We are back from our weekend excursion. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We played, shopped, ate, and took in the views, and had some lovely cuisine experiences. We saw family, met our great niece for the first time. It was a perfect trip and we want to go that direction again for other long weekends away. We also found a lot of Christmas gifts and I checked off something from my bucket list, which was to take George to Waynesville, NC. There are so many things we’d like to do when we go back again. And probably a few of the same things again. George got to go to another McKaye’s and also Total Wines (twice) which is the mega Walmart version of a liquor store.
Appreciate the shot above. I had a wait a awhile til there were no cars and then bend down on my knees to get it, lol, with an antsy “let’s go” George by my side waiting. I wonder if he gets tired of me and my taking photos. He has to as it often delays him, or not – sometimes he doesn’t know I’ve stopped and carries on – or perhaps he just goes on anyway. But I thought it would be pretty to get a shot with the berries on the bush!
We didn’t get to many breweries. I think only one in the 3 days of opportunity but he might have stocked up on some of the local beer from Ingles and Total Wines.
You can see the look on his face and body posture. He’s raring to go – like a kid in a candy store. He loves to find hard to find items and to see what is new. According to some, George “must drink all night” – he doesn’t. But he will often have an after dinner drink while watching TV. A sip of whiskey or gin. Sometimes he makes us a Manhattan. He takes his glass back to his bedroom – and gets ready for bed and after a few days brings all his glasses back into the kitchen.
Yesterday’s excursion was to find Christmas gifts, hard to find items, and also items of things less expensive than at home. We keep the liquor cabinet stocked, especially this time of year “for cheer and good spirits” as family comes in, guests pop in, or whatever. In the summer I like to have a specialty cocktail with herbs and cucumber vodka or sometimes something fruity, or a mojito or Moscow mule. In the winter, I am more likely to go for a dark rum and coke, or Crown Royal and Coke. But my go to is wine or Daura Damm Beer which is gluten free, I think. It has a good taste and is not as filling. So we stocked up on some of these things, some wine for me, some wine for Christmas. We did good.
Susan and Kevin (SIL and BIL) took us to a favorite part of Knoxville and to see the lighted areas downtown. It was just beautiful and the weather was perfect.
We ate at “Not Watson’s”. Hilarious because apparently it used to be a drug store called “Watson’s”. Now it’s a restaurant (and a good one) called “Not Watson’s” LOL!
After dinner we watched some of the skating and walked around to the lights and a little waterfall. The Knoxville and Asheville video is going to be fun putting together, anticipated to come out next spring or summer depending on how much free time I get (insert eye roll here)!
I am enjoying the new iPhone’s camera improvements for night time photos. How perfect! So much better!
We got to spend some time with family at Cracker Barrel the next morning. We drove to Alcoa and really had a good time seeing Justin, Ellen and their little Anna. She is precious and a little joy to be around. She is a lot of fun and so sweet.
Cracker Barrel now has an “egg in the hole” breakfast. They even give you the holes, lol. It was so good.
All of our hotel rooms were comfy and perfect for our needs. We stayed in Holiday Inn Express in Nashville near the Outlet Mall. And we stayed in Hampton in at Turkey Creek (Farragut area) of Knoxville.
I have so much more to share. But I will have to keep sharing all through the week. What is to come? I will have to do an entry on Waynesville, NC and our experiences there, our French restaurant experience, and our breakfast in Asheville at the Sunny Point Cafe, our beautiful drives and sun rises, and sun sets, the shops in Asheville and random shots of the merchandise and beautiful shops. So much more to come. I look forward to it and I’m excited that I was able to get a lot of video of nearly everything instead of just photos! So anticipate some improvement in videos upcoming – especially spring and after.
So we have a busy week this week. So much going on:
*I’m almost through decorating but we’ve lost George’s stocking somehow. Just a few ornaments left to put on the trees. (We got a lot done yesterday as we got home around 2 to finish decor, unpack, and do laundry and eat a Turkey Pot Pie George made after Thanksgiving and put in the freezer).
*The dishwasher install is tomorrow so we are going to get Mom after work (after we fix hot dogs at our house, after I go to the store and by the stuff, and we’ll work for an hour or so – so George can move some things around.
*Mom’s dishwasher is suddenly no longer working at her new house.
*I have to record all of our shopping items bought so I can assess what is left to do and even everything out.
*Our office is moving Friday. So I’m needing to bring some things home in the next few days. (George keeps trying to take my office stuff to Mom’s thinking it’s her stuff, lol). Actually he DID take one over and I recognized it and put it back in our car.
*We are getting our plans together for the the actual Christmas week so we can figure out our part of the Christmas plan and when we are feeding who and when Katy and Cody will be here exactly.
*We also have just been invited to a friends house for Saturday for a special reception happening there that we plan to go to.
*Mom still needs help and lots of it, but at this point we can just focus on getting the extra bedroom together, extra bathroom put together, and make it functional for Aunt Martha and Uncle Ken. Mom said they get to stay longer this time – a couple of weeks. We are excited to get to see them more! And also they can help Mom unpack and unwrap, ha!
And all that on top of a normal already busy work week. But we will get it figured out and get the critical things done. Everything else will sit and rot til we get time to deal with it!
Tis the Season – is all I can say and soon I’ll be seeing Little Roo and within a month I’ll be out in Texas again! It’s all happening so fast. I knew it would. We are in the spin of things and it won’t slow down until February. January will slow down some but not much. I’ll have to work longer hours likely, maybe even a Saturday. We’ll have the Christmas put up and putting the house back together again.
It’s storming outside and I hate George will have to drive in this mess. I am going the other direction and the nasty stuff has passed. So prayers for him! Although pray for me too because the streets will be very wet. I think I’ll go back roads and go the slow way instead of the interstate which will likely be in wreck status this morning. Nashvillians can’t drive in normal weather without running into one another – thus it’s nickname “Crashville”. So when it rains there’s all kinds of goof ups out there.
More on Wednesday with a mid week update. The next video is finished but needs to be uploaded and thumb nail done. I plan to have it scheduled to go live either Sat or Sun morning according to how much I get to work on it in the evenings to upload to YouTube and let it go through all it’s checks and get Thumbnail done.
Ok so over and out! Ya’ll have a beautiful week. How’s your Christmas shopping going?
It makes my day when I hear from you…