Chattahoochee Nature Reserve

In addition to a trip to the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville and the Botanical Gardens, we also checked off a visit to the Chattahoochee Nature Reserve during our mini "staycation" at the end of July. The nature reserve has several nature walks and trails including one along the river and several exhibits and educational programs. We also got to visit their butterfly habitat and sit in on a presentation about snakes. 

This picture of Adelaide with a butterfly absolutely cracks me up. It's so Adelaide and I just love her little face.

 

It was a nice little visit to a local site. I'm always excited to see new things and places around Atlanta. I've come to really love the Chattahoochee River and its surrounding environments.

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Back in July we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for a visit. They've recently expanded the gardens and added a new children's section plus they have a Chihuly glass exhibit going on through the end of October which I wanted to see. I bought a family membership so we'll have to go back a few more times through the seasons to see all the different flowers. It's a lovely garden and I enjoyed our visit. Here are a few photographs from the day. 

My favorite part was the wooded area. It had lovely shaded areas and a beautiful elevated walkway.

A House of Our Own

From July 2013 to July 2014 we moved four times. It was pretty miserable and not an experience I'm anxious to repeat anytime soon. We've moved a lot in our 6 years of marriage, but even this was excessive. We left Utah on the last day of July 2013 and drove across the country to live (we thought) briefly with my sister in Newport News, Virginia, putting the bulk of our belongings in a storage unit nearby. Our 1-2 month stay, however, turned into 7 months. During that time, my sister bought a new house and so we all moved yet again, albeit just across town.

In February 2014, David got a job offer in Atlanta with an immediate start date. With no funds for the move and no time to find a suitable place, we moved in the basement of David's sister's house. Again, we expected a short 1-2 month stay but that stretched out to 5. Although we were extraordinarily grateful to both our families for helping us during this time, we desperately wanted our own space again. Through months of searching, we could not find a place in the area we wanted at the price we could afford. I was starting to give up all hope of finding a place and had absolutely no expectation of finding something with all the items on our wish list.

Since we didn't think we could afford a single family home, we had mostly been looking at apartments and town homes. We found one apartment we kinda sorta maybe liked and decided to check out the new ward that we would attend should we chose to live there. That Sunday, we attended the Paper Mill Ward and it was a completely opposite experience from what we had experienced in the ward we were currently attending with David's sister. We were greeted and welcomed and people actually talked to us. When David mentioned that we were looking for a place to live, several people came forward with suggestions and options.

One man told David that he and his family were about to move and their 3 bedroom 1.5 bath house would soon be available. The rent was shockingly low but we didn't like the neighborhood where the house was located.  After looking at a few more disappointing options, David wanted to contact the man about the house but he had lost his contact information. Luckily we remembered the address of the house so we just showed up one day and the couple was gracious enough to welcome us in and show us around the house.

The house was built in 1960 and I think many parts of it (the kitchen particularly) have never been updated. But it was spacious, it was clean and it had a huge backyard. And we couldn't pass up the rent. So we called the owner of the home and asked if we could rent it when the current occupants moved. Our move in date was set for Fourth of July weekend.

We've been in the house for four months now. There's definitely a lot we'd change or update about the house but we can't complain too much since we got the space we wanted at the price we needed. We feel really grateful to have found this place. So here's a little tour of our new home.

 You enter through the front door into the living room. It's a weird configuration of a room, but pretty spacious and the floors are all the original hardwood.

One corner of the room is our family room area which is decorated with all our Asian artifacts. The window looks out onto the carport which has since been closed off and is now the playroom.

 The other side of living room has our bookshelves, piano, my beautiful Korean chest, and a picture wall, which I love.

The room was so awkward it took us forever to figure out where to put all of our furniture. David also bought that keyboard before we got married but didn't have a stand for it so we've never set it up to use on a regular basis. We finally bought a stand for it so we can use it.

 

The door from the living room takes you to the kitchen/dining area. It's a large space but not well used. Plus, it still has all it's original floor to ceiling wood paneling. Pretty awesome. Except not. It's a pain to clean and makes the room really dark. Can you even see our table and chairs in the corner? It totally blends in.

 

 Despite the awkward configuration and age, there's lots of counter space and the stove is gas. I much, much prefer cooking on a gas stove.

