At the end of September, Melissa and Joe came to Atlanta to visit! Well, Joe came to go to the Petite LeMonde race just as he did last year, and Melissa stayed with us, just as she did last year!
The first thing she and I did was hit up IKEA. It was an epic day of shopping for baby stuff for the impending birth of Baby Baustian. We also looked at some maternity clothes for Melissa, which are all really expensive!! Why make maternity clothes so damn expensive?!?! Isn't having a child expensive enough?!? Jeeze.
The second day of the visit, Melissa and I went to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History where I've been doing some volunteering. We took the special volunteer tour of the new Gold exhibit and then walked around some more in the museum.
The first thing she and I did was hit up IKEA. It was an epic day of shopping for baby stuff for the impending birth of Baby Baustian. We also looked at some maternity clothes for Melissa, which are all really expensive!! Why make maternity clothes so damn expensive?!?! Isn't having a child expensive enough?!? Jeeze.
The second day of the visit, Melissa and I went to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History where I've been doing some volunteering. We took the special volunteer tour of the new Gold exhibit and then walked around some more in the museum.
One of my favorite rooms at the Museum is the Star Gallery. It's sort of hypnotic and goes through different stages of the night sky. They recently added a bunch of interesting videos that I watched whilst bored to death during my duties as IMAX Greeter.
Outside, we canoodled with the dinosaur topiary.
I nearly knocked it over. What? They look heavier than they are!
Then we canoodled with the Stegosaurus.
Finally, we posed for belly profile pictures with the dino's out in front of the Museum. 
My belly's profile is due to mass consumption of food and not pregnancy like Melissa's.
The third thing worth noting that we did was go to the Aquarium on Friday night for the Jazz Blah Blah Blah. We hardly listened to the music, but it was nice to see the aquarium at night. It was STILL crowded, though not as much as it was on New Years Day.
We visited the touch pool and touched stingrays and sharks. The sharks feel cooler than the stingrays. And some douche guy made an insensitive remark about Steve Irwin. Everyone snarled at him.
Andy touches stingrays in the appropriate manner.
We saw piranha, which were doing very complicated synchronized swimming.
And way too cute snuggling sea otters.
We posed under the Starfish of Luv.
And touched sea anemone inappropriately.
A good bit of time was spent watching the beluga whales perform. This guy just sat there upside down staring at a little girl for a few minutes. It was really cool.
Finally, we went through the tunnel that goes under the GIGANTIC tank that holds all the awesome whale sharks and other sharks and other fish, etc. etc. etc. I could sit in front of this tank for hours. I started to and then Melissa and Andy left me.
Oh. I guess the giant tank wasn't the last thing. Jellies were! This picture totally wasn't altered in any way. Psssch. I did take it, though. Just messed with the color. Doesn't it look all cool and x-rayish?
Unfortunately, the main race at Joe's car race got canceled due to flooding of the track. Their visit followed the week of horrible rain in Atlanta which caused a lot of roads and homes to be under water. The rain just hadn't decided to quit just yet. BUT luckily for us, we got to hang out with both of them for a bit longer and then took Joe to Birthday Breakfast the next day!
I look forward to this being a yearly visit, as long as we're in Atlanta! Even after Baby Baustian arrives!
