A Taste-Y Time in Roswell

Ladies and Gentlemen – Start Your Tastebuds! It’s time for the yummiest fall event in Roswell - The Annual Taste of Roswell.

Come on down to the Historic Square, this Saturday, October 15th, noon – 5:30 pm for a great chance to enjoy a beautiful fall day while sampling food from Roswell’s favorite restaurants. Throw in a radio station playing great music and fun family-friendly contests and you have a great recipe for a fun afternoon.

If you’re not from “around here,” the Historic Roswell Square is located at the intersection of Marietta Highway (GA 120) and Atlanta Street (GA 9).

On this fine fall Saturday, over 25 Roswell eateries will be selling samples of some of the items on their menus on the square in downtown Roswell. Make the ticket tent your first stop to visit the smiling volunteers and purchase your food tickets for 50 cents each. Samples are one to six tickets (50 cents to $3 in value). I usually start with $5 worth of tickets, scope out the tents to see what each restaurant is selling, buy my samples and chow down. If I still have room left in my stomach, I figure out how many more tickets I need and purchase a few more and start the fun all over again.

After you’ve eaten your fill, make sure you stop back by the ticket tent and vote on your favorite restaurants. The friendly competition between restaurants includes: Friendliest, Best Decorated, Favorite Item, and the coveted Most Popular, which is determined by YOUR taste purchases.

While you’re digesting your food and deciding if you really need just one or two more desserts, grab a chair in front of the bandstand and enjoy the music and dance contests. In addition to the music from 106.7 Atlanta’s Greatest Hits, you and your family can participate in:
Hula Hoop Contest
Bean Bag Toss
The Twist Dance Contest
Hokie Pokie
Electric Slide
Line Dancing

So stop reading, get out your calendar, and mark it down to be at the Historic Square in Roswell, this Saturday, October 15th from noon – 5:30 pm. See you there!

For more information on our sponsors and participating restaurants, check out www.visitroswellga.com/taste-roswell.html

Wing Your Way to the Chattahoochee Nature Center

Hundreds of wings will be flying at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, this weekend. No, the birds at the Nature Center don’t have a lot of chicks ready to leave the nest. It’s not a convention of angels, either. It’s the 2011 Flying Colors Butterfly Festival!

Tickets are just $10 for the General Public ($8 if you’re a CNC Member) and children ages 2 and under are FREE.

Here’s a glimpse at what will be going on Saturday, July 16 and Sunday, July 17:

Butterfly Releases
Witness the thrill of a live butterfly release including swallowtail butterflies! Butterfly releases occur at 11 AM and 1:30 PM on Saturday and at 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM on Sunday.

Plant Sale
Find the perfect host plants and nectar plants to take home to your garden to attract butterflies to your backyard! CNC Horticulture volunteers will be on-hand at the plant sale and in the butterfly garden to answer your questions about how to attract butterflies and other pollinators to your yard!

Butterfly Crafts and Face Painting
We have crafts for everyone! Kids can make butterfly inspired sun catchers, butterfly antennae, silly straws, and bouncy caterpillars. Come visit us in Kingfisher Kids can get their faces painted with beautiful butterflies and creepy caterpillars!

Butterfly Sidewalk Art & Fairy House Construction
Butterflies provide the perfect inspiration for our on-going art project. Create a "butterfly path" from the Ben Brady Lakeside Pavilion all the way to the "fairy village!"
Fairies are among us. Stop by the free play area and build a fairy house or gnome home during the Butterfly Festival. Fairy houses and gnome homes are made from nature objects for real and imaginary creatures. Nature materials provided; bring your imagination. One house per family please.

Butterfly and Caterpillar Costume Parade
Come with your very best butterfly wings or your best caterpillar colors on and join us for our butterfly parade at the end of festival each day with grand marshal Ms. Chrysalis!

Entertainment for the Entire Family
Saturday and Sunday will bring out our friends from Atlanta Dance Central as they showcase some of their up and coming dancers!

On Saturday, Piccadilly Puppets will have you laughing and learning as they present Butterfly Ballad at 11:30am and 2:00pm.

Captain George will have us dancing and singing along to old favorites on Sunday with some help from YOU!

Exhibitors and Vendors
We will have groups with us that will help you learn about the importance of pollinators in our environment. We will also have some environmentally friendly vendors on hand to help you green your life!

Girl Scout Butterfly Badge
Junior Girl Scouts can work on the requirements for the Butterfly Badge on their own with self-guided activities on Saturday OR come on Sunday and complete the requirements through an interactive program with Cadette Scout Mary Ann H. from Troop 24324 as part of her Silver Award! If you would like to sign-up for the Sunday program please contact scouts@chattnaturecenter.org The program is included with admission to the festival!