 

Off the kitchen is the entrance to the playroom which is a really fun space for the girls.

 Through the center door is the laundry room and extra storage space. We were able to buy a used washer and dryer for real cheap that have been really great.

 The girl's room is probably my favorite room in the house. We went all out in decorating it and it is a pink profusion. Zara picked out her comforter and the whole room was decorated from it. Most of their furniture is new too.

 

We got rid of Zara's toddler bed when we left Virginia because it was falling apart so we bought her a new twin bed. We also bought Adelaide a new crib because we'd gotten rid of our old one when we left Utah. We bought a new dresser and rug from Ikea. 

 The other side has the changing table (the only piece of furniture we've had since Korea when Zara was born) and a cute little cube for extra storage and books.
 

 Our bedroom is small and just barely has enough room for our bed and dresser. I do love our wall of accomplishment with all 4 of our degrees. (BA and MA for me and BS and MBA for David.)

There's a toilet and sink in the bathroom attached to the master and there's a small bathroom with a shower/tub down the hall. We have a third bedroom but it's currently being used as office space and the land where boxes go to die so it's not fit for photographing.

We're so happy to have our own space again.

This Week in February

Last week was a very eventful week for the Malones. Since I don't want to forget how everything went down (it's already started to get pretty muddled in my mind), here's a run-down of our crazy week.

Monday, Feb. 3 - Zara falls down the stairs and gets a gash above her left eye. We spend some time in the ER and she gets 3 stitches.

Tuesday, Feb. 4 - Today was my nephew Ian's first birthday. Zara and I went to Target to buy him a present and then stopped at Costco for one of Zara's favorite lunches: pepperoni pizza and berry smoothie. We then enjoyed a birthday celebration in Ian's honor.

Wednesday, Feb. 5 - Realizing that his Georgia driver's license was about to expire on his birthday, David went to the Virginia DMV to get a new license while me and the girls attended an afternoon tea at the house of a friend from church. At 4:41pm, David receives an offer of employment from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. (They sent his offer letter in an email which is why I know the exact time it came through.)

Thursday, Feb. 6 - David's birthday. David calls the HR recruiter to ask questions about the job and frets over whether to take the job or not, especially since another offer was pending. We celebrate David's birthday with minestrone soup and apple crisp with ice cream.

Friday, Feb. 7 - David is still fretting and stewing over the job in the morning and so he calls his Dad for advice. With his Dad's blessing, David sends in his acceptance. We begin our plans to move to Atlanta. (And David will just have to replace that new Virginia driver's license with a Georgia one again.) David and I go out to celebrate his new job and our birthdays. We eat dinner at Olive Garden, do a little shopping at the mall, and bring home some cupcakes. We watch a documentary together after putting the girls to bed.

Saturday, Feb. 8 - My birthday! We spend the morning in the ER once again to have Zara's stitches removed. We drive to Colonial Williamsburg for one last visit. We visit the Decorative Arts and Folk Art Museum and Bassett Hall. We eat lunch at Chipotle and do a little shopping at the Outlets.


ERs and birthdays and job offers! We won't forget this week for awhile.

David starts his new job in investment banking on the 24th so we're moving to Atlanta next week. We'll be staying with David's sister until we find a home of our own. We're very excited for this next chapter. Stay tuned for more updates.

Atlanta: Fourth of July and Friends

Whenever we visit Atlanta, we always try to visit Tha, one of David's oldest and dearest friends. Tha's family were Cambodian refugees who came to America when Tha was very young. They return to Cambodia every few years; Tha even married a girl from Cambodia in a big, traditional Cambodian wedding ceremony. (I've seen the pictures. It was gorgeous.)

Tha is an artist and put his artistic use to skill in order to become an architect. We went to his office in downtown Atlanta to visit him and get the grand tour of his company's beautiful new office, which included this amazing view of Atlanta. I don't know how much work I'd get done if I could stare out my window at this all day long.

Here's Tha with our silly Zara. We left Tha's office and drove out to East Point to meet Tha's wife and his two kids and ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Man, I love Asian food. So good. Tha was a very influential person in David's life so I always love any chance we get to see him.

