Anniversary Weekend

Last weekend, Chase and I left BR with her grandparents and headed over to Atlanta, Georgia for a fun weekend together. It was great to spend some one on one time together without worrying about Brantley at the same time. Much needed!

On Friday morning we left bright and early (7am) and headed to ATL. We went straight to the Georgia Aquarium. We had been talking about wanting to go there for a while so we took this chance to check it out. We were so amazed at the size of the tanks they have and the variety of animals/fish they have. It was so great!! I took a lot of videos because there was no flash photography inside. Here they are...

This is a video of the biggest tank that the have at the GA Aquarium. They have 4 whale sharks, manta rays, saw tooth shark, grouper, barracuda, sand tiger sharks and lots lots more. Chase and I went back to this tank at least 4 times because it was by far the coolest one. The whale sharks are massive and beautiful. The cool thing we learned about them is that they won't attack humans because they can't bite/swallow anything larger than a quarter. Hard to believe but it's true.

In this video, you first see a sand tiger shark. It had really pretty spots. Then a HUGE grouper swims right in front of the camera shot. Couldn't have been more perfect. It was like he knew I was videoing. Oh and if you look at his eye you can see that he has a cataract in his right eye. Old! You can also hear the lady say that they were able to open the aquarium with NO DEBT so this allows them to put most of the amount collected from ticket sales into research. They are currently researching Whale Sharks among lots of other species. There is very little that they actually know about whale sharks. So cool!! There is a saw tooth shark fish just hanging out at the bottom and then you see a Guitar Fish, it's a type of shark. Seriously the coolest tank in the whole place!

This is another video of the whale sharks but it's a little better than the others. You can really tell how big they are. These are around 20 ft long (maybe 30) but they can grow up to 40 ft long. There is also a hammer head shark and manta rays playing in the bubbles. So cool!

This was my second favorite tank at the aquarium. Seahorses! The tank is so colorful. Those little vertical things floating around are fish. I don't remember what they are called but they were pretty cool. There were some bigger seahorses behind the coral but I didn't get a good shot of them. Kids would LOVE this aquarium! I would suggest that you wait until they are atleast 3 years old so that they "get-it". There were some young kiddos there and they didn't seem to really be enjoying it. They didn't want to touch the sting rays (stingers are removed) and they just seemed to get tired of it really fast. We saw a lot of the same kids during the day and the bigger kids seemed happier than the under 3 crowd. 

These are Elephant Fish. They were very playful and chased each other around the tank. I had never seen or heard of these before so I was surprised to see them.

 More pictures that I took at the Aquarium.

 I totally recommend the Georgia Aquarium!

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Friday night we ate at Pappadeaux's and it was wonderful. The atmosphere and food there were both fabulous. Our server was great and it didn't take too long to get our food. I was starving so that was nice. haha We got dessert to-go and didn't eat it until we got home, but it was still wonderful.

No pictures from dinner. Oops!

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Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast at the hotel and headed over to Stone Mountain for the day. We had tickets to ride the skylift to the top of the mountain and walk around. It was really cool! Did you know that Stone Mountain is made up totally of granite? That's a lot of kitchen counters! haha

After going to the top of Stone Mountain we had time to walk around and eat lunch. We ate at Miss Katie's Kitchen. It took forever for us to get our meals but the food was really good so I guess it was worth the wait. 

Finally 2:00 was here and it was time to go tubing. 

We had a lot of fun. We're planning to take Brantley there one day if they keep doing it for a few more years. They had a special kiddy snow area with a castle that had small hills for tubing and sledding. The kids were adorable and having a lot of fun. I think kids have to be 3 to tube.

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Saturday night we ate dinner at Dave & Buster's. Our meal was great and then we had fun playing a few games and collecting tickets. It was like being a kid again so we just a great time.

 Chase got to play this Nascar driving game. He drove Talladega and came in 4th place, I think, or it might have been 7th. I can't remember.

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This weekend was great and I'm so glad Chase and I decided to go away to celebrate 2 years of marriage. It was so much fun! I love my husband so very much. I can't believe it's been 2 years already but I can't wait to see what God has in store for our future. We have only just begun!