Our Anniversary Getaway

To celebrate our fourth anniversary, we decided to rent a cabin in the Gatlinburg area.  We stayed for the weekend (which to-date is the longest I've ever been away from Nicholas).  The cabin was perfect for what we were looking for and even though there were others somewhat nearby, we seemed to be the only ones on the mountain.  We decided to just stay in the cabin to relax and not worry about hitting up any of the tourist attractions in the area.  Everything was nice except we both agreed that it was very hard falling asleep at night.  Everything was too quiet in the mountains - we are used to a myriad of sounds at night (trains in our backyard, sirens passing by at all hours, our fan loudly working to cool the room, our sound machine as well as Nicholas' monitor sound machine).  The weather was great!  We even got some snow the first night.  Granted it wasn't anything compared to our first anniversary snow experience (thank goodness), but it just made the mountains that much more serene.  Happy 4 years babe!

Here is a picture from the loft area of the cabin which had a pool table, dart board and basketball machine). 

Thanks so much to Mimi and Pop and Gigi and Pawpaw for watching the little man while we were away!  I know he loved all the attention.  Then this past Saturday, we had a great time celebrating Anna's first birthday party, followed by a BBQ with our friends the Spanicks and Perrys.

It took Nicholas a few minutes to warm up to everybody, but before long he was visiting/entertaining everyone. 

He wanted to wish Anna Happy Birthday up close and personal like!  So cute!

Luckily she didn't mind him testing out a few of her birthday presents.

Luckily Reagan didn't mind him testing out her toys either at the BBQ...

Holy Mega-Mansions Batman!

Last weekend, Gabe surprised me with a quick getaway to a bed and breakfast in Brentwood, TN for our anniversary.  This was my first night away from Nicholas.  All in all I have to say I did pretty well, although it was weird to wake up to silence rather than a baby chattering/fussing.  Mimi and Pop said Nicholas did just fine except he wasn't quite ready to go to bed when Mimi put him down. 

Our whole bed and breakfast experience was interesting.  The owner was sweet, but kind of creepy.  It felt like you were staying at a strangers house (which I guess technically we were).  We ate breakfast with the fellow visitors and was served a "three course" breakfast.  It was ok.  After all was said and done, we decided that we are hotel people.  However, it was nice to get away for a little while. 

The highlights of the trip (besides picking up Nicholas on Sunday) was the dinner we ate Saturday night.  Gabe had researched this wonderful restaurant in the area Mere Bulles.  He ate filet mignon and I had a shrimp and pasta dish.  Everything was delicious!  Finally, apparently Brentwood is the Beverly Hills of the South.  On the way to and from dinner we passed homes that were easily 15000 square feet!   They just kept going and going!  I told everyone that one home had as much square footage in their front porches than we have in our house!  We decided to drive around and check these out in more detail.  I pulled a sales sheet on one that wasn't near the size of the "big" homes, but it was still over 8000 square feet and selling for $1.8 million.  There was even a 2 acre lot for sale for half a million!  These places were HUGE!!  Gabe had to wipe the drool off my chin.