Staycation 2010

For my birthday this year, Jamie gave me two envelopes to choose from, both were a weekend trip where we would Priceline a hotel and enjoying being in the city. The choices were Nashville and Atlanta and the envelope that I opened turned out to be Nashville. I was excited as I hadn't been there in years and wanted to go back for a visit. We spent the week before we wanted to go trying to get a good deal on a hotel, but nothing was coming up for what we wanted to spend. The point was to do it cheaply so since that wasn't working, we made the decision to switch to Atlanta since there are a ton of hotels and the odds of getting a better deal were good. Plus we wouldn't have to drive very far! (In the end, that was the weekend that Nashville flooded, so it was definitely best that we weren't there for that.)

We were able to pay what we wanted and stayed up near Perimeter Mall. It was so fun to just feel like we were getting away. We ate at Chick-fil-A on Friday night, just like we would have if we were driving out of town. I know that is really cheesy, but when I get excited about eating Chick-fil-A and look forward to it for several days, it is pretty hard to persuade me to eat something else. Since we were staying in the city we live in, I thought this would be a great opportunity to eat at some restaurants that I've wanted to for a long time but have never tried.

We slept in and then got up and went shopping for a bit for some maternity clothes for Jamie, it was the first chance we'd had to do that. For lunch, we headed over to the west side of Atlanta to eat lunch at a place called Muss & Turner's. They have a counter where you order food for lunch and they bring it to your table. For dinner they convert into a full serve restaurant. You can also buy meats and cheeses from their deli to go. It was a really fun place but was pretty expensive for the sandwiches we got. They were both delicious though! I'm glad to have finally tried it out. Since my sister moved to NC, we don't make it over to the Westside much any more, though we do have a few friends still living over there! We did get to stop by and see Jamie's brother while he was at work after that, since it was right around the corner. It was fun to surprise him there for a few minutes.

For dinner we headed to the Highlands area (I guess, it is kind of in the middle of a few areas of town in a warehouse district) to a restaurant called Floataway Cafe. Some friends of mine had given it rave reviews many years ago and I had just never gone, though I'd wanted to. The owners of the restaurant also own Bacchanalia, which is an awesome and very expensive restaurant. Several friends gave us a gift card there for our wedding and it was amazing. We were hoping that the less expensive restaurant would be delicious as well. It definitely did not disappoint. It is back really far off of a road in some warehouses, but was decorated well so that you didn't feel like that's where you were. We had the warm cheese gougères for an appetizer which were little cheese puffed pastries, and they were really fun. For our entrees, I had the wood grilled quail with greens and balsamic and they were amazing. The presentation was great as there were three little quails, leaning back on each other in a row, it looked like they were sitting together. Jamie ordered an awesome wild mushroom pizza with ricotta and garlic oil and it was delicious. The server misled us slightly in that the pizza was much larger than we thought it would be. We ended up eating half and having to take the rest back to the house before going to the hotel again. Naturally I couldn't pass up dessert even though I was so full already, we split a small toffee cake with vanilla ice cream. It was good, but there was so much of the rich toffee sauce on it that it made me rethink whether or not I should have gotten dessert. It didn't keep me from finishing it off though, yum! All in all, we will definitely return. Now that we know how it works, I think we could actually eat there pretty reasonably. There is a small patio out front that I think could be really nice in the early spring or late fall when the bugs aren't out. I'm excited to have finally tried out this little gem of a restaurant and hope to return sometime soon!

I think that is pretty much the weekend, we went to our church on Sunday and then headed back home with the vacation over. When I think back on it, we did drive a lot that weekend, though we stayed around Perimeter, we drove to the Forum (north), the Westside, Tucker (to the east), the Highlands and Decatur (both south). We were all over the place, but it was a really fun adventure and a chance to get away from the everyday busyness of life for a little bit. Thanks for the fun birthday celebration Jamie!