Staycation

Oh, how I had been looking forward to this past weekend. And it did not disappoint.

On Thursday afternoon, after the Barney extravaganza, lunch, and packing the car, Elsa, Jarrett, and I hit the road, headed for Greenville, SC. Unfortunately, my parents were stuck in a horrendous traffic jam coming from Charlotte, caused by a paving project, so we ended up driving on another 30 minutes or so and met them in Spartanburg, SC. We had dinner together, and then transferred Elsa's car seat and belongings into my parents' car. From there, they took her back to their house for the long weekend.

In our planning for the weekend, Jarrett and I originally contemplated going to Savannah or somewhere in the Asheville area, but in the end Jarrett had the idea that we just turn around after the Elsa exchange and drive back home. Brilliant. A staycation.

It took us a bit longer to drive back home, so we arrived fairly late. We watched a little television and then headed to bed. On Friday morning, we headed to the OK Cafe for breakfast. Jarrett had been there once with Tim, but I had never been, and I was pleasantly surprised. Jarrett had blueberry buttermilk pancakes and a side of country sausage, and I had an omelet with avocado, tomato, jack cheese, sprouts, and sour cream, which came with a side of home fries. It was delicious.

From there, we went to the Atlanta History Center, as I was given a free family pass for being part of a museum research panel and wanted to make sure we used it before its expiration. That, and neither of us had ever visited in the past. Both of us were blown away. I think we each had fairly low expectations, but ended up being wowed by the exhibits. The special Civil War exhibit was really great, but the permanent Civil War exhibit was even better -- extremely detailed and really well appointed. The exhibit on the history of Atlanta was really fabulous as well. We were told to expect to spend three hours there, which we allowed in our schedule, but it was not nearly long enough. After going through the special exhibit, breezing through a couple of the others, and then touring the two houses on the property, it was time for lunch.

We left and headed to Antico Pizza, where I had predetermined I was going to completely blow my gluten-free diet. I had asked my chiropractor/kinesiologist about cheating, since I am especially concerned with being pregnant, and she told me this would be the absolutely worst time to cheat, and that it would set my body back about four or five months. To get a second opinion, I emailed our family doctor a couple of weeks ago to ask the same question. Because both of my doctors have gone gluten-free for the same reasons I have, I like to get both of their opinions on matters relating to it. As of Thursday, I had not heard back from Dr. Owen, so I finally gave the office a call, and much to my surprise, Dr. Owen answered the phone. I mentioned the email I had sent and said I was sure she was probably busy and just did not have a chance to respond. But she immediately knew exactly what email I was talking about, that it had to do with eating pizza, and said she had written me back. For some reason, I never received that email. But she told me -- "Go eat your pizza and enjoy it!" I mentioned what Dr. J had told me about it being the worst possible time to cheat, and she just said to take everything with a grain of salt -- that cheating one time was not going to kill me or threaten the pregnancy, and that she herself cheated from time to time (but then usually waited at least a month to do it again because she starts itching like crazy a day or two later). So I decided right then and there that I was going to indeed enjoy my pizza. And enjoy it I did. The pizza at Antico is amazing. Prior to eating it, a New York establishment rated number one for me -- Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Brooklyn. Antico's pizza is just slightly different, but just as good -- if not better. I highly recommend going there if you have not already. But after our breakfast and stuffing ourselves with pizza and a few bites of their (also amazing) cannoli, we definitely felt gorged. My goodness, it was so, so worth it, though.

After the incredible lunch, we decided to head back to the History Center to go through a few more of the exhibits. We just did not feel like we had done it justice. Going back was a good idea, as after we had gone through a couple of portions of the museum more slowly, we felt like we really did it right. Once we left there, we made our way to Atlantic Station, where we visited the Bodies exhibit. The exhibit itself was smaller than either Jarrett or I had anticipated, which was a bit disappointing considering the admission price, but in the end we decided it was worth the money. It was really incredible (and at times just a little gross) to be able to study the human body and all its nerves, muscles, bones, and organs up close. And the most amazing portion of the exhibit for me was the only section they warn you about going into, as it includes babies in their embryonic stages. To see the difference just a week makes in pregnancy, from eight to nine weeks, was enough for me to pay the admission fee. It was unreal to see, at eight weeks gestation, a little, tiny blob, with barely-there nubs that I assume were arms, to a nine-week little person, complete with an obvious head, eyes, arms -- wow. After going through the exhibit, since neither of us had ever even been to Atlantic Station, and because we had a fair amount of time to kill before our dinner reservation, we strolled around, popped into a few of the shops, and did some awesome people watching. It was fun to just relax on a bench alone together and chat and laugh.

For dinner, we went to JCT. Kitchen and Bar, which turned out to be really nice. I wouldn't say it blew either of us away, but each of us had really outstanding salads as our first course, and our main dishes were really pretty good too. Jarrett had the house-made pork sausage “rope,” served atop caramelized onion and fennel, buttered potato puree, and pork jus. I had their "meat and potatoes" dish -- a hanger steak, served with preserved tomato and farm stand onion butter and fries. Really, it was one of the best hanger steaks I have ever had, so I could certainly not complain. I also had an awesome non-alcoholic mojito. Yummy. We passed on dessert since we had shoved so much food into one day and were completely stuffed.

