Shrimp for everyone!

This past Saturday, we had our Housewarming Party and it was so fun! When we were in Biloxi, MS for Father's Day last month, we picked up 20 lbs of fresh shrimp right off the boat and decided to freeze them and have a big shrimp boil once the house was ready to be shown off. After a month of painting, organizing our things, moving furniture, organizing more things, and putting the finishing touches on the house, it was finally time!

Craig prepared a feast of shrimp, sausage, potatoes, and corn and it was so yummy. (I had to pick shrimp antennae off everything I ate, but that's ok.)We also had homemade red and white sangria... the perfect way to cool off on a hot summer night! And something we found out in the process of getting everything ready for the party: turkey fryers, which are used to cook everything, are apparently considered "seasonal items" and it is very hard to find one in July!)

Between washers, corn hole, and the golf ball game, our backyard looked like a playground - we had people playing games everywhere, and Andrew's puppy Riley was right in the middle of it all. Also, thanks to Mac and Cheese's fun wedding gift, we got to make our own ice cream for dessert! All went smoothly until our friend Reggie decided to get himself locked in mine and Craig's bathroom... and he is way too big to crawl out the window, so he just yelled and banged on the door till someone found him. Luckily, our friend Big Mac is good with bobby pins and locks and he saved the day! Gotta love living in an almost 60-year old house...

The night was a success and we were thrilled and so thankful to have so many of our great friends there with us to share in the evening. Thank you all for coming to see our home - and helping to clear our freezer of a million little shrimp!




Craig was hard at work all night!




Reggie was a good sport about getting locked in the bathroom.


Melissa Martin, Erin, Ashley "Cheese", Danielle, and me

Welcome to the Center of the Puppet Universe!

I work at one of the best places anywhere. Officially, it's the largest non-profit organization dedicated to the art of puppetry (many people don't realize that), but it's also a fun, unique place jam packed with really talented people. The Center for Puppetry Arts is located in Midtown Atlanta and there's really nowhere else like it in the country. I am about to celebrate my 3rd anniversary working here this Sunday, so I figured this is the perfect time to let you all in on the fascinating world that is my job.

I quite possibly have the longest job title of anyone in the building: "Graphics Assistant/Birthday & Facility Rentals Coordinator." I found the Center on craigslist.com when I was looking for an internship after college. I had never heard of it and had no idea what an amazing place I would end up working for. After a few months of interning, I was somehow fortunate enough to turn that into a fulltime job in the Marketing and Development departments. I now spend my days designing in-house pieces and booking/coordinating birthday parties (about 200 a year) and event rentals.

Over the past 3 years, I have watched almost every show we've had come across our stages (which is a lot), have taken part in planning our 30th anniversary weekend, have met some of the Henson family members, had Lamb Chop talk to me and sit on my shoulder, and have seen Gumby, Rudolph and Santa (from the claymation movies!), Big Bird, and many other famous puppets right here in our building.

The talent that comes through these doors blows me away. Our Artistic Director, Jon Ludwig, never ceases to amaze audiences with each new piece he does. Our Education Department offers outstanding outreach programs; they do great work with Camp Kudzu, which is a camp for children in GA who have type 1 diabetes. Our Distance Learning Program reaches children and adults around the U.S. and even in other countries that would never otherwise be able to experience what we have to offer. (And they continue to win multiple awards a year for their programming!) Our Production team creates the most beautiful and awe-inspiring sets, puppets and costumes for our Center Company shows. Many people think we just ship our puppets in from Puppets 'R Us or something similar, but all of the puppets we use are built in-house by Jason von Hinezmeyer, our Resident Puppet Builder.

Besides being creative and really talented, our staff is also just so much fun. We have birthday cake once a month for the staff. We have a "free table" in the admin hallway where people put out all their junk that is then up for grabs to everyone else in the building. We have "charred meat" Fridays and pot luck lunches every once in a while where the staff has a big cookout together. We watched one staff member get married in front of the Big Bird case in our Atrium after work. Our Christmas party is called "Christmas Prom" and takes place in our scene shop, which is transformed into a winter wonderland with lights, a spray painted dance floor, and blow-up lawn decorations.

I could go on for days about how wonderful the Center is. I love working here and enjoy being a part of such a unique organization. Through our work, we are able to bring smiles to childrens' faces and educate them at the same time. We give adults the chance to be kids for a day...which, let's be honest, every one of us needs to do once in a while. We give local artists and others from around the country the opportunity to present their work to our community.

And I can't help but end this post without pushing some of our upcoming shows...
We have a Jon Ludwig world premiere coming up next month called Adventures of Little Noodle, which is part of the Healthy Children/Prevent Childhood Obesity Initiative - it's going to be a fun, interactive show about a noodle that loses her way in the grocery store. How fun is that? We also have two of my favorites playing this fall. Dinosaurs is a larger-than-life production about the history of dinosaurs and has the best music... and a 6-foot tall T-Rex body puppet! Ghastly Dreadfuls II is returning to the stage for Halloween, and I could not be more excited! This show for teens & adults and is a must-see for anyone in town. It's a cabaret-style show filled with creepy and fun ghost stories, dancing, singing, and awesomely ghoulish costumes. To see the rest of our season offerings, visit our website or stop on by if you're in the area! (We have free parking, which is a hot commodity in Midtown!)


