5th Celebration

Brad and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by spending an extended weekend away together in Atlanta, Georgia. We stayed in the Beverly Hills Inn Bed and Breakfast, where we enjoyed a glass of wine in a bubble bath every night of the mini-vacation. Ahhh...

Since we've been married for half a decade now, and we're both officially in our upper twenties, we had to be all mature and sophisticated in our anniversary celebration. Our high class evening began with a fancy dinner at the Antica Posta Tuscan Restaurant, which was recommended to us by one of my coworkers. It really was fabulous, but we could hardly decide what to order since the menu was primarily in Italian. We shared an octopus salad (!) appetizer, before Brad savored some gnocchi and I relished some bow tie pasta with crab meat. Talk about yum! And then they surprised us with a Happy Anniversary dessert. We couldn't figure out if they charged us for it or not, but it was delicious, either way!

To continue with our sophistication, we took our 5-year-old marriage and our formal-for-us attire to the symphony! This was one of Brad's surprises, and I was so super excited. Brad was a band geek his whole life, but I've never been nearly cultured enough to frequent such "finer things." It really was pretty incredible... For a little bit... Then Brad and I realized that this was way too high class for us (after he accused me of falling asleep, even though we both know that I was just "envisioning the music set to a cartoon like in Fantasia in my mind."), and we snuck out during intermission.

So what if we can't can't decipher an Italian menu or quite appreciate the aspects of high society or comfortably breathe in that dress? We're still Brad and Mindy Mehaffey, and we still rock in our own layman type of way. It was really nice to mark such a special occasion with such special events that we'll always remember. But the rest of the weekend happened a little more Mehaffey style.

We spent plenty of time walking around downtown Atlanta and working our way through the public transportation. We were able to see some of Atlanta's finest features, including the Disco Kroger. (Uh, huh??)

We spent one afternoon at the Coke Museum, or what they call themselves, The World of Coca-Cola. Did you  know that Coke was invented in Atlanta? Don't worry, they'd be more than happy to tell you all about it. And we were more than happy to learn!

One of the first treats the Coke Museum had was a real life (aka, man in a suit) polar bear just to offer great photo ops! Seriously, I love cheesy photo ops. And I loved this one even more, because that polar bear reminded both of us so much of our very own little Chester! For real, this guy was legit. He could open, close, and move his eyes, move each finger/claw individually, and open and close his mouth. I'm not kidding, when he smiled, he looked just like our precious puppy. I wish we could have taken a video of him, because he seriously could communicate with people, and you could totally tell that he was so happy! He must have known that it was our wedding anniversary, however, because he did not propose to me like he did the girl before us. Maybe Brad was just way too intimidating.

The rest of the museum was awesome, too. They taught you about the origin of the soft drink, as well as the "most recognized logo in the world," let you walk through a bottling process, displayed Coke memorabilia, aired all of the Coca Cola commercials, had interactive exhibits allowing you to draw your own Coke art, presented a 4-D movie searching for the "secret formula," and so much more. It really was quite fun.

Probably, the most memorable portion of the tour was also the last - the tasting station. They had over 60 different fountain drinks provided by Coke from all around the world. Let me tell you, everything outside of the USA was dis-gust-ing! Blegch! Brad and I had a pretty good system going where we would each put a beverage in our cup, taste it, then swap. We literally sampled every flavor, and didn't find a single one that was even decent. Thankfully, there was a final USA Coke room that just offered all of the different Coke products we know and love here. Ahh, it felt good to be home again.

Saturday morning, we really got back to our roots by going to Six Flags White Water. (Theme parks are our bread and butter.) We met our friend, Kris, there, who currently lives across the street from us but is from Atlanta and was in town the same weekend for his wife's family baby shower. Anyway, Kris and his brothers were skipping the shower to go to the water park, and we tagged along. He has a waterproof camera (how cool is that??), and was able to get some pretty great action shots on some of the best water slides. We had so much fun, and I'm proud to say that we did not get roasted, thanks to the gallons of sunscreen we applied rigorously throughout the day. These pale complexions have learned their lessons.

After the fun in the sun, we joined Kris and Emily and their families at Stone Mountain. Have you ever heard of this place? Me either, but it was way awesome! It's basically exactly what it sounds like, a big giant mountain of stone. But they have a whole little village thing going on, kind of like Gatlinburg. It's totally a tourist trap, but since I am the target market, I eat it all right up. There were lots of shops, putt-putt courses, ropes courses, hotels, lodges, and camp sites.

Sadly, we were only there long enough to enjoy one aspect of the mountain. Happily, it was the best part! The Laser Show!! Once night falls, they do this whole laser show on the face of the mountain intertwined with a fireworks display all set to great music. Most of it was dedicated to Atlanta, Georgia, or other Southern states (Sweet Home Alabama). They basically made an entire music video narrating The Devil Went Down to Georgia, and it was fantastic. Brad and I were like little kids on our big quilt enjoying the great show.

Oh, speaking of being little kids, Brad couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy some cotton candy as a tribute to the tons and tons of it we consumed on our honeymoon. Only then it was called Candy Floss, because we were in Canada (Niagara Falls), and it was a little more rebellious to eat it for dinner every night, because we were very brand new adults. The memory was great to relive, exactly five years later.

Can you believe we've been married for five years?? I know I can't. Either I think we just got married last month, or that we've been married our whole lives. But either way, definitely not five years.

I can't believe how far we've come and all that we've been through in such a short period of time. We still have so far to go and so much to do together. Thank goodness we have the next 60 years to do it all side by side. We truly are blessed to have each other. I pray that we never forget that.

Complete Anniversary Trip Photo Album