anniversary date: atlanta botanical gardens surprise!

Hey friends! Well, I'm excited to share our loverly anniversary date with you! This past Saturday, September 24th was our 5th wedding anniversary. We've been together for about seven years, but got married about two years after we started dating. There are some great pictures of us when we were dating and some from our wedding here. My husband successfully hid a surprise from me for probably one of the first times ever (except my 31st birthday party, though I had a hunch about that... sorry hunny). Ya know it's really better to not try to figure things out, life's a lot more fun that way...

Anywho, we got Noah and Shiloh dropped off at Grandma's new house and Dakota spent the day with our neighbor whose grandson he is good friends with - they were having a Christmas celebration for a friend of theirs who is being deployed to Iraq for a year and just had a baby and invited Dakota along for the fun.

We hit the Starbucks for coffee and a sandwich before heading downtown to - SURPRISE - the Atlanta Botanical Garden. We've been trying to get down there to the gardens for so long, it was just wonderful to be able to visit with my man. :) Simultaneously, Music Midtown (where I found out later COLDPLAY was headlining - ARRRGGGGH) was at Piedmont Park which backs up to the Garden... so we had all that music in the background (The Joy Formidable) while we were looking around.

We had a wonderful visit. They have an orchid conservatory center which was fascinating, a canopy walk through native woodland forest and an edible garden. However, my favorite garden was the perennial garden - it was beautifully whimsical and disorganized, exactly how I like my garden.  :) And to top it off, everything grows back each Spring. :)

Later that evening we made our way over to Virginia Highlands to look around at some of the shops and eat dinner at Murphy's. I used to hang out in this area a lot and work at Murphy's back in the day (about 12 - 13 years ago), and it has been around a LOT longer than that! Even after working there, I still love it, I still love going back there, and I still think it's one of the BEST places to eat in Atlanta. Their wine selection is immense.

Jason and I had a drink while waiting for our table... I "accidentally" ordered a $12 glass of wine!! It was Obsidian Ridge Cabernet... and was totally worth it, but geez, $10 is my limit on a BOTTLE of red wine these days. And that's even a decent bottle to me! Oh well. We are so broke right now, spending that much I thought I was going to have a coronary. But thankfully Grandma paid for dinner, she's the only reason we even went to Murphy's! Sheesh...

Dinner was great... had a salad with goat cheese and champagne vinaigrette, Jason had his favorite food - a burger - and I had beef brisket with horseradish mashed potatoes... WOOHOO! It was uh-mazing. The brisket was melt in your mouth and the taters were to die for. We passed on dessert because of the $12 glass of wine, though we'd parked in front of Paolo's Gelato... I am not sure now at this moment I am writing this why I would EVER pass up Paolo's! Especially since we parked right in front - and THAT never happens in the Highlands! Sigh. Must have been the wine... Lord help me.

That's all friends... we had a lovely and memorable evening :). Thanks for sharing in our day! <3

Bye y'all!

Brooke