Our summer travels have not ended yet! While the Bakewell beach trip usually marks the last vacation, this year Boomer and I squeezed in one more weekend getaway. On Friday, we went to Atlanta for a fun two days with a Braves game and a Luke Combs' concert. Our plans came about after going to Merlefest in April, and we realized that we had never gone to a concert together. We both have always liked Luke Combs, and it was just too perfect that he was coming to Atlanta during a Braves home stand. Boomer bought tickets for both, while I scoped out hotels and restaurants. We made our way south on Friday for the five hour drive and stopped along the way for a late brunch. We thought we were going to a mom-and-pops diner in Gastonia, but in fact, it was actually a small family owned Mexican restaurant that recently opened in the same location. We had to quickly change our appetites from waffles and pancakes to tacos and rice. Just a funny little travel mishap!
Back on the road, we finished the rest of the drive and arrived in Atlanta around 4PM. We checked into our hotel, which was within walking distance to the ballpark, and then we quickly made our way to the Battery ahead of a pretty scary looking storm. Luckily we beat the rain by just a few minutes, and we enjoyed dinner indoors at Fox Bros., a restaurant we went to back in 2019 at our last Braves game. The storm clouds moved out in time for the first pitch, and it was a beautiful (but also humid!) night for baseball. It was alumni weekend, so before the game, there was a parade of some of the Braves greats, like Dale Murphy, Andruw Jones, and many others. The Braves pulled off an exciting 5-2 win against the Diamondbacks, and there were even Friday night fireworks afterwards. Of course we always pull for the home team with our Kennedy Ballpark Tour, but we especially love our Braves!
On Saturday, we hung around the hotel until around 2PM, and then we made our way into downtown Atlanta. Our hotel was very close to the ballpark, but it was about 20 minutes outside of the city. With some traffic and a little confusion in finding the lot we had purchased a pass for, we were finally parked around 3:15PM. We passed through Olympic Park and then ate dinner at No Mas Cantina. I made a 3:45PM reservation, and even though it seemed early, the restaurant was packed with lots of other people going to the concert. Not five minutes after we were seated at our table, another summer thunderstorm came through. Once again, we had just beat the rain. We enjoyed our dinner while staying nice and dry. Around 5:30PM and once the rain passed, we headed to the concert, which was close-by at the Mercedes Benz arena. Boomer got tickets in the lower level, and they were great seats. Before Luke came on, there were a few opening acts: Morgan Wade, Zack Bryan, and Cody Johnson. Luke came on around 9PM and played a solid two hours. He played all of the songs we love, and we sang along to every single one. Between the game on Friday night and the concert on Saturday, it's surprising we had our voices in the morning!
Today we made the drive back home to Kernersville to our kiddos. While we were away, Emmy and Eli were at Cousin Camp with the Houstons! Both sets of grandparents were not able to watch them, so there was a moment we did not know if the trip to Atlanta would happen. But thank goodness for Aunt Megan and Uncle Zack, they offered to watch our babies. Judging from the photos, they had as much fun as we did. Aunt Megan outfitted her car with the extra car seats and set up the pack-n-play for Eli. On Friday, after donuts for breakfast, she took the cousins to the splash pad. It was a great activity for a hot summer day. The rest of the weekend included pizza, funfetti pancakes, movie night, nerf battles, batting practice in the backyard, and church on Sunday. Both kiddos had big smiles on their faces in all the photos. They sure love Aunt Megan, Uncle Zack, and the cousins!
With August just around the corner, there's always a little bit of sadness when my two favorite months are over. There are so many great things about the fall: football, birthdays, cooler weather. But there's something about summer that makes it hard to see it end. Here's hoping we can soak up as much as we can out of these last summer days!
