Ashley’s Birthday, A Success!

Thought I’d steal Ashley’s post title from the one she used for my birthday, she’s so dramatic! hehehe

So, we did have a lot of fun on my huney’s birthday.  She was worried I didn’t have anything planned but hey come on, that’s  what I do all day.  Here’s some pics of the weekend.  It wasn’t all part of the birthday plan but it was all really nice.

Friday night we saw Batman, the Dark Knight.  Good movie but Ash thought it was too violent and bloody.  Guess she forgot it was Batman.

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Saturday morning (the day before her birthday) we woke up early and volunteered at the local Meals on Wheels organization. Ashley has been doing a lot of volunteer work lately, I really admire what she’s doing and today I finally got to come along.  So this morning, we delivered boxed food for many seniors in the northwest Atlanta region.  Armed witha crumpled map, bad directions, music and a car load of boxed food we set out to help out.
Ashley Volunteering for Meals on Wheels

That night, we had some great Korean food per recommendation from a local foodie.  The restaurant was call Book Chang Dong, in Duluth, GA.

Spicy seafood and tofu soup which was sizzling as it came out!
Korean Food

Korean Short Ribs.
Korean Short Ribs

And a dish I now forget what it was called…
Korean Food

Sunday morning, we woke up early again and set out to do some hiking in Tullulah Gorge in northern Georgia.  Tullulah Gorge, is only about 1.5 hours drive north of Atlanta and was a fantastic hike per recommendation of another friend.  We only hiked for about 2.5 hours but we climbed a good many stairs up and down the side of the gorge for a solid stair master work out.  The views were great, including water falls, swinging bridges and rivers all against the lush Georgia backdrop.

Here are some of my pics:
Talllulah Gorge

Talllulah Gorge

Talllulah Gorge

Sunflower

Later that afternoon, post our PB&J snack break we set out for the nearby town of Helen. What a strange place! The whole town was modeled after Bavaria except no one there was remotely German. It was like Disney Epcot Center, Americans with southern accents dressed up in lederhosen! Whacked out but still entertaining and we got a really fantastic Reuben Sandwhich from the “Old Bavaria Inn”.

Helen, Georgia

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Rueben Sandwhich

We went tubing on the Chattahoochee River which ran right through the town of Helen, creating it’s main attraction aside from a fake German town. Tubing was awesome, though at times it was lots of work with Ash telling me every five minutes to watch out for the rocks! She’s so cute even when she causes trouble to me.

Helen, Georgia

Tubing on the Chatahoochee

Helen was only an hour and a half away from Atlanta so the drive was pretty quick. We ended the wonderful weekend with Ashley’s birthday cake and a rare singing from me.  Happy Birthday Ash!

Ashley's Birthday Cake

life’s more fun together

Yup, that’s our family motto.  Happy anniversary to us!  Ashley and I woke up early today to watch the sunrise over some hot chocolate and coffee.
Ashley and Ray

Since this is our first anniversary, we decided on a yearly tradition that would be meaningful, fun and something we could do regardless of where we were.  We’d wake up a dawn to watch the sunrise.  Have a lite simple dinner out, bake a cake together and watch our wedding video. 🙂

More Room & A New Look

To celebrate our 1 year anniversary on a very geeky level:

  1. I increased the width of the blog by 100 pixels, creating more room for larger pictures and taking advantage of the ubiquitous 1024 resolution. Another great reason for increasing the width of the middle column is now I can post pictures directly from flickr, thereby reducing the need to edit photos and upload them on wordpress.
  2. I also fixed the annoying formatting issue with the “Category” in the post heading area. whoohoo!
  3. And I changed out the call out module to Atlanta, times have changed
  4. I am doing this of course for the throngs of readers out there… Actually there is only one super fan and her name is Ashley. 🙂

Here’s a picture of the new look:

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Concerts & Tang

It’s been a nice start to the summer. Ashley and I seem to have gone concert crazy in the past months.

Just recently we went to two concerts, Lifehouse and Colbie Caillat. We played Lifehouse’s You and Me song at our wedding so it was nice seeing them live. We didn’t get there early enough and were stuck at the back so the view was not as good but we bumped into my co-workers from Sapient Suyog and Anu.

lifehouse.jpg

Ashley likes Colbie Caillat’s songs a lot and although I thought it was going to be horrible with teeny boppers all over the place it turned out ok. There was teeny boppers all over but we got up close to the stage, I got some really great shots of her and the music was really nice and soothing.

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Earlier this summar, we saw Stephen Marley at the Center Stage in Midtown thanks to Kirk who told me about it. Stephen was awesome, sounded just like Bob Marley. Then Arang visited earlier in June and we went to the Masquerade to see a few Punk Rock bands, one called the Bastard Suns. The venue was awesome a old factory. The crowd was definitely rowdy, I got punched in the back as I was right in front of the mosh pit. We had a great time though and it was very nice chilling with Tang.

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