Then we went to the Nacoochee Village. We went to the Habersham Winery, Antique Shop, Jumping Goat Roasters and Nora Mills. We had lunch at the Village Tavern Pizza. There pizza was phenomenal. I'm not a big fan of thin crust pizza but the pizza was not like any thin crust I had it was still fluffy. And it was huge! Very good pizza. We did the wine tasting at the winery and bottle. It was neat. Personally I don't like wine but the peach treat was not bad. If you want to check them out here is the link: Habersham Winery . And the antique store was heaven!! I could have spent hours and all our money in that store. Then we went back to town and later we had dinner at Spice 55 (Thai). It was ok. Service wasn't that great, we waited almost a hour for our food. They said they were busy with a party and that they only had 1 or 2 people cooking. Food was good but a little over priced.

The next day we ate breakfast at Hofer's Bakery & Cafe before we went on a hike at Raven Cliff Falls. The food was good. I didn't get anything out of the ordinary. But on our way to Raven Cliff we didn't think we would be able to because the weather. It was sprinkling but we went there and it stopped when we started on the trail. As we started there were people that I guess camped out the night before and they were telling us that a bear and her cub wandering in this area. After walking a while we came up to a waterfall. We thought it was Raven Cliff but it seemed small so we kept walking and came to another one. Still was not it, we asked someone and he said no that it wasn't we had to keep going we had about another 2 miles. Well we kept going and the same guy was there to and he said that we could go all the way to the top but it was a little treacherous, so we did. And it was amazing. The feeling of accomplishment was there after reaching the top. The view was amazing and it was so peaceful. I could have stayed up there and read a book. But we were hungry so we headed back. On our way back, maybe a halfway there, the sky just let out and it poured. We were so worried about my camera and James' camera. When we got back to the car my camera was fine..but James' wasn't. I told him to get rice to put it in but he didn't. We put it in rice when we got home and it's ok now though, surprisingly. That night we had dinner at the Mully's Nacoochee Grill. I had their Shrimp and Grits..SO GOOD. The flavors were awesome. I've had shrimp and grits locally but they just do like a cheese shrimp and grits. This one had peppers and onions and just really flavorful.
It was a nice little mini vacation. Our little weekend get away with are really good friends/family. We had a really good time with them, made some memories and we hope to have more with them.

Mully's Nacoochee Grill

Raven Cliff Falls

Raven Cliff Falls - From the Top

The Pickled Peach

New Pages Tab!!

So I finally updated the pages tabs. I put one post into What's Cooking? When you get a chance check it out. First post was my asparagus soup. Nothing yet in Getting Crafty, but always check back.
Thanks again.

Up in the air

May 17th I got to experience the awesome-est thing ever. About a week ago the Friday before May 17th my Major at work said something to me about going up in a helicopter. Knowing him I thought we were all just playing around. I thought it was cool anyways. I'm not scared of them or flying. Well come to it, he wasn't playing he needed new pictures of the jail for a presentation. The Major set up with Clayton County Police Department for me to go up May 17th. He told me the 4 things he needed while I was up there. I was so nervous about the pictures, not being in a helicopter but the pictures like if I got any good ones, if they were what he was wanting, did I get everything he wanted.

When I got there I think they were a little skeptical, They probably thought I was like way younger than what I am and that I was going to panic or get sick or something. But they went through a mini training, like how to buckle and unbuckle not to rely on the door, if anything happened never go towards the tail of the helicopter and if there was an emergency not to panic. After the whole emergency landing part I got to thinking. I never thought about if anything bad happened and I am the person that always thinks negative first. I didn't panic or anything but I was like "hmm...what if something happened...today could be my last..." But I felt like I was in good hands with these pilots. They were so awesome and nice. They taught me all about the wind and "natural wind" and landing has to be perfect because 1 inch can be game over.

And when I was up there, the feeling that came over me was unbelievable. Now don't get me wrong, I love my job. There are somethings that I don't agree with or like. But I love the people I work with and they are my family. But things like this really makes me appreciate my job. The ability to have awesome experiences and learn things. I love my boss he truly is the best. I'm not sucking up, he doesn't read any of these but the feeling was just peaceful. I could have been up there all day long. The flight was smooth and, no, I did not get sick. But being up there I almost wanted to cry because it made me think about a few things.

Again special thanks to my Major and CCPD for allowing me to have this experience.

Vlog of the experience:

Some pictures from the flight (there were like a 100+ photos)

Other Passengers

Passenger

April 2013

So nothing much went on in April. I finished up my spring semester. I finished with 2 A's and 2 B's. I signed up for chemistry for the summer semester. That will be my last semester and final class. I'm really excited. I've got to thinking to I never really had my mind set on anything specific to study in the forensic field. I just had my mind set as a crime scene technician. But after have the firearms course I have an interest in being a firearms examiner. For my good grades James' got me a flash for my camera.Brand Neewer, Model TT560 Speedlite.

So far so good. Still learning about it and how it functions.

