Atlanta Trip

For the last week of April, I took the week off as vacation.  On Tuesday and Wednesday, I took my USMLE Step 3 Exam (yes it is a 2 day test...as in 8 hour days).  Woohoo!!  I'm done with USMLE forever...well, that's as long as I passed (don't have my scores yet).  I wish I could say that was it for board exams, but I have the Dermatology board exam to look forward to, and then re-cert. is required every 10 years.  Oh well, I'll enjoy this while I can.

On Thursday, we drove to Atlanta to spend a long weekend with Chris' family.  They had originally planned to come to Memphis, but we wanted to use my vacation time for something outside of Memphis, and meeting in Atlanta was sort of in the middle for us.  We rented a 3 bedroom house in an older neighborhood close to downtown.  The location was great and we were able to get most everywhere without having to hop on the interstate.  The owner's cat was a tenant for the weekend (Leo), and Isaiah absolutely loved him.  He would laugh and point, saying "Dat, dat!!"

You know what Isaiah is thinking..."When can I eat?"

We went to the Georgia Aquarium on Friday.  It's a neat aquarium and definitely worth visiting, but it was SOOO busy that day.  There were a lot of school groups there, which meant masses of kids filing by.  Isaiah really loved the tanks that served as our ceiling.  I think the Baluga whales were my favorite--they really liked to perform.  God's creativity is so evident in the amazing diversity of marine life, and it was fun spending the afternoon glimpsing some of it.  For dinner we ate at Mary Mac's Tea Room, a great southern/soul food place downtown.  I went deep fried all the way--fried catfish, fried green tomatoes, and potatoe cakes.  Yikes!  Don't tell my doctor ;)

Looking into the two-story tank of the Baluga whales.

Milk break!

For Saturday, we'd bought Braves tickets in advance and planned to take Isaiah.  Unfortunately, things didn't go as hoped.  The game started at 1pm, so we were planning for Isaiah to take an early nap and then head on.  Clearly our mistake was when we planned for Isaiah to do anything according to our time schedule.  As tired as he acted, he absolutely fought the nap and didn't fall asleep until it was time to leave for the game.  Oh well, win some you lose some.  Chris, Carl, and Jason went and enjoyed the game, and I stayed at the house with the women and kiddos.  After his 3 hour nap, the ladies, kids, and I walked to an arts and crafts festival in a local park.  That night, we enjoyed some amazing ice cream from a place in walking distance from the house called Jake's...I think it's homemade.  Chris had red velvet and I had Key lime pie ice cream.  Isaiah had a good bit of both :)

We drove back to Memphis on Sunday, and got our second glimpse of some of the damage the tornadoes left just outside Birmingham.  We drove across the shorter cross-section of it, which was probably a quarter of a mile wide.  We couldn't tell how long it was, but it had gone right through a neighborhood and left absolute devastation.  It was really sobering to see.  Pray for those affected.