Jill Reese

After Atlanta I came home just long enough to throw the suitcase open, repack, and then get on a plane to Philly Friday afternoon. Cristina and I went to her cousin’s wedding, and it was an absolute blast. We spend the entire day Saturday at the wedding – both Hindu and Catholic ceremonies, and then we spent Sunday before we left running around Philly trying to see all we could. I will not even talk about what happened after we got to the airport. Let’s just say I got home at 1 in the morning intead of 7 in the evening. *sigh* I told Cristina she shouldnt have traveled with Eeyore!

After Atlanta I came home just long enough to throw the suitcase open, repack, and then get on a plane to Philly Friday afternoon. Cristina and I went to her cousin’s wedding, and it was an absolute blast. We spent the entire day Saturday at the wedding – both Hindu and Catholic ceremonies, and then we spent Sunday before we left running around Philly trying to see all we could. I will not even talk about what happened after we got to the airport. Let’s just say I got home at 1 in the morning intead of 7 in the evening. *sigh* I told Cristina she shouldnt have traveled with Eeyore!Independence Hall…the lines were WAY too long to get inside, though.

At least we had time for cheesesteak sandwiches!

As close as I got to a Phillies game!

Before the Hindu ceremony….

The Atlanta History Center was definitely a place we needed more time. We didnt even realize how long we had been there! It had houses to tour…the one below and a farm house. The Swan House (below) was insanely gorgeous.

The actual museum had an impressive Civil War exhibit. I only took one Civil War class in grad school, but it is such a fascinating topic. So massive that it is hard to talk about all of it and have any cohesion in the discussion, but the Atlanta History Center does a great job of dividing the topic up by years and breaking down the battles. Pretty awesome.

After the History Center, we had pancakes at this place that I had seen on the Food Network called Ria’s Bluebird. Im not a pancake expert, but these were damn yummy. Mine had pecans, and Marilyn’s had caramelized bananas. You can see I couldnt wait to take the picture until after I had already started eating! It was definitely a LATE lunch.

The botanical garden was the last stop of the day. It was actually starting to get hot at this point, but it still never got above 90. Just started getting humid. The gardens were gorgeous, of course, but I think they will be even more impressive in 2010 when they finish all the expansions they are working on.

Day Four was kind of festive. I thought the CNN tour was fascinating, although traveling up the tallest escalator in the U.S. was NOT my idea of a good time. Yuck. I was really interested in it, though…..too bad there were some tourists that did not shut UP the entire time!

Marilyn would probably say the Georgia Aquarium was the highlight of her trip. And it ranks right up there with Turner Field for me. The Aquarium itself is awesome, but then for some reason one of the ticket ladies got bored and gave us behind the scenes tour tickets, where we got to see the entire tank from the top and watch the sharks swimming around. Apparently you only see about 1/3 of the tank from below, so this was much different. So cool. Definitely the best part of the day.


Coca-Cola was just okay, in my opinion. I did like all the Coke memorabilia in the first room you go into, the first movie you see, the machine bottling Cokes with the gigantic robot and the tasting room. The tasting room was definitely cool.

Day three included outlet shopping, so of COURSE it rocked, but first we made a visit to Amicalola Falls in northern Georgia. I wasnt really sure how this would turn out, but it was gorgeous! There are several trails leading to the falls, and we made sure to go on two different ones. These also included some wicked stairs which i made a point to go all the way up and down, since I knew I was missing Zumba last week! Not sure if it was worth it…my calves were so sore the rest of the week it was pathetic! The best part was the weather….when we got out of the car at the park, it was 75 degrees! Loved it.

P.S. Marilyn did not enjoy my hair that day. But it got hot hiking and ponytails give me headaches. I, myself, thought it was festive.

Day two was probably my favorite. We got up early enough to drive the last few hours into Atlanta, check into our hotel room and then make our way to TURNER FIELD to watch the ATLANTA BRAVES. One day I am going to have a Baseball Fairy Godmother show up and take me on a season long tour of ballparks, but until that time I have to make my way on my own! I have a short list, but I think I started with some good ones….Turner Field gets added to Minute Maid Park (DUH), Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.

After the ballgame we headed to The Varsity downtown for yummy drive in food. “The World’s Largest Drive-in” as the website says. It took forever, with so many people in line….since they can have 800 people inside, but it was worth it!

I call this the road rage day. While getting through some serious traffic in Louisiana, this crazy old man that I passed tried to run up and stop me from getting in his lane by trying to ram my bumper. I hated to disappoint him, but I grew up with my dad driving and that s*it does NOT scare me. So I just passed him like I was planning to, and if he hit me, he hit me. Then he tried to pass me in the GRASS, but a barrier was coming up, so he had to get back on the road. At this point he proceeded to pull up beside me on the other side, roll his window down and started to yell at me to pull over. As If! So then he says he called the cops because I tried to run him off the road, and not to worry, that they would take care of me. Haha. He was CRAZY. Then he slowed back down to the TWENTY mph he was doing in the first place, and the entire reason everyone was passing him!

We made it from Warren to Montgomery, AL the first day. That wasnt too bad at all. There were just too many sections of road construction and slow speed limits.

So I was a dummy and forgot my camera cable, so I dont have any vacation photos to post on here like I had planned! So until I get back, I am just posting stuff on http://twitter.com/Jiller13

Highlights so far:
- Chipper Jones’ HR
- Mets’ suicide squeeze
- Getting lost three times trying to find the hotel
- The MASSIVE sale at White House/Black Market
- The behind the scenes tour of the Georgia Aquarium
- “What y’all havin??” at The Varsity in downtown ATL
- The 650 steps to see the Amicalola Falls
- The fact that it has been in the 70s and 80s and FEELS great

Hope everyone is having a good week! We are having a BLAST!

I am redoing the ringtones on my phone, so I thought that instead of CHOOSING what to hear when people call me, I will let everyone pick their own ringtone. I must say, this is turning out to be better than I thought! I may end up posting everyone’s choices on here, just because they are hilarious! So if you are reading this, let me know what ringtone you want!

So far on the list I have gotten a “Baby Got Back” and a “I Will Survive”…those two were actually the least surprising of all the ones so far.

More to come…

I had forgotten about these pictures until just today, but these are of Lauren’s office while she was in Europe for two weeks. We thought we would welcome her back in style and say Happy Birthday in a weird way all at once! Whoever came up with this….BRILLIANT. I just participated. If you cannot tell, that is Lauren’s desk and all the items on it wrapped in plastic wrap. Only took about ten minutes to do!