10-17-17  breakfast with our overnight guests and off to Atl Botanical Gardens with Angie:

Ken's brother Rick and his wife, Sue, made it here about 6 pm last night.  Just in time to meet up with Angie and Josh at Universal Joint for dinner.  Dinner and visiting was great.  Until we  went to drive away.  Ken noticed the side mirror was bent in, but didn't think too much about it.  He fixed it and we started to leave when a lady came over waving her arms.  Turned out she had backed into our car and left about a 5" long shallow dent in the drivers door.  We were in the 2009 Taurus instead of our new Edge only because Rick and Sue had parked behind the Edge.  Glad they did! She wants to pay to have it fixed and had someone she recommended.

 (We did take the car to the guy she recommended.  He said it would be over $350 and suggested having a paintless dent removal person look at it since he said the pearl paint is hard to match.  So we took it to a PDR place and was told because of where the dent is, he couldn't fix it.  Ultimately we called the gal back and thanked her for staying and telling us about the dent and we weren't going to have it fixed.  We suggested that if she wanted, she could make a donation to her favorite charity in whatever amount she wants.  Nice to know there are still people out there who take responsibility for their actions!  If it was our new car, it would be a different outcome, but fortunately we were in our 2009 Taurus that night).

Anyway----
Today we headed to Sugarhill Diner for breakfast with Rick and Sue.  They still had a 10 hour trip to get back to their place in Washington, Mo., so we visited over breakfast, then they took off from there.

 I took off shortly after that to play an hour of pickleball, then over to Angie's to head to South of Atlanta with her.  She won an auction for a piece of furniture and had to go there to pick it up.  Only problem was---the "buffet" was too large to fit into her Explorer!  (So she rented a van the next day and Ken went with her to pick it up.)

8-30-17  Atlanta Botanical Garden:

Most people don't look forward to driving into Atlanta, but I don't mind having an excuse to go there.  So when Angie made flight arrangements for a Wed. afternoon, I volunteered to take her to the airport.  The Atlanta Botanical gardens happens to be pretty close to the airport.  Makes a nice diversion on the way back from dropping people off at the airport.   So we dropped her off at about 11am and headed to the gardens.  Always a nice place to take a walk---especially since my Missouri Botanical Gardens membership gets me in free here, too.
It was quite lush.  The late summer flowers were blooming.

6-2-17  Atlanta Botanical Gardens-Curious Garden

  
Today Ken and I took Angie and Josh to the ATL airport.  They were escaping to S. Florida for a few days.  Lucky them---oh, yeah---we were just there, too!  Anyway, their flight was at 3:15, so we left Suwanee at 1pm.   Now that the highway is open again, it's faster to drive through the city then to bypass it on 285.  So that's what we did.

Sure wish people we heed this!!!!   Between all the anti-Trumpers and the international terrorist attacks that seem to be going on monthly now, people are crazy!

5-1-17 night at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens with Angie:

When Angie asked if I wanted to go to the Botanical gardens with her for a book signing, I eagerly said yes!
Much to our surprise, when we got there, we found out there was a new exhibit getting ready to open.  We also found out they are closed on Mondays, which it is today.  So we left and got some dinner, then came back for the book signing.

We got back to the gardens about an hour before the book signing, so we were able to wander around the gardens for awhile.  Even though they were officially closed, they opened up about an hour before the book signing and let people wander all through the gardens.
This is from the new section called something like city view.  Only with all the trees leafed out, you didn't see much city.

3-25-17  Since going and seeing all the daffodils at Gibbs Garden, I've been wanting to get up to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and see what's blooming there.  So when Angie asked if we wanted to go there with her and Josh today, I said YES!  Ken even agreed to go!  She also said there was a Cuban food truck that would be near the garden--- in Piedmont Park---and they wanted to go there for lunch.  Double Yes!!

 Spring has sprung!  Tulips were pretty much in full bloom.  They were so beautiful!  I like that they come in so many colors.

 Josh and his new friend.

Oct. 19, 2016---Atlanta Botanical Gardens-Chihuly day and night:

Every since we moved here I've seen advertisements for Chihuly in the Garden and have been anxious to get to the Atlanta Botanical Garden before the exhibit leaves.  My MOBOT (Missouri Botanical Gardens) even gets me and guest into it free---at least in the daytime.  That's a savings of $21.95@.  Angie wanted to go, too, so we agreed we were going----before Oct. 31st when the exhibit left.  Time was running out!  So we finally decided to pick a date and go see it in the afternoon, go to dinner, then go back for Chihuly Nights (unfortunately they don't have reciprocal entrance for that).

The day finally came!  So I picked her up at 1pm and we were on our way downtown to where the Atlanta Botanical Garden is.  Surprisingly, traffic was moving and we made it there in about 30 minutes.   Had to pay for parking (goes by the half hour or hour, so ended up paying $7 for about 3 1/2 hours).  We were expecting it to be crowded at night, so bought our tickets to come back when we got our free entrance for the daytime hours.

The horticulture team here worked with the Chihuly team on a color scheme.  Then six 53' containers full of Chihuly glass were shipped to the garden.  The thousands of elements were installed over a 2 week period.   The other time Chihuly had an exhibit here was 12 years ago when the garden was half the size it is now.  I'm thinking the garden has almost doubled since I was last here!

 There happened to be a scarecrow exhibit going on right now, too.  Some pretty interesting "scarecrows"!