Happy Reformation Sunday!

We've been attending a Lutheran church near us - perhaps because of the large Midwest contingent and the frequent references to Germany! - and today's Reformation Day celebration was really fun. Someone brewed Martin Luther's purportedly favorite beer recipe, there was a bounce house for the kids, and Daisy keeps exclaiming about the "dark red scarves" that the pastors were wearing today (they've been green since we moved here). Chris and I kept thinking about our trip last year to Wittenberg, Germany, also on Reformation Sunday. In honor of the day, I dug up some pictures from last year that I never posted on my other blog:

The church he preached at - we went to an English service
here on Saturday night

Outside the 95 Theses doors - we attended
church here on Sunday morning, and got to
exit through these doors

Our seats on that crowded Sunday (way up high);
we sang "A Mighty Fortress" about 25 times, I think

Luther's hymnal

Power Issues

Fresh eyes see certain things better than accustomed eyes. For example, by the end of my time in Muelheim, I hardly noticed graffiti, whereas I constantly thought about it at the beginning. I'm wondering if that is how it will be with the cable lines in Atlanta:

These pictures are from a quiet street in a residential neighborhood. I don't quite understand what these 7 different cables do:

After looking online for information about the pros and cons of underground and overhead cables, I learned about different factors that people consider when installing power lines. It may be that Atlanta has too many tree roots to cut through and would have a harder time fixing things after a flood if the lines were underground. However, falling branches and debris surely damage a good share of overhead cables. Underground cables are more expensive, but they're aesthetically worth it to me.

So, the 7 cables run down the length of the street, and each house has a cable tapping into the "spine."

I wonder if there is a way to be wireless with all this. Perhaps physical wires criss-crossing the earth will someday seem primitive.

So, is it my fresh eyes syndrome? Do all neighborhoods look this way, or is it that Atlanta is especially wild with its overhead cables?

Flip Flop

Today at the playground, I struck up conversation with a German au pair. She just moved here three months ago, just like we did! It was really fun to talk with her.

When we lived in Europe, our mindset was T-R-A-V-E-L.  So many times, we heard from our German friends, "Wow, you've seen more of Germany than I have." We understood that it was a unique phase for us, and we took advantage of the opportunity to see what we could. Now that we're back in the US indefinitely, travel is not only not urgent, it's not as exciting. Nothing is particularly drawing me to Alabama or Arkansas, let's just say.

Contrast the "new me" with this au pair. In the same amount of time that we've been sittin' around in Atlanta, she has been to Florida, Savannah, Hilton Head, Charleston, Puerto Rico, New York City, Washington D.C....and even Alabama. Later this year, she's going to Nashville, Las Vegas, California, and Chicago. Her dream is to go snowboarding in Canada.

I smiled as I told her, "Wow, you've seen more than I have!"

"Ellijay is for Apple"

...or so I read on advertisements for the apple capital of Georgia. Two weekends a year, Ellijay hosts Georgia's Apple Festival, and several orchards offered "U-Pick" apples yesterday. It is a couple hours' drive due north of Atlanta, at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Driving down winding roads (or relaxing while Chris was driving), flanked by trees of fiery colors, seemed like a necessary rite of fall, and I was happy to be there.We joined the mayhem at Hillcrest Orchards, packed full of families wanting to experience the live bluegrass bands, activities for kids, pig races, and everything apple related.

Some hand-me-downs that suited the day

We got into the farm-life activities a bit, like sitting on a very tranquil bull and milking Buttercup, the cow.

By far, the highlight of the visit was filling up our bag of apples. Daisy loved it both in theory and in practice. And I'm pretty sure that, with her help, it actually won't be an issue polishing off the bag before they go bad.

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

(If the name "Kennesaw" isn't enough to trigger your inner drawl, nothing is.) If you are at all interested in gun laws, you might recognize Kennesaw as being the city which requires every household to have a gun and adequate ammunition at all times. The law has stood in place for 25 years in this conservative city, but apparently not all residents abide by it, or even know about it. One of those things.

Just a 30-minute drive north of the city, this preserved Civil War battle site and environs is a woodsy escape for city folk. It's run by the National Park Service, so everything is maintained quite nicely. There are a few cannons and remnants of the Atlanta campaign, and plenty of books about it in the visitor center, but most people seem to come for the nature trails. 

Daisy and I came here after German school on Saturday. We picnicked and then took a shuttle to the top of the mountain. It was a perfectly clear, crisp, windy, cool day, and we could see the Atlanta skyline, Buckhead, and Stone Mountain from the top.

Atlanta skyline from Kennesaw Mountain

I then took Daisy, in her sparkly dress shoes, on a hike down the mountain trail with me. It took a little over an hour, and we had so much fun. I'd say that most people brought their dogs with them, which gave us a lot to talk about - and run from - along the way. Never saw any guns, though.

If I understood the signage correctly, these were fences set up in 1864 for riflemen to stop advancement up the hillside.

Watching Daisy embrace Trailblazing made me want to bring her to more national parks!

After I had taken a few pictures of her...

...she asked to take some pictures of me. Sweetheart.