great panel discussion on MENTORING at The Hudgens last night.

– gub

hudgens center for the arts

6400 sugarloaf parkway #300
duluth, ga 30097
770-623-6002

clementine’s favorite book these days is a little book of sloth by lucy cooke. it’s the cutest book ever! it’s filled with photos of sloths hugging stuffed animals, as well as other sloths, and details on their daily lives. clem has learned a lot from the book and now wants to visit the sloths at the atlanta zoo anytime we head there. if you’re looking for a new book for your children or need a great gift, this book will definitely bring a smile to anyones face. visit slothville for more information and other adorable videos.

by the way, the atlanta zoo recently partnered with animal planet to create a live sloth cam!!! we can now watch these slow-moving animals from the comfort of our laptop.

we were able to find a little book of sloth at the little shop of stories in downtown decatur! this adorable independent children’s bookstore is in the decatur square right next to starbucks. it’s filled with great books and toys for kids of all ages. they also offer story readings, summer camps, book groups and more, so be sure to visit and help keep such independent stores alive!

– ryan

little shop of stories

133 east court square #a,
decatur, ga 30030
404-373-6300

grey celebrated his first birthday with a fun party! his cousins came down from chicago, which made it even more exciting. we had the gathering in our backyard, similar to clementine’s first birthday, although it was colder than expected. we had a bonfire to going to stay warm and made the most of it!

– ryan & gub

i recently came across some photos of grey and his blabla friend hanging in his crib! they are similar to the cute photos of clem and the gang when she was a baby.

here are some other blabla photos with the kids.

– ryan & gub

i drove by this mural the other day and thought it looked like an old disney animation cell!

– ryan

i was in condesa coffee not too long ago and took a liking to the artwork on display by sunflowerman. they were just small watercolor paintings on torn out pages from books, but i liked the style quite a bit.

after a little more research, i learned sunflowerman is actually a design agency, not just one artist. they are based out of atlanta and focus on men’s fashion illustration. (i kept picturing the j peterman catalog when reading their bio!) you can order custom paintings and view more artwork on their website.

in case you’ve never been, condesa is another local option for coffee in atlanta. they are known for handbrewing coffee with chemex coffeepots, and also for serving beer and wine. i’d say condesa isn’t as good as dancing goats, but they are still a great local place for coffee treats!

– ryan

condesa coffee

480 john wesley dobbs avenue ne #100
atlanta, ga 30312
404-524-5054

last fall we upgraded our thermostat to a nest, the super smart thermostat from the guy who created the iPod! to say the least, we are quite impressed and love our nest, which sounds weird to say about a thermostat.

the thermostat was super easy to install. it probably took 30 minutes or less. all i had to do was kill the power to the old thermostat, take off the face to see what wires were plugged in (label the wires if not colored), unscrew the wires, remove the old wall plate, install the new wall plate, connect the wires to the nest, put on the new face and turn the power back on.

the longest part of my installation was touching up the paint around the old thermostat since the new one was much smaller. once the nest was powered up, it was a few steps to get the thermostat connected to our wifi and up and running. from there it was a breeze to program, unlike most thermostats. the first week nest built a schedule based on how we used the thermostat. from there we were able to easily tweak all seven days settings on the thermostat, laptop or on our cell phones!

remote access to the thermostat is pretty cool. if you are traveling home from a vacation or a hot day outside, you can easily set your house to be nice and cold right from your phone! plus it actually gets to the requested temperature at the time you set, most thermostats just turn on at the set time.

there are also motion sensors to avoid wasting energy when no one is around. nest will auto-adjust to an efficient temperature when sensing you are gone. during the summer months the thermostat also keeps your fan running after the air turns off to keep air blowing across the cold coils. this helps keep the house cool even without the AC on. it’s little things like this that make this a very energy efficient device.

another cool aspect about a wifi enabled thermostat is the ability to receive firmware updates. that way your device won’t be outdated when new features come along. plus the firmware updates happen automatically in the background so you don’t have to worry about it. the nest also keeps track of your energy history to see how and why you saved energy. you receive a monthly newsletter letting you know how efficient your thermostat usage has been and compares it to other nest users locally and nationally. what a nice treat!

nest claims you can lower your energy bills by 20% using their thermostat and make your money back in energy savings within the first year. we are about to reach our one year anniversary having the thermostat, so we will update you on how our quest for energy efficiency went and if their claims are accurate!

you can watch a nest demo video here!

– ryan

athica, the athens institute for contemporary art, recently produced athicards, a creative deck of athens art. the project was really cool, they had 54 athens artists create the front of a playing card, resulting in a full deck of playing cards. the original artwork was on display from saturday, may 25th through sunday, june 23rd at the athica gallery and the decks were available for purchase. in case you missed the exhibit, you can order a set of the the cards from their website.

– ryan & gub

clementine had an awesome second birthday party! she had a morning gathering at bessie branham park, which is right down the road from our house in kirkwood. we went with a krispy kreme doughnut mound instead of a cake, which was quite the hit with the kids. so was the line drawing fabric from ikea! we laid out some fabric markers and the kids had a blast drawing all over it.

– ryan & gub

bessie branham park

2051 delano drive ne
atlanta, georgia 30317

check out this great ikea commercial!

– ryan