Atlanta Botanical Gardens

I have been in Atlanta all week, and I have kept myself really busy! After last week in Appleton, WI, I needed to get OUT of the hotel. (There was no blog from there, because I literally didn't do anything).

Tuesday night I went to a friends house in Buckhead, and visited with the two of them and their kids, and had a home cooked meal (this is a big deal). Their kids speak both English, and French, and the four year old thought it was funny that I didn't know French. It was so cute to see them blabbing away in French all night. :) Anyway, turns out that Lara had a pass to get into the Botanical Gardens for free, and it was supposed to be a beautiful day on Wednesday! My friend Marissa and I took off to visit the Gardens, and have lunch. They had a special display/event for the season, called Scarecrows In The Garden. There were probably over 100 of them. All made my groups and organizations, on display for everyone to enjoy. It was such a beautiful place!

The Joys of Hotel Living

I am up at 5:26am today. I will be going back to bed, but I have some time, so I thought I would post about WHY I am up so early (this is unheard of for me).

A few things have happened in the last 24 hours that just make me go, really?! And kind of laugh. A friend pointed out the other day how he thinks it funny that people think of touring as "glamorous". Trust me, there is nothing glamorous about this job!

We flew from Milwaukee to Atlanta. When I got here and opened up my suitcase, I thought "hhmmmmm- what's that smell"? Knowing darn well that something had exploded, but I wasn't sure what. Turns out it was a full bottle of nail polish, totally cracked in half. And I didn't have remover with me. That meant a large mess on other items, and on my hands. Not to mention a very bad smell until everything dried up.

Last night, I was talking to some friends at the hotel, and said I would go up to my room to get us a few glasses of wine. I open the fridge, take out the bottle of white, open it, and crash. It of course landed on the 2x3 foot space of my floor that is tile. In a very non-like Shannon manor, I rolled my eyes, took a towel, and shoved all the glass and wine in a corner to deal with it today.

I had also decided to do laundry at the hotel last night. $4.00 a load is pretty steep, but it had to be done. So I throw my clothes in, and meet with some people at the hotel bar (because we could not have a free drink from my room anymore). I guess I didn't read the sign because very oddly, the laundry room closed at 11pm. So my clothes were locked in the laundry room, in the washing machine. They could open the door for me at 5:05am.

So here I am!

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

I woke up early one day in Minneapolis (when it finally wasn't raining), and decided to do a little exploring. There was a huge park a few block away from our hotel, and I discovered that if you cut through it, you could cross a bridge to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It's an 11 acre park with art placed throughout it. It was a little chilly, but I needed to get out of that hotel. Hotel fever.


The walk was nice enough- minus the GEESE POOP EVERYWHERE! I mean, there were hundreds and hundreds of them. Minneapolis must be a pit stop on the way down South. The Garden is connected to the Walker Arts Center, which I didn't have time to go into. Maybe next trip?!

I ducked into a rather large greenhouse/conservatory to check out what they had in there. There was a giant glass sculpture of a fish, called ironically, Standing Glass Fish. I sat in there for a little bit to warm up before going to check out the main draw of the Garden.

The giant spoon and cherry! It's called Spoonbridge and Cherry. There were actually quite a few people around, so everyone was taking turns taking photos of each other with the spoon. When I say there was geese poop everywhere, I mean you could barely see the grass! There was a family standing around on the sidewalk and their little toddler was running around on the grass. I nicely let them know what the "situation" was out there, and the mom called out for him to come back. Don't think the kid face plants as he's running, gets up, and well... you can imagine what the front of his jacket and pants looked like! All the parents could do was laugh- it was just too gross!

Dalmatians In The Rain

How cute is this little peanut in her Dalmatian rain boots?!

Breakfast In Hell

I kept hearing about this place in Minneapolis called Hell's Kitchen (nothing to do with the show), and I decided it needed to be on my "to do" list. Thankfully, my cousin Dan was able to meet me for brunch on Sunday so I could see what all the hype was about. (P.S.- thanks Dan and Mimi for a fun week)!


Very cool place. The atmosphere alone sold me on it. You go into the basement of the building, and everything is red and black. We had the rudest bartender ever while we were waiting for a table, and neither of us were too pleased to discover the no booze till 10am on Sunday law. Dan was all about their famous Bloody Mary's! They actually have shrimp in them!


We wound up sitting in the saloon area of the restaurant and loved our server. I'm not a Bloody Mary fan, so I opted for a martini with breakfast. There was Baily's and Frangelico in it, which is kind of coffee-ish, right? And cinnamon vodka. It was heavenly, and went well with the heart attack on a plate that I ate.


I saw this sign on the way out, and just loved the way it was written:

Definitely put this one on your Bucket List. :)

Mall of America

I had some free time earlier this week, so I decided to take the train out to the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Oh. My. God.

I knew it was going to be huge, but I didn't realize it literally has it's own zip code! I did a little research on it, and found that there are over 500 stores, it covers 4.3 miles, and has more visitors a year than Disney World, Graceland and the Grand Canyon combined!

I only had about three hours, and I barely made it all the way around the first floor. The only disappointing thing to me what how many stores are duplicated. There are numerous Gaps, Victoria's Secrets, etc. But really, what does it matter? It's not like anyone could cover all that ground in a day anyway!

The Puppy Show

Well, here I am- back on tour!

We opened this week in Minneapolis, MN. The cast and crew have been rehearsing for over a month, so I came in a little late in the game. There are 78 of us traveling together, and I think I know about 15 peoples names. I have a looooonng way to go in the "meeting friends" department!

The show is fantastic. There are 15 live dogs that (briefly) appear on stage, and the kids just go crazy over the whole thing. I haven't actually MET the dogs yet, and I really don't know when I will. There are strict rules about where they are when, who is around them, etc. They are in a large tent all day, and sleep on a custom tour bus at night. Two trainers are with them at all times. I was a little concerned about PETA, but I guess they are OK with it, and actually are showing support for the show, which is cool.

Selling merch for this show is so different that being on Superstar. There are so many cute little kids in the lobby that you can't help but just smile! They bring their stuffed animals, wear their polka dots- I think I'm going to keep a camera with me in the lobby. Check out what I saw tonight- too cute!

Milan, OH

Yesterday, I went with my grandfather and Heidi to go visit her family in Milan, OH. It's kind of near Sandusky. It was just one of those Sundays where everyone gets together and hangs out, plays cards, watches the (badly ending) Browns game, and eats dinner. Her family is great, and it was a really nice day.

The drive there is literally miles of farms and country roads. It was so nice to see how simple life is around there, especially with me being the on-the-go person I am. We drove past corn mazes, produce stands, a scarecrow building shop- and the leaves are all changing which made the drive even better. The best part of the drive? Poppy and I sat in the backseat together and Heidi chauffeured us there and back. :)

Milan is the home of Thomas Edison, so we went and checked out his pad and walked around some of the historic (and beautiful) homes in the area.

Only a few days left before I hit the road- I might as well enjoy them all with my fam and friends!

The Young Lady Who Lived For Her Shoes

I decided I needed to start cleaning up around here. I have clothes in closets, in bins, in drawers... I am super organized, but it's organized all over the house. So I decided to start with my shoes.

I own 52 pairs of shoes. 52!!! What is that?! I'll be interested to see how many coats I have....

In the meantime, eBay and Goodwill are on my list for the afternoon.