My Week with Louise

Louise arrived in the Atlanta airport the first Friday of September and stayed with us for 10 days. Louise Sharp and I became fast friends when we met in Salt Lake City, Utah 11 years ago. I was there for my first Stampin’ Up! convention, and Louise was there on an incentive trip with other Australian demonstrators. She brought Tim Tam cookies from Australia – she knew how to grab my attention and win me over. Over the years, we hung out with Louise and her husband on various incentive trips – always a good time. I’ve never met her daughter or son in person, but I feel like I know them through Facetime calls with Louise and have watched them grow up from small children.

For the first weekend Louise was here, she helped me with product shares – I really needed to turn those around so I could enjoy time with Louise. She also made some gorgeous tags (see them here) that I included with each of the product shares. What fun!

I have been fortunate to also share a handful of cards Louise made while she was visiting – you can flip through my posts from Today I want to share some other pictures from Louise’s visit to Atlanta, which also took us to Chattanooga, Tennessee and Nashville, Tennessee. I won’t give you all the boring details, but I’m excited to share some highlights I hope you’ll enjoy.

The first weekend Louise was here, we traveled a little bit north to celebrate my niece’s birthday. We enjoyed fried chicken, potato salad and cake in a gorgeous park. What a great opening to her visit!

On Monday, I treated Louise to her first Major League Baseball Game. When I picked out the nosebleed seats, I didn’t know Louise was afraid of heights. We were really high up but stayed through the entire game, despite a loss by the Atlanta Braves.

Here’s a view from our seats:

And a must-have selfie at the end of the night:

While Louise and I were at the game, Jeremiah prepared our Tuesday night feast. I was SO EXCITED to share a traditional Thanksgiving Day meals with Louise. We had turkey, cornbread dressing (my favorite!), green bean casserole, yams, and macaroni & cheese – the whole spread! We invited some friends over and loved sharing that night with Louise.

Wednesday was “Bring Your Aussie Friend to Work Day” at Cox Enterprises – at least that was a thing in my mind. While I worked and sat in meetings on Wednesday, Louise water colored quietly behind me. ♥

On Thursday and Friday, Louise and I enjoyed a Tour of Atlanta. We were go!go!go! those days and had so much fun! We started at the Georgia Aquarium. I volunteered there for several years when the aquarium opened up – I loved being back to see all the big changes.

We could have stood at the wall of the Beluga whales all day – so beautiful!

And we enjoyed the Dolphin Show – we were in the “splash zone” and left without a drop (although we had some close encounters):

The World of Coke is just across the park from the Aquarium – is there a bigger marketing company in all of the world?! We had a lot of fun learning about the history of this Atlanta-based company:

This couch was really cool, but it was WAY low to the ground:

And we were able to taste Coca Cola drinks from around the world – some were great, others (the Beverly) were not.

After all the fun at the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke, we were honored to tour the National Museum for Civil and Human Rights. We grabbed a photo at the front of the museum, but the tour was quite solemn and impactful – no pictures from inside.

After a long day of touring, we decided to treat Louise to another Southern staple – Cracker Barrel. She ended up treating us, but we enjoyed sharing the experience with Louise.

On Friday, Louise and I visited the Atlanta Zoo. I can’t remember the last time I’d been there, but it was a great visit!

Louise really, really wanted to take a trip around the Kids Zone on the train. Always up for a good time, I was willing to oblige. She fit nicely in to the seats – my legs did not love the compact cars.

Even though we live inside the city perimeter, we are often visited by several families of deer. Louise was on a mission to see the deer, but it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how many times she enjoyed her coffee on the back porch (eyeballing the yard for deer), they never showed up for her … until we were packing the card to leave on Saturday afternoon. I was on the porch, and Louise was at the back of the car when a mama deer and her baby showed up. I grabbed this picture to prove it happened (you can see the baby at the pear tree behind Louise). They really came through for us!

Saturday afternoon we traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee (half-way to Louise’s dropoff in Nashville). On the way, we made a monumental stop at Buc-eee’s in Calhoun, Georgia. I don’t have any photos from that stop, but it was SUCH FUN!

Here’s a skyline photo of Chattanooga – we were proud of Louise for closing her eyes and trust-walking up the stairs (remember her fear of heights?) to get this photo:

So…another thing I didn’t know when I planned our trip – Louise is also claustrophobic. Had I known, I certainly wouldn’t have planned a cave tour 1,000+ feet below the surface of the earth. I also didn’t realize I’d have to “duck!” for most of the tour.

At end of the cave walk, was an incredible waterfall (Ruby Falls):

After her visit to Atlanta, Louise’s husband was flying to Nashville to meet up with her on the last part of her U.S. visit. We drove from Chattanooga to Nashville on Sunday morning, walked around Nashville for a bit and went right to the Goo Goo Cluster store. It’s Jeremiah’s favorite candy bar, so we knew we needed to go there.

We enjoyed a barbecue lunch in a honky-tonk on the Nashville strip before delivering Louise to her swanky hotel and beginning our trip back to Atlanta.

We loved having Louise here, and I’m so happy I was able to share so much of my world with her. I’m so grateful to know Louise through this crafting hobby of ours. I’m glad we could have this shared experience – and I’m happy I could share it with you.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brian

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