Cross That Baby Off – A Weekend in Atlanta

* Spend a Weekend in Atlanta

Man, am I thrilled to cross something off of my list. We came ThisClose to not going, honestly. After I’d been on death’s door (but still working my ass off, as I do), I debated the sanity of driving three hours with three people who were recovering from being on Death’s Door and then forcing all of them to run a 5K.

HA HA, SUCKERS. I MADE THEM GO.

Thursday was INSANE at work, seriously, smacking me boldly across the left cheek and then honking my right boob, as no one says. I think that’s gonna catch on, though. JUST GIVE IT TIME. Anyway, because life is funny this way, after work was a total wench, Life also threw a big ole nasty wrench our way.

We looked at eachother and debated calling off the trip.

Then I was all, “NO, WE SHALL PERSEVERE.”

We stopped in for me to do a quick voiceover on our way out of town (woot woot!) and then we were on our way. Everyone was in a great mood, Jack was engrossed in Divergent, Tony was .. being Tony, and when we good to go.

THEN THE TRAFFIC.

What is typically a three hour drive s-l-o-w-l-y became a six and a half hour trip.

Bryan, who is from Atlanta, was gobsmacked. He knew all the backroads, though, so we took a backroad route. HEY GUESS WHAT EVERYONE TRIES THAT TOO, we realized as we sat in more gridlock traffic. Suddenly, we were both hit with the realization that this is exactly what The Walking Dead looked like in the beginning ..

We FINALLY got to Bryan’s parents’ house. Late for dinner, but still. We arrived. Bryan’s sister and her husband joined us and we had a lovely evening. The boys bunked down in their room, which soon became overrun with giggles and belly laughs (isn’t that the BEST?), and we passed out in our bed, but not before Bryan gifted me with a special something he had picked up for me at a rest stop. Because he’s just classy that way, and I’m worth $0.75.

Saturday morning at ass-crack of dawn, I got three sleepy boys up and pinned numbers to their chests. They looked very stately, dressed from head to toe in white.

LET’S GET COLORFUL!

We were four of 10,000 runners in The Color Run 2012, and MY GOD THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE. And I was a little naive to think that the little boy who hates getting his hands wet or dirty would ENJOY being doused with color. So after the first color station, Tony declared himself Done With This Here Race. And while I typically bow out and let the boys continue on, I was kind of like, No. So I asked Bryan to take Tony off the course. I asked Jack what he wanted to do, and he wanted to continue on. So off we went.

We ran where we could, but 10K peeps is a lot of peeps and the City of Atlanta only granted us one lane on a street to use. Needless to say, there was not a lot of room to run. But when you’re in the business of Being Colorful, speed is not an objective you care about.

We had a blast, and Jack was SO PROUD of himself for finishing the race. (I was proud of him too!) This is probably my favorite picture of all, because it always makes “One of these things is not like the others..” start playing in my head.

Tony literally would not even hold our hands once we were dirty. He gave us the side-eyes, like we were contagious lepers.

After the race, we drove the 1.5 hour back and Jack used all the hot water in the south end of Stockbridge to wash off. I know this for a fact because I myself took an ICE COLD SHOWER and managed to get exactly NONE of the color off in the process. Then we took another 45 minute drive to the original Chick-Fil-A, which is cool because they have a waitstaff to bring you your #3. Also an itty bitty door.

Then we came back and some hot water had been restored to Stockbridge and MY GOD IT WAS THE BEST SHOWER SINCE THE SHOWER I TOOK AFTER HAVING A BABY. Seriously, post-race showers are THE BEST. I am still sighing deeply thinking about that shower. A quick dinner brought the THUNDA that is Trivial Pursuit.

Although I am a smart cookie, this particular version was released in 1981, so my usual strengths (Art & Literature, Pop Culture, Entertainment) were a little lackluster. Mostly because I was one year old when it was released. Nevertheless, my husband is a trivia whiz and we easily beat the pants off of the other team.

TAKE THAT, JACK AND GRANDDADDY. (It was totally an unfair fight.)

All in all, the weekend was fun and easy and with the exception of traffic forcing us to be in a car for HOURS more than we had planned, it was awesome to get away. We all needed new air and Sunday morning – I can’t believe I forgot to mention this – I GOT TO SLEEP IN. And I woke to a huge breakfast cooked by Grandmomma and everything was amazing and I thought, This is why we travel.

I shall leave you with the scary-ass figurine that watched over us we slept. I have named it Why So Serious, Kitty?