Rhythm and Roots in TN!

Nate and I headed to TN this weekend to meet up with a bunch of our friends from college and to go to the Rhythm and Roots Music festival in Bristol. It was such a fun weekend and I'm sad it's over!
This picture sums up TN for me...some of the best hiking around!
So the hike to Cornelius Rex (Roan Mountain) is one of my favorites. The view from the top is beautiful!

Nate, Aaron and Elijah after making it to the top.
Some of my favorite people: Becky, Aaron, Elijah and Nate at the festival.

The girls minus Gina and Casey who stayed back to watch Lily, Casey's daughter. Here's Becky, Jess, me and Lindsey.
And the boys...I love this picture of all of them. For once, no one is doing anything remotely stupid or inappropriate. A miracle. Wait...I just noticed Chris's face. I take it back...

Some great bluegrass at the festival...too many bands to see at once! Some of the ones we did make it to were Robinella, Everybody Fields, Darryl Scott, Doc Watson, and Scott Miller.

Casey, me, Becky, and Jess on our hike to Laural Falls. The guys took the cars off-roading somewhere and we opted for a much better way to spend a few hours. This picture took a few tries as I had it on the timer and fell nearly every time I ran back to get into it!

And as if the weekend wasn't good enough I got to see this precious child who belongs to Casey and Jeremy. Lily is perhaps one of the cutest children ever! She handled the endless stream of people coming in and out of their place well and seemed to love being passed around. Casey and Jeremy housed all of us this weekend and were the best hosts ever. It was so much fun being around all of our friends that we go way back with. Makes me sad they don't all live closer...Maybe someday!

Five Years!

This weekend Nate and I celebrated five years, which I really can't believe. I think this means we are getting old...five years out of college, half a decade of marriage...ahhh! So Nate surprised me and told me to pack but not where we were going. We ended up at Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, KY. Now if you haven't been here and you live in KY you need to go! We've been hiking around here several times before and Nate knows it is one of my favorite places to visit. The best way I can describe it is like hiking through a Robert Frost poem: winding fences, horses, apple orchards, rolling pastures, original old stone fence walls (like the one in "Mending Wall"). We hiked all day Saturday and stayed at one of the old "inns." I naturally took a ton of pictures as seen below.
This is the old building where we stayed. There is a main inn and lots of smaller buildings around it that have 6 or 8 rooms.
Now don't laugh....I absolutely CANNOT pass up a swing if I see one. Nate patiently waited until I had released all my pent up childishness. How can you not love a swing in this setting? Beautiful tree-lined paths that wind around all the old buildings....
Another historic building now used as guest rooms.

Me in front of an old barn we saw on the hike.

Old stone wall bulit by the Shakers themselves!
Nate admiring the view.

Now I won't get too cheesy here but I will say that I have the best husband ever...he always knows how to surprise me and exactly what I need. It's been a hectic several weeks lately with lots of stuff going on for both of us between teaching and grad school so a getaway was just what we needed. I really can't believe it's been five years already! Now I don't know if there is "one" specific person out there for everyone (statistially, that could be impossible) but I do know that God couldn't have matched us up any better. Nate is such a good husband (he puts up with me!)but more than that he is my best friend. I'm so thankful and blessed to have gotten to marry him five years ago:)

Chainsaw anyone?

So Nate and I arrived home today to find half of Louisville blown away from the winds of Hurricane Ike! All over St. Matthews and Crescent Hill HUGE trees were down on the roads, on top of cars and through homes. I was thinking to myself, "Okay, I know we have a huge tree in our front yard...." and was worried about what we might find. Seriously. After all that work I would've been devastated to find our house split in two. Thank goodness this is all we found! Yes, a good fourth of our tree fell down (a branch actually) and it BARELY missed our house. Our driveway is now blocked and we have some power lines draped nicely in our front yard. The Louise the Lightening bug power lines song comes to mind (ya gotta play it safe around the power lines!) and if you grew up in Louisville you know you can hear it now! What happened to those LG&E commercials anyways? So now most of Louisville is without electricity and schools are all cancelled tomorrow (Yay!)....this is craziest storm without rain I've ever seen!

Housewarming Party!

This weekend we finally had everyone over to our house. It was so fun to see everyone all in one place and to catch up with quite a few people I haven't seen in what seems like forever. Here's Rachel, Annie, Brooks, me and Jess, my high school friends. I love these girls!








Just a random picture of everyone eating!













Me, Megan and Molly












My teaching friends...Emily, Annie, her husband Eli, Suzanne and Heather. I love these girls too and, as I have mentioned before, they help me maintain my sanity at school:)










Me, Gina and Katie....friends from back in college who live in Louisville now too












Annie, Suzanne, Heather, me and Emily...all the South Oldham girls!













Nate and Steven not looking so amused that I am taking their picture... someday they will appreciate that I have documented some of their life in film!











At the end of the evening....I love just sitting and talking about completely random things with these girls. Reminds me of college when we got to do this EVERY night. Oh how I miss it!










And while this picture seems completely random, it makes me laugh... Gina's face cracks me up and I have no idea what Tom and Zach are doing in the background, and Lilly Belle (Molly's dog) is just hanging out, probably wondering what is so funny. Gina might kill me for putting this on here...oops.

Labor Day in Ohio

So we went to Ohio this past weekend to see Nate's family. We really don't get up there enough and it is always so much fun to see them....Nate's mom spoils us like we were in college again so that's pretty nice! The part of OH where Nate is from is close to Amish country and is beautiful. Luckily, we had great weather too (low 80's and sunny) So on Saturday we went to Lehman's (in Amish country), this awesome "general" store that has every kitchen, farming, gardening and home gadget you can imagine....Nate and I are gardening nerds so we loved it! And Nate has been searching forever for a hat to wear when he works in the garden (I kid you not...he has been looking all summer) and he found it here, as pictured to the left...

Here's me, Nate, DeeDee, and Kelsey all outside the store.











Later on, we got ice cream at this cute dessert place called "Milk and Honey." Unfortunately , I am a sugar addict so this was pretty much heaven for me!







The next day Nate, his dad, and I all went on a bike ride. OH has great bike trails that pass by some small towns and historic type things....Here's Nate and his dad.













Nate and me on the trail...











On the way home, we stopped by both "Grandma's" houses. Here's Nate with his grandma who lives in OH.


















And here's Nate with "Diddy" who lives in KY. It was so good to see them both if only for a short time. Sometimes I really wish that we could live closer to both our families, immediate and extended. I hate how everyone moves away, spreads out and hardly sees each other except at holidays (and Nate and I are guilty of this!)... I am so lucky to be by my parents in Louisville but I sure wish Nate's family was closer. I really do feel like his parents are second parents to me... They have always treated me like one of their own kids! I miss them when we leave:(