Dogwood Festival:
Just the usual, we walked around. We didn't get a lot of free stuff this year we were kind of late on getting around this year. We planned to go to the Sweetwater Festival until I found out that you had to pay $5 just to get a wrist band to drink and then you had to pay about $8 per beer.. so we passed on that and ate at the Bone Garden. Absolutely love that place. And I love their drinks.

March 2013

Florida Trip:
The weekend around St. Patrick's Day my parents, James and I went to Florida for my grandma's 70th birthday. We had a good little vacation. We went to the beach, grandma's birthday, Kherrington's birthday and Lexi's birthday parties. Kyra just loves James so much. She would always call his name and was so sweet to him but not to me. But they said she was asking about me the day after we left.

Atlanta Crawfish & Oyster Festival:
We went to the Atlanta Crawfish and Oyster Festival this year with my parents. It's neat to go to. It's good to go with friends or family. Just drink and eat. There is live music there. I had fun.

BaconFest:
This will always be a tradition for me and James to go to and I don't think it can ever get old. Atlanta's BaconFest. Who doesn't love bacon...and beer. They make a good combination. Well this year was a little bit better than last year although we went by our selves. But they had more food, different vendors. Like P'Cheen, The Wrecking Bar, Pine Street Market was there and they had food to try and The Wrecking Bar had a beer to try and some kind of pulled pork and slaw. The food that there were serving was really good. P'Cheen had a nagiri sushi with pork belly and bacon french toast ice cream sandwich. GENIUS!! Pine Street Market had a bacon jam. It was definitely interesting.  MailChimp was there giving out free t-shirts and monkey hats. Scored some of those. They are awesome, there shirts feel so good and are too cute. We of course got our caricatures done. And the most awesomest experiences happened. I was waiting in line for James' beer while he went to the bathroom and a girl walked by looked just like Caroline from Vampire Diaries. I looked and was thinking OMG that's her!! And then I was like well do I jump out of line and go after her. What do I do. Finally James comes back and I tell him and I'm freaking out. We decide to get our of line to find her. We went looking and looking and I'm about to finally give up when I find her!! I walk up to her and I ask just to make sure it was Candice Accola. Because she had her face painted and sun glasses on but it was her. I asked her if I could get a picture with her and at first I didn't think I was going to get it because she was in the middle of buying ice cream. But I got to take a picture with her and ending up telling her that I love her.

Don't look to hard

Atl Roller Derby Girls

Kiss the pig

Candice Accola

Mail Chimp Hat for pet

Dipping bacon in beer

Dance

Caricature

Bacon Bow - I Made

February 2013

To try and surprise James, which I can never surprise James, I got boudoir pictures done. By the way those will not be posted. But I will show you the make-up and hair that I was treated with.


The pictures turned out really good. Thanks to my favorite photographer, Amy E Photography. He liked them and it wasn't a surprise. He found out of course because he follows her but its okay.



Valentine's weekend

Well it had to be pushed to the weekend after but James, Dustin and I went to The Square Pub in Downtown Decatur.  Really good place to bring some friends and hang out. They have games there, board games, a huge connect four, very pub atmosphere. Really good hang out to have some drinks with friends. There was the bottom level that was the bar area, mid area was the game area and then just a step up there were tables for place to sit down and eat. I had the carne avacado burrito. Amazing and for the first time I tried Angry Orchard and I liked it.

After lunch and boys wanted to go to Ale Yeah! It is a beer market for those that do not know. It has all kinds of beers. And they have these things called growlers that are your choice of a 64 or 32 oz jug and you get to choice out of the 12 that they had to tap to fill it up. Dustin and James split one and it was the darkest nastiest beer. I don't remember what it was. And of course James got bacon beer. Which we have not tried yet. 




Next door was a doughnut shop called Revolution. It was phenomenal. I got a blueberry doughnut and it just melted in your mouth.And they were huge. You also had the option of yeast style or cake style doughnuts.






 So the weekend after, our Valentine's weekend:
We went to a place called Abbatoir. Highly recommend to people looking to do something nice in Atlanta. Abbatoir means slaughter house but don't let the name lead you the other way. The place was beautiful!! The atmosphere is chill and intimate but also good to go with a bunch of friends. Kind of loud but it's nice to see people enjoying themselves.
There menu is always changing. So unfortunately I don't remember the names of the foods that I got. But we started out with some chicken wings. Really good, sauce on the wings were amazing. Kind of a teriyakki taste but a hint of spice to it. For my entree I had like a roast beef with a bed of mashed potatoes. Really smooth and creamy, very good. And for dessert we had a pecan tart. That was to die for!!

We stayed the night at Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center. It was a  very nice hotel. The people there were nice and the service was good and clean. Before and after going to Abbatoir we had went to the bar in the hotel and played pool. They had free pool to hotel guests. It was fun and I got a picture of the cute, old timey car in the lobby.
 

The next morning we went from breakfast at HomeGrown. Possible the best breakfast place that I know of so far. All locally grown produce and fresh ingredients. I had an omelet and the cheese grits and I could just swim in the grits they were so good. Portions were huge and the pricing was not bad at all. I was full and happy after.

It was a good and fun Valentines Day and I have to thank my husband so much for being so awesome and being able to have these experiences with him.