Our last day in Atlanta was the Fourth of July. We had finally moved David's parents into their new home in Powder Springs, so they had the whole family over for steaks and pie. Zara was super excited to celebrate her first Fourth of July. (That's her cousin, Jackson, in the background.) It was fun to spend our last day in Georgia with all of David's family.

I don't why, but this face just cracks me up.

Here's Jackson again. David, as many of you know, has four sisters. Fiona is the oldest, then comes David, Sasha, Lorann, and Kristy. This is Sasha's third child. She's got another one on the way. I hope it's a girl because girls are seriously under-represented amongst the grandkids, much to my father-in-law's disappointment.

This is David's youngest sister, Kristy, with Zara and Jackson.
Here's part of the family relaxing in the new family room.

And here's more of David's family: his older sister Fiona and her husband Jeremy are in the background. And David's third sister, Lorann, and her husband Matt are playing with Zara. Lorann was very pregnant at the time. We missed the birth of her baby boy, Ryan, by about two weeks.

The cousins all had a great time playing with each other. Here are almost all of them (except for Fiona's two oldest who were in Florida with their dad for the summer.) From front to back is Jackson, Ashleigh, Cody, Zara, Nolan, and Makayla.

David's dad playing with Zara (who he calls Zoomy) and Jackson.


We all enjoyed our holiday meal. Afterward, we played cards with David's siblings and their spouses and then said our good-byes. I don't know when we'll get a chance to head out to Atlanta again, but the more time I spend out there, the more I like it.

Atlanta: MLK Historic Site and Oakland Cemetery

After the first exciting leg of our roadtrip, we spent two weeks in Atlanta this summer. The majority of our time was spent hanging out with David's family and helping his parents move into a new house in Powder Springs (a suburb of Atlanta). The moving took quite a bit of our time so we didn't get to visit a lot of Atlanta's attractions, but we did make it out to a few different ones.

Our first stop was the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta. We visited the site the first time I visited Atlanta (for David's sister's wedding in 2007) but we hadn't gotten to explore much of Sweet Auburn or the accompanying sites so I wanted to re-visit it.


After a stop at the NPS museum, we headed across the street to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change which continues the work that MLK started. The center houses a large reflecting pool; in the center is the tomb for MLK and his wife, Coretta.


They also have an eternal flame lighted.

Right next to the King Center is the Ebenezer Baptist Church where both MLK Jr. and his father preached.
On the other side of the King Center, into the Sweet Auburn neighborhood where MLK was born and raised is Fire Station No. 6, which was built in 1894 and was one of the first integrated fire houses in the city. It served the community until 1991 when it became a museum.

They have a fire engine from the 20s (if I remember correctly) and a lot of old gear.

I love old contraptions.
Down the street, across from a row of shotgun houses (which people still live in) is the MLK home. We didn't get a chance to take a tour of the home (since all their tours had filled up for the day) but we visited the gift shop and looked at photographs of the interior of the house.

After our visit to the MLK site, I wanted to check out Oakland Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Atlanta (and one of the oldest historic sites in Atlanta, since it wasn't burned during the Civil War). I knew it was close to Sweet Auburn so we attempted to walk there, but the neighborhood quickly became a bit sketchy and there were train tracks impeding our progress. We hopped back in our car and drove over which was a much better idea since the cemetery is quite large and you can drive through it. It made seeing the graves and tombs much easier.

I've got a thing for old cemeteries, especially Victorian garden cemeteries which really focused on the peace and beauty of nature as a final resting place for those interred there. There are many notable people buried there, including 25 Atlanta mayors, 6 Georgia governors, several prominent Georgia politicians, businessmen, and cultural icons, including Bobby Jones (famous golfer) and Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind).

There's also a large section of Confederate tombs as well. There are around 6,900 soldiers buried there, about 3,000 of whom are unknown.

There's also a large Jewish section, black section, and a Potter's field, which was intended for poor people who couldn't afford a burial site.

But my favorite parts of the cemetery were the lavish mausoleums built for important Atlantan families.

I particularly liked this one built for the Austell family.

Both sites are well worth the visit if you happen to be in the Atlanta area. And you know, the more and more blog posts I do about our road trip, the more and more I think I start to sound like a tour book. Oh well.