This is the front of our building from Spring Street. It used to be Spring Street Elementary School and still has the original hardwoods on the third floor and the classroom chalkboards in our Marketing office.


The Ghastly Dreadfuls!

Our First House

We found a great little house to rent in Atlanta and we're having so much fun working on our first place together. It's a 1952 ranch-style house with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and is central to both our jobs, so we're pretty happy with it! We spend most evenings after work cleaning up and organizing and painting and hanging things. :) Craig has also worked very hard on the yard - it looks so much better than when we moved in! We also took down some hideous "vintage" wallpaper in the hallway and gave it and 2 of the bedrooms a fresh coat of paint. The landlord owes us big time!

I've posted pictures below, so enjoy the tour of our little house!


The "vintage" wallpaper that was covering the hallway when we moved in


The new hallway with a fresh coat of paint!


The dining room - complete with our new bookcase and wine bar that we got for our wedding.


The kitchen - featuring the lovely rose pink laminate countertops




The guest room - with my old bedroom furniture


Our bedroom... just needs some matching furniture and a headboard/footboard one day.


The living room

Honeymoon trip to the B.V.I.!

After our wedding, we were fortunate enough to take a week-long trip to Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands. One word to describe it: incredible. It was a small private island where the resort was the only thing on the island. There were maybe 50-60 guests there at any given time, which made it feel really relaxed and secluded. We ate waaay too much, sunned on the pristine, almost empty beaches, and just enjoyed being married and being together. Craig got to snorkel for the first time and we both had our first sailing experience. The day trip to Virgin Gorda and The Baths was my favorite activity of the week. Gorgeous, clear green water, fun fish, and such unique land forms made from these above-ground caves and baths.

We spent half a day on Honeymoon Beach and had it all to ourselves, minus about 20 minutes where some European tourists decided to make it their walking path. :) We met lots of great people (mostly honeymooners) and met a wedding party on the island as well. The staff was so friendly and helpful. The room was beautiful and perfect for our stay. We even had a hammock right outside off our back porch, which made for great lazy afternoon naps. :)

This was the most perfect honeymoon for us and we wish we could go back next year, but I have a feeling it might be more of a 10th anniversary type of trip....


One of our many delicious meals Tradewinds, one of the two restaurants on the island


The room on the bottom right was ours. We had a great view of the ocean!


This was our first day on White Bay Beach, which practically felt like it was deserted.


Our view from Deadman's Restaurant during lunch. Makes the computer screen I look at during lunch at work not very appealing in comparison.


The view from the Spa on the island. One of my favorite beach views!

Mel & Craig tie the knot!

Welcome to my blog! Since I named this blog "The Adventures of Mel & Craiggers," it only seems appropriate to begin with our biggest adventure of all - getting married!

We tied the knot just over a month ago on Saturday, June 6 at the beautiful Serenata Beach Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. We chose this area because I have grown up coming to the beach there and it's my favorite place in the world. We are fortunate enough to have a family beach house in St. Augustine and my grandmother graciously let us host our rehearsal dinner there. My mom's friends, Janet Ridley and Sharla Padgett, deserve a huge thank you for the amazing transformation they gave the house (inside and out) to make it look absolutely gorgeous and beachy! They also put their magic to work on all of the flowers and decorations for our wedding.

I would definitely recommend considering the Serenata for anyone interested in getting married in the St. Augustine area. The event coordinator, Cordel Crowley, was amazing. He took care of everything on-site and we didn't have to worry about a single detail going untouched. The entire staff was very helpful and friendly. And the food... we got so many compliments on the food! I was a little nervous about it because we didn't get to do a tasting, but everything was phenomenal! Our DJ, Ed Kinney, was great too. The dancing was my favorite part of the night! :) I'd also highly recommend our photographer, Kate Gardiner, to anyone in the area. We had an engagement session with her a few months before the wedding and I knew we'd picked a great photograper when we saw the results of that shoot. She was easy to work with and the finished products from the wedding day were breathtaking! She got all of the standard, formal photos that we requested and still made time for lots of fun and artistic shots (like boys in fake furry mustaches).

It was a dream wedding and the most perfect way to marry my best friend. I'm so thankful that we have such amazing families and friends who made all of our ideas and plans a reality. We are so blessed by having each of you in our lives and can't thank you enough for being a part of our most special day!


The head table for us and our families


Rehearsal dinner - the inside of our beach house transformed into a great space for an event


The wedding program - I designed it and put it together myself!


Now announcing Mr. and Mrs. Hayes!


Dancing with my dad to "My Girl"



Our beautiful wedding cake with handmade white chocolate shells. Can't wait to have more than a tiny bite come our one year anniversary! :)