Summer in Atlanta

It's now officially summer in Atlanta. It's been summer for over a month, we've just been in denial. The browning of the grass, the fact that our air conditioner is on most of the day and night, and our inability to walk outside without sweating has signalled that it is, in fact, summer.

So, we finally started doing stuff other than swimming. We still do that too, but the sharpies are now put away.

Yesterday, we went to the World of Coke, CNN Center, Centennial Park, and the Georgia Aquarium. It sounds like a lot, but they are all in the same spot.

World of Coke was first. It was, as you may have guessed, all about Coke. We saw lots of memorabilia, saw the polar bear (but couldn't get a picture due to there being several thousand day camp kids in attendance as well), and were able to try 64 varieties of Coke products produced around the world. Some tasted awesome, some just so-so, and some you had to wonder if it was a joke and they actually sold it. One in particular was "Beverly" - which is sold in Italy. It tasted like peppery tonic water, and really was not even the slightest bit good. Todd had one that had a pine nut flavor marketed in South Africa that wasn't bad. The kids loved the taste testing, and loved even more that they each got their own mini-bottle of coke to bring home.

Incidentally, look at the picture with the writing about "79 days". This is about the huge screw-up in the 1980s called "New Coke". It's funny that the at least acknowledged it - but even funnier that (according to Todd) you can actually still find it in some remote locations in the southeast Pacific!

Next up we went looking for food. This brought us to the CNN Center. It's actually pretty big and I hadn't realized it was so close to where we were going. If we thought CNN actually did a good job reporting the news, we might have taken a tour. Just kidding - it probably would have been interesting no matter what.

Next, we went through Centennial Olympic Park built for the 1996 Olympics. It's a nice park right in the middle of the city. Being that it's summer, there were about 200 kids swimming in the fountains. And, yes, the fountains were turned back on this year since we are technically out of the drought.

Our last stop was the Georgia Aquarium. This is the world's largest aquarium. It has whale sharks and beluga whales and everything in between. It will be getting a dolphin exhibit in Winter 2010. Matthew, upon seeing the asian river otters, came up to me and excitedly said, "I want one of THOSE cats!" Sadly, we won't be able to comply with that. But, it was a cute request. Overall, it was pretty impressive (but I think I still like the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga the best).

In other news, you know you have a kid with a loose tooth when you hear the following questions:

"Mom, can I throw a softball at my face?"

"Mom, do we have any pliers?"

Do we even have to say that Julia was the source for both quotes???