I did not sleep in much at all during our long weekend, but it was still nice to wake up and know that I did not immediately have to get to work, caring for Elsa. It was lovely to just slowly glide into the morning and laze around a bit. Unfortunately, very early Saturday morning (what I would still consider to be night), my stomach really started hurting, and I ended up getting a little sick to my stomach. My body certainly was not happy with me, either for eating gluten or for just generally gorging myself on too much rich food. After some Tums and dealing with the stomachaches for awhile, I was finally able to fall back to sleep and did not seem to have much trouble the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday morning, we went to Rosebud for breakfast, where I had a wild mushroom frittata with salad greens, and Jarrett had biscuits and gravy with a side of brunch potatoes. We were both very pleased, and savored it all over our delicious cups of decaf coffee. After breakfast, we strolled around the Morningside Farmer's Market, which was taking place right beside the restaurant, and a local wine shop, and then decided to head back home for a bit, where we were total gluttons and just climbed back into bed for a mid-morning nap. Jarrett woke up completely refreshed and energized, whereas I was groggy, but we headed off to Oakland Cemetery for an afternoon walking tour. The cemetery itself is really beautiful, especially now when all of the plants and trees are in full bloom. It is definitely more than just a collection of graves, and is really just a huge, beautiful park that would be great for strolling around on any nice day. The walking tour just made it that more interesting, pointing out the sites of famous people and adding stories to some of the tremendous monuments and the people of which they stand in remembrance. It was the perfect thing to do on a nice, sunny Saturday afternoon.

We decided to skip lunch after all the food the day before, so after the tour we went to the mall, where we caught a matinee showing of Your Highness, and we enjoyed some popcorn and a drink during the movie. It was not quite as funny as we were hoping, though we did still laugh aloud several times. And if you are not good with dirty humor, you probably want to avoid this one. Movies are such a special treat these days, it seems. Once the movie ended, we just took some time to stroll around the mall, do a little shopping, and just generally enjoy the time alone together. And then it all just flowed smoothly into our dinner reservation at Empire State South, a restaurant I now highly recommend. The food and the service were outstanding, as were Jarrett's cocktails (which I taste-tested) and my housemade lemonade. We started with a charcuterie plate, which pushed my limits just a bit with pate and some sort of terrine made up of strange parts, I am sure. Everything on the plate was delicious, though -- there was a sausage and some country ham that was to die for. I had a salad as my first course, which was tasty, but Jarrett definitely chose more wisely with his wild ramps with warm mortadella, english peas, and lemon. It was, by far, the best dish of the night. Yum! For our main dishes, I had red fish with dashi butter, atop some sort of green onion rice grits and mushrooms. It was really, really tasty. And Jarrett had the pork loin with pickled tango celery, baby kale, fiddlehead ferns, and spring onions, which was also delicious. For dessert, we shared a chai tea chocolate terrine with lavender candied pistachio and mandarin marmalade. It was our least favorite part of the meal, but paired with two steaming cups of really good decaf, it still made a nice end to dinner.

Sunday morning we woke up slowly and made our way to Watershed for brunch. We'd both been to their brunch several times in the past, so we knew to expect goodness, but we were still surprised by just how good it was. We started out with fresh stawberries with just a tiny amount of Grand Marnier and whipped cream. Ummm... delicious. And then I had yet another omelet, this one with tomato, spinach and goat cheese, which came with a side of the best salad greens and roasted potatoes. Jarrett had biscuits and gravy again just because he knew how good theirs were. Even though I could not try them because of the gluten, it was enough just to see the smile on his face as he ate them.

We did not have much planned for Sunday except for meeting my parents again to pick Elsa back up, but we had some free time and decided to go out to Stone Mountain to renew our annual parking pass and take a hike up the mountain. It was a great day for it, and it was nice to throw some exercise in among all of the foodiness and cultural events our weekend provided. We still got done with our hike somewhat early, but decided to head to Greenville anyway and maybe take a gander at their downtown before meeting my parents and Elsa for an early dinner. As we neared Greenville, we found out that my parents had left early too and were killing time at a rest area about an hour outside of the city. So we drove around the downtown area some (which was cute -- a possible future destination), and then drove on to the restaurant.

Elsa looked especially cute when we saw her, in pigtails with a big smile on her face. It sounded like she had a really fun weekend with her grandparents. They went to a ranch where they saw lots of animals on a drive-through wagon ride and played on a playground, went out to a lot of meals, and just generally had fun playing together. Her Uncle Billy even took her out on Saturday afternoon, and they made a visit to the police station and then went out for ice cream. So she had a full, fun weekend and was very loved. We could not have asked for a better time all the way around. And if you are contemplating a staycation in your future, I highly recommend it!

At the playground on the ranch

Riding with Uncle Billy

Tuckered out

Ice cream with Uncle Billy