my valentine

My beautiful sister, Emilee, flew all the way to Georgia to be my valentine. We had such a perfect weekend together.

We spent it:

1)Relieved that her flight landed--the Atlanta airport cancelled 12,000 flights due to unexpected snow fall. Although it took us double the time to drive there and it affected some of our plans, we were so happy to pick up Emilee safe and sound.

2) Not hiking--we planned to hike up Stone Mountain, but it was closed to hikers due to a sheet of ice covering the entire mountain, instead we observed the mountain, looked at the Museum and Josh gave us a history lesson on the civil war.

3) Eating a real southern breakfast. Friday night we planned to go to the Atlanta Ballet but because of the snow we ended up watching the Olympics by the fire at the Findlays. Saturday morning we woke up to a perfectly made breakfast by Josh's mother; biscuits and gravy with cheese grits.

4) In beautiful Madison--I think I've taken almost every single visitor we've had to Madison. It is a beautiful historic Southern town. One of the few that wasn't burned to the ground during the Civil war.

5) Andy Worhol--In the Madison Cultural Events Center they had a wonderful exhibit of about 40 pieces by Andy Worhol. I love Andy Worhol and when I read about the exhibit in Southern Living Magazine, I knew that I'd be taking sweet Emilee with me when she came.

6) Botiquing--I don't think that is a word, but that is what we did her last few hours in Georgia. We walked around downtown Athens window shopping at the adorable clothing boutiques. We also toured the beautiful and historic North Campus.

7) Valentines day in the Kitchen-- We didn't originally plan it to be this way, but we spent Sunday at church, then exchanging valentines then the next 5 hours cooking our Valentines Dinner Feast and Baking cookies. Emilee and I baked 3 batches of sugar cookies and afterwards spent several hours frosting and decorating while Josh spent several hours eating them :). Emilee and I had a lot of fun trying to be domestic.

8) Eating-- We took Emilee to Mama's Boy, one of our favorite southern restaurants where Emilee tried fried green tomatoes, fried catfish, sweet potato soufflé and okra among several other southern dishes. We also went to our favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Spoon....yum.

9) Pillow talking--my favorite part of having Emilee here was just talking and spending time with her. Emilee and I haven't had girl time in SOO long. Each night we stayed up late giggling and talking in bed. Josh so generously slept on the couch Saturday night. Sunday night I missed having him close so we all slept in the same bed, my sweet sister on my left and my sweet husband on the right.. I wish I could sleep like that every night, we had so much fun.

10) Converting--I think we successfully converted Emilee to all of the Southern ways, from Josh giving Emilee a Georgia Bulldogs shirt for Valentines Day, to feeding her every fried food imagined in a quick 64 hours, I think Emilee left with a twang  and may have said Ya'll once or twice.

Please visit again soon Emilee.  I miss you already.  Here are a few of the pictures that Josh took while Emilee was here.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures Emilee's last day.  I will post a few more when I get them from Emilee.