Staycation - Day 4!!!

It's our 5-year wedding anniversary today! Who would have thunk it?!?!?! We've survived this long...and quite well too! We are both so happy, and I know that I am looking forward to many more years of bliss. :-) I love you, David Jones!!!

Todays adventures were many! Starting out, DJ made me some delicious homemade french toast. He gave me another cool gift...this being the National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States book. Oh yeah, this little piece of reference material will be well-thumbed in the very near future!

We headed down to IKEA at Atlantic Station in Atlanta. In this pics above and below, we are hangin' out in the cool lounge-y section of the cafeteria, drinkin' coffee and sharing a yummy cinnamon bun.

I enjoy the thoughtfulness that goes into some of the products at IKEA. Here is a good example. If you look at the bottom of this mug, you'll notice grooves/notches.

Do you know why these are there? One of my biggest pet peeves is unloading the cups from the dishwasher and there still being dishwasher water (and sometimes food sediment) stuck in crevices of the cups. These little drain holes prevent that!!! Pretty keen. There is always neat stuff to see in IKEA and we always get inspired, but are at the same time, intimidated. You see, if you buy something as benign as new dishware....well, it seems like you will need new silverwear to go along with it, but all that newness doesn't looks so hot on the old kitchen table. You spy a neat kitchen table that would look so nice in the kitchen...but then, it doesn't really match the existing counter. A new counter, would then mean new cabinets. But wait, new cabinets and new counter would make our existing old linoleum look that much worse...so new flooring would be a must. Ok...so do you catch my drift? I mean this is a big huge snowball effect. The lesson? Don't buy the dishware. ;-) We actually ended up buying nothing from IKEA today, but had fun "window shopping" and lounging in the caf.

After exiting IKEA, David needed a smoke break, so we were hanging out outside by ourselves, when low and behold, we had this cool little visitor come by. A monarch butterfly!!! How cool is that? I was pretty psyched about it! Nature rocks.

Speaking of nature, we set off on our next stop, the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. This place was fun...and admission was included on our Atlanta City Pass! Niiice! I love the atrium in the center, but one of the the best parts were the floor tiles. They had fossils in them!!!! We walked around both inside and out checking looking for and discovering several fossils.

There were some other neat exhibits. David and I sat in these big hollowed out concrete thingers that were on OPPOSITE sides of the room. Boring, right? NO! We were able to have a conversation from ACROSS the room without raising our voices at all! The sound of our voices was captured and collected in the concrete thingees behind us. As a result, we could hear each other perfectly. That was funky! There was also this big bubble-making center that was a lot of fun. I basically skated into the thing from the slippery floor, but once settled, I had fun! Here is me making a big huge bubble!

There were other cool things to see, like an exhibit about gold and another about sea shells. We went through every single one and even checked out some stuff outside too. We grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria (once again, surprisingly yummy!) and then headed to an unscheduled stop...the Fernbank Science Center, located a few miles away. One of the senior volunteers at FMNH recommended it to us because I had asked about the woodland trails. She said they had some nice ones, so off we went. The Science Center had some cool things in it, like Apollo 6(!) and some neat critters...like tarantulas and snakes and lizards. Outside we discovered neat stuff as well. Check out this AWESOME piece of petrified wood! Just beyond that were some trails that went through the Fernbank Forest...an old growth forest that still exists...in the heart of Atlanta!

Some of those trees were HUGE! There were all sorts of fun things to discover out there. There was a pretty pond, with stone steps that led up to an overlook. Here's a pic of the pond and David heading up the steps. Here is another pic of him making his way to the overlook.

There were some other neat treasures to discover along the way too. One of the things I liked most was finding a series of old carved stone steps...all alone, in the middle of the woods, with trees growing around them. What are these doing HERE? Where did they lead to? Was there a house here back in the olden days? Was it a mansion like so many of the other old homes in the area? Who lived here? We may never know...but some of those really old trees know.

We headed back to the Science Center and just had to check out these noisemakers. They had a bunch of handsome roosters near the gardens! Wow, were they vocal! As I started to take a pic of these guys, the one in the center let out big "Cocadoodledoo" - you can see his mouth is open!!!

After admiring these handsome fellows, we checked out the small garden. It included several different ways to compost...which I love. I have a compost bin at home, but David and I have been thinking about upgrading to a better bin. We have some ideas of what we want to do now!

Ok, so it was late and we really needed to get home and let out our poor doggies. We hit traffic, but managed to get home before any accidents occurred! (To clarify, I'm talkin' about the pee pee/poo poo kind!) We played with the dogs for a while and fed them supper and then headed out to dinner ourselves. We went to Bonefish Grill! David's mom gave us a gift certificate and we really enjoyed ourselves. We had Bang Bang Shrimp for our appetizer (spicy and super-yummy!). David had the Ahi Tuna "Tokyo Style" and I one of the specials, Huge Wild Shrimp Pad Thai. I also had a glass of Seven Deadly Zins Zinfandel. Our dinner was fabulous! Of course, couldn't eat it all, so I got a to-go box. Look what our waitress drew on it!

We had a very fun-filled day and enjoyed it greatly. Happy anniversary to us!!!! :-)