For full details, just click on www.chattnaturecenter.org/flying-colors-butterfly-festival.html

Don't Forget Mom!

Calling all husbands, fathers, and children, this is your final warning that Mother’s Day is this weekend! Unless you’re of an age where the Tooth Fairy regularly visits, you probably have outgrown simply giving Mom a great big kiss to go with the card you made in school. Husbands – as much as your wife might let you think that a new washing machine or vacuum cleaner is just what she wanted, take it from me, your stock will rise measurably if you’re a little more creative.

If picking out gifts for Mom isn’t your thing, don’t worry - Roswell has you covered!

20th Annual Colors Festival of Arts is Saturday and Sunday, May 8th and 9th. Admission to the show is free. The festival is held on the Historic Town Square, which is located at the intersection of Highways 9 & 120, 10 am. - 6 pm. Historic Town Square will be filled with fine arts, original crafts, children’s activities, fun food, and entertainment.

For entertainment details, check out www.visitroswellga.com/include/Entertainment-schedule.pdf

Treat Mom to a day off from cooking! We have many unique and fun restaurants in Roswell. Mother’s Day lunch can be a very busy time so reservations are recommended. For restaurant ideas, check out www.visitroswellga.com/restaurants.html

Let Mom Shop Until She Drops – This is easy for you and fun for her! Take your wife or mom to visit the unique shops on Canton Street and SoCA (that’s “South of Canton” street for the uninformed). Better yet, partner with some fellow husbands or your siblings and make it a “Girls Day Out” for all of the wives/moms. With so many interesting shops and fun eating opportunities, I’ve known ladies to have a great time looking, eating, and shopping for hours. Check out the shops at www.visitroswellga.com/specialty-shopping.html and www.visitroswellga.com/antique-alleys.html

Treat Mom to a Make-Over or Spa Day – Hmm, wonder if my husband is reading this blog because this is so me! A little pampering can go a long way to making Mom feel special. We have a lot of great spas and salons that are ready to work their magic on Mom. Check the out under the Beauty tab on www.visitroswellga.com/weddings.html

Treat Mom to a mini-Getaway – Book a babysitter and whisk Mom away to one of our hotels for a weekend where the two of you can unwind and get re-acquainted. We have lodging options to fit all budgets. Check out www.visitroswellga.com/lodging.html and book your favorite. During the day, there are many, many attractions for you that Mom would just love. www.visitroswellga.com/attractions-tours.html has lots to keep you busy.

You can Find It All in Roswell, GA!

Roswell Magnolia Storytelling Festival

When someone mentions storytelling do you immediately think of the library lady reading a story to an eager group of preschoolers? Let’s see if I can broaden your perspective about storytelling!

Storytelling has roots that go back to the dawn of verbal communication. Stories were used to teach valuable lessons and to pass on culture long before words were written down. In many villages an elder in the village had the valued responsibility to be the teller of tales. Those stories were learned verbatim so that they could be passed down to future generations in their original form. Good speakers, today, use stories in their presentations, knowing that long after their audience forgets the exact opening and closing of the presentation, they will remember the main points of the presentation through the stories.

Each June, folks from throughout the southeastern United States gather in Roswell GA to honor this tradition with performances by nationally-known and regional storytellers. From under a tent on the grounds of historic Bulloch Hall, laughter and applause can be heard as audiences enjoy stories as varied as folk tales, personal stories, and an occasional tall tale. There are almost as many styles of telling stories as there are storytellers. Unless you came for the special Children’s Hour on Friday afternoon, almost the entire audience is adults. Are you getting the idea that stories aren’t just for children???

The Roswell Magnolia Storytelling Festival will be held Friday and Saturday, June 19-20. Workshops will be offered during the day, both days, and a special Mill Village storytelling tour will be offered Saturday morning. Both evenings, telling under the big tent begins around 5:45 pm and goes on until 9 pm. There’s even a ghost tour on Friday night at 9:15 pm.

This year, we are honored to have Sheila Kay Adams, Sheila Klein, and Randel McGee as our featured tellers plus an array of regional tellers and workshop leaders. More information about all of the tellers can be found at www.visitroswellga.com/storytelling-festival-tellers.html

Full registration information and the schedule of events is at www.visitroswellga.com/storytelling.html

For those coming from out of town, our host hotels are listed at the bottom of the registration page. All of our hotels are listed at www.visitroswellga.com/lodging2.html

Come join us and experience storytelling at its best. Warning, hearing great stories is addictive! Most folks come back year after year!