Land of the free, home of the braves!

Happy (late) 4th everyone!

We had a great time yesterday at Lake Lanier with Jeanie, Wayne, Mari, Holly, Holly's sister Christy, her partner Patty, and Patty's daughter and her boyfriend. Before I go into deets on the 4th, I wanted to show you pictures from the Braves game last Friday, which was my mom's last night in town. There were even fireworks after the game, which we didn't see on the 4th of July, so I have a video for those of you who missed out on fireworks.

 Before the game, we stopped to take some necessary photos (along with lots of other people).

 Turner Field is really huge. We had fun looking at everything on the way to our seats.

 Mari and Holly were able to get us excellent seats on row 24 behind home plate. This was our view.

 I have to say, this is one of the only successful iPhone photos we've ever taken of ourselves.

 We took this of the scoreboard when Chipper Jones was up to bat. He's my brother's favorite player (maybe not, but he did name a hamster after him when we were little).

 Right before the game was over, we moved down to row 10ish to sit with Holly.

Finally, fireworks! The Braves beat the Orioles 2 to 0.

On Saturday and Sunday, Thomas and I made preparations for the 4th by mowing the lawn, shopping, and cooking. It was fun, mostly because it kept our minds off of home. Here are pictures of some of our adventures:

This lovely hat was on sale at Marshalls for $40. 

I bought this beauty for the 4th. I needed a big floppy hat and it fit the bill for only $12!

Thomas cooked this delicious pork loin with sauteed onion and saffron rice on Saturday.

Sunday morning, Thomas woke up early to mow the lawn. The neighbors now surely know we're from Texas.

 While we did weekend chores, Jack slept in a blanket ball with only his toes sticking out.

Sunday night, we decided to make a picnic and go to Piedmont park. This was our view for dinner.

 We packed homemade chicken salad, toasted bread triangles, and black and white cupcakes for dessert.

After dinner we walked over to the dog park, where Jack played nicely with the other dogs. Here's a short video of how we tire him out by throwing his ball down a hill. Note: The pooping at the end was urgent and unplanned. Sorry!

Finally for the 4th! Yesterday we woke up early, I iced my cupcakes, and Thomas made his bruschetta. Mari and Holly picked us up and we headed to Lake Lanier. It's about an hour and 15 minutes away, and there was beautiful weather when we got there. We headed out on the boat where we parked and swam for a couple of hours. The water was perfect and Jack even got kind of used to it. He floated on a blue floaty and wore a patriotic bandanna. After a while we headed back to the neighborhood pool, where Thomas and I swam. Then we headed back to Jeanie and Wayne's house where we ate a delicious Italian dinner.

I have to say, though, the most exciting part of the day was finding out that the woman who did the voice of Ariel in the Little Mermaid as well as Barbie in Toy Story 1-3 and lots of other stuff lives in Jeanie and Wayne's neighborhood. She was a few feet away from us at the pool! I didn't want to disturb her (even though I'm a HUGE fan), so I just watched from a far. I knew I had to blog about that piece of awesome! Now pictures:

Black and white cupcakes with buttercream icing. Basically an excuse for me to use my cute sprinkles.

Jack and I on the ride to the lake.

He was tired before we got there. Sleeping on my floppy hat.

The boys on the boat.

Family photo:D

Jack loves the boat! He just chilled the whole time.

This is Louis, Christy and Patty's papillon. I didn't get a picture of their other dog Isabella, but she was super cute too!

 Jack even got really brave and looked over the edge of the boat while we were moving!

These were some of the mansions on the cliff that overlook the lake.

Here's dinner! It was awesome. Lasagne, spaghetti, Italian beef, French bread, and caprese salad.

So that's our 4th. Hopefully you all had a great one. We'll be updating later this week with some other 4th pictures, a few delicious recipes we've discovered, as well as (hopefully) more info on fixing the house. We did get some leakage last night during a storm, but nothing bad. 

We heard a loud sound this morning at about 7, and Thomas rushed to check because it sounded like another tree falling. Sure enough, our across the street neighbor's had a huge tree split in half, ripping down power lines and possibly doing some damage as it grazed the corner of their house. It wasn't even storming...but the tree had apparently been weakened. Everyone is ok, but we hope all of us can get the necessary work done to fix any damage soon.

This is the house before. The tree that fell is the big one on the left. The house is on the market, but $215,000 is a little out of our price range ;)

Here was our view of the house this morning, completely covered by the tree.

 Here you can see the tree split, the right half on the grey house and the left half fell into their neighbor's backyard.

After the tree was removed, the damage to their roof.

Just now we got to watch the tree get pulled down. It was crazy to watch a huge oak tree almost 100 years old fall. Fortunately there was no one hurt in the fall, and everything should be back to normal soon.

The lesson here: beware of trees!

Check back for more soon!

-T, K, & J