atlanta.

During the last few years, David and I have tried to take an overnight trip between Christmas and New Year’s. This year, we were invited to the Campus Outreach New Year’s Conference in Atlanta, so we decided to combine that with our getaway.

We wouldn’t have ever chosen Atlanta on our own, but I’m thankful that the conference motivated us to try something different. I haven’t visited the city since before the kids were born, and had an impression of it as crowded and touristy and full of traffic. It may be those things, but is also a beautiful city with lots with charming spots and amazing food. We were only able to scratch the surface with two nights there, but definitely want to return.

A friend told us we had to hit up Ponce City Market, so we made that our first stop; it’s part open-air mall, part food hall with a few more shops mingled in. David and I love to look for ramen when we travel to big cities, so that’s where we ate lunch. Miso Ko did not disappoint; it was the best we’ve tasted since the ramen we had in NYC three years ago.

We walked both floors of the Food Hall, browsed in West Elm and Williams Sonoma, then sat with a drink to people-watch and to wait to check into our hotel.

 

 

 

 

The hotel for the conference was in a great location downtown; after settling in and taking a nap, we headed back out for dinner before the evening session. We were hoping for bee bim bop, so found a Korean place on Yelp, but it turned out to be closed for New Year’s, so we looked up a nearby Indian restaurant, where we bought chicken tikka masala and aloo gobi to go. Both were delicious.

We’ve heard so many great things about Campus Outreach’s New Year’s Conference for students, and were excited to be invited. I could write a whole separate blog post on our campus ministries at church, but being smack in the middle of a college town, we’ve had several become involved over the years.

The difference with Campus Outreach is that Cola Pres is their regional hub church, which means the Columbia staff are all members of our church, and as an organization they’re accountable to our church leadership. They bring their students here as well (other student ministries allow students and staff to attend different area churches). This has enabled us to build great community with CO, to truly know them and be known by them, and to serve one another (example: the director was my small group leader this fall). They have blessed us as a church more than I can say.

 

 

 

We attended the conference evening session, then a leaders’ session on Thursday morning. David went on to a break-out session that morning, then a couple of meetings, while I took the opportunity to hole up in a blissfully quiet hotel room. I napped, read a novel, sipped Starbucks coffee, and watched a fantastic author interview with Anthony Doerr. I recently finished his new book Cloud Cuckoo Land, and absolutely loved it. Here’s the interview if you’re interested. There are no spoilers but I recommend reading the book first.

It rained most of our stay in Atlanta, but we didn’t let that deter us. After lunch on Thursday, we set out with an umbrella to the Georgia Aquarium, which was just a mile away.

 

 

The Peach Bowl was in Atlanta that night, and we walked right past the hotels where the Pitt and Michigan State teams were staying, as well as seeing lots of fans from both schools out and about in the city.

 

 

Perhaps that’s why the aquarium was packed — or it could’ve been that it was the week after Christmas. I’ve always wanted to go, although I was consumed with guilt over going without our children! It was a perfect date — we marveled at all the varieties of fish and even got to see the dolphin show, which reminded me of growing up near Sea World.

 

 

 

 

Thursday night, we went right back to Ponce City Market to eat incredible fresh-made pasta at Bellina, a restaurant that caught our eye the day before, then on our way out, bought two donuts from Five Daughters Bakery to take back to our hotel. They are the best donuts we’ve ever tasted (yup, even better than Stan’s in Chicago), but it’s probably not a fair comparison, considering they fall much more in the pastry category than the donut category.

We woke up Friday morning and were eager to hit the road to get back home because it was Noah’s birthday!