Cades Cove

As Alan has been training for his marathon he has tried to run a lot of different places to keep it interesting so today we drove up to Cades Cove for him to run "the loop" which is a beautiful and scenic 11 mile trip. Katie and I drove and met up with Alan at different places to encourage and provide water. It was a gorgeous day!

We saw some horses at the very beginning on the loop :)

There are several small quaint country churches up there.

God's beauty everywhere!

TN Valley Fair

Alan won tickets to the TN Valley Fair so we went on Sunday night with the rest of his family. The fair is one of those things that you can easily talk yourself out of going to but once you're there you have a great time. It definitely has some of the best food (funnel cakes and fried oreos need I say more?) and people watching in East Tennessee.

The carousel almost looks enchanting from a distance... almost.

All in all it was a fantastic night!

Cheers to 30 Years!

Last Thursday Alan turned the Big 3-0! I wanted to do something special to celebrate so we had a party this past weekend. I am so thankful for his life!

I loved that so many people came to celebrate with us! Nonnie we missed you!!!

Cheers to 30 Years!

One of Alan's goals was that when he turned 30 he would run his first full marathon... 26.2 miles. He is currently training to run in the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis this December. In lieu of gifts we asked people to donate to his Hero Campaign to help him reach his fundraising goal. You can learn more about that here and if you want to donate we'll send you a koozie or two!

Knowing Alan you understand that we not only had to have the UT game on but the Alabama/Texas A&M game too, ha! It was a fun day for football (but not the Vols, sadly).

Go Vols!

my sweet parents

my siblings except for Colin which we left a space for :)

BBQ, mac n cheese, baked beans, potato salad, and a green salad... yum!

It was an AMAZING fall day and we had awesome weather!

group picture!

Natty Em's made Alan's birthday cake for me and Natalie did an incredible job! I was so pleased and everyone loved it!

You're never too old to blow out a few candles... make a wish!

beautiful sunset

Towards the end we built a fire and it was the perfect night for it!

Happy Birthday, babe! I love you!

Tradition

So I'm a sucker for tradition... Alan and I decided that we would celebrate our anniversary each year with a trip to the Melting Pot. It's a restaurant that we really never go to otherwise but we love it and for this it is perfect. Well we were at the beach for our anniversary so we never made it to the Melting Pot. I told Alan that we had to go, even if it was just for dessert. So that's what we did and it was perfect. So happy to be with this guy for the past 6 years, here's to many, many more!