-LISTS-

If you have been around here for any length of time then you know I'm an avid list maker. So I think it goes without saying how exciting these were to make. The other night Matthew and I finally sat down and made two lists out. We have been talking about doing this forever, and we finally remembered to write it all down. I guess you could call them bucket lists, since it's a long list and we don't have a timeline or deadline on them. These are just places we want to cross off over time. We have talked about making out a list of goals and places we want to visit before we have kids one day, but we haven't gotten to that list yet.

The first list is on restaurants that we want to try. Some are in Nashville and some are in our town we live in now. I'm sure we'll find more that we want to add to this list, but I am excited to cross some of these off this summer. There are all kinds of restaurants on that list. Some are small burger joints, some are popular tourist places, and some are the higher end steakhouses. A lot of places we won't even go to this year or probably even next year, but like I said, there are no deadlines for these lists. 

The second list is our travel list. We divided it up into day trips and weekend trips. We both got really exited looking things up for these lists, and there are a ton of places we want to go and see over time. One thing we didn't add to this list are bigger vacations. Places that you can't really visit in just weekend, so we'll work on that list soon! It's exciting to think about and I get even more excited when I think about traveling to these places with Matthew. He really is the best friend I've ever had, and I love adventuring to new places with him.

So here are our lists...so far. I'm excited to cross things off and add more places as time goes on!

I found a lot of great idea on Pinterest, and you can see all those on my 'Travel' board and my 'Tennessee' board.

Follow Shelby 's board TRAVEL on Pinterest.
Follow Shelby 's board TENNESSEE on Pinterest.

Are there any places we should add to this list? Send any and all suggestions our way!

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-LISTS-

BEARS & PUPPIES

Yesterday I recapped about the first half of our long weekend trip to Gatlinburg and today I am going to share the second half....which includes bears and puppies!

Saturday after we left Ober Gatlingburg we decided to go back to the cabin and just take it easy, Matthew was still pretty tired from work that morning. We were getting out of the car fixing to go into our cabin when we heard someone yell and say "better lock your doors the bears will get in your car if you don't!" We never saw him clearly because of all the trees but it was our neighbor in the cabin close to us. He was standing on his balcony and said the bears are out. I immediately got excited and asked where they were and he told us to look under his balcony...

You can't see them all because some were behind trees or in them but there were 10 bears! I about died. I started snapping pictures and Matthew talked with our neighbor. The neighbor told us they have lived there for 8 years and this is the most active they have ever been. There were two mama bears and eight cubs. The cubs were playing around while the mama bears just laid around. At one point two cubs started growling at each other and "fighting" it was really fun to hear and watch. We stood there for a good 10 minutes watching them when all of a sudden I saw something out of the corner of my eye...

There was another cub sitting up on the hill behind a tree about 20 feet from us watching us. I couldn't get a good picture because it was hiding out behind the tree waiting for us to leave, and I wasn't getting any closer to it to get a picture. After we saw him we decided to go on in since he was so close lol. We both ran up to the balcony to watch them and that's when the cub that was so close decided to go to our car and try to get in. Matthew and I didn't realize how smart they are. He seriously went to every single door and pulled on the handle to try and get the door open and then went to the trunk and tried to raise it. We we so amused by watching him lol.  After he realized he wasn't getting in our car he just laid down in the yard lol

We watched them off and on for a good hour or so and more tried to get in the car and then a mama and two cubs crossed over our front porch to go up in the mountains. It was so interesting and fun to watch them, but we were a little hesitant to go outside to leave that night for dinner lol.

Sunday we decided to go to Flapjacks for breakfast and it was really good! We stopped in Cookeville on our way home to hangout with everyone again and to go to church. On our way to Cookeville we decided to stop in Knoxville and drive around the University of Tennessee's campus since I have never seen it. It is a very big campus compared to Tech's campus! We also decided to stop at a place I have heard about through multiple friends call Puppy Zone. You can go in there and play with the puppies, and of course buy one if you want to. 

Matthew fell IN LOVE with this little guy, a shih poo. He just want to lay on and be held by Matthew, and every time he put him down he would jump back up on the side of the bed and wait for Matthew to hold him. It was THE cutest thing in the world, and my heart melted every time I looked at them. Unfortunately little man was about $1300 so we had to pass, but Matthew said if he would have been cheaper he wouldn't have been able to leave him...

We both thought this little one was cute, but definitely agreed that if we had to choose one it would have been Matthew's little buddy.

My favorite picture of the two lol

Every since we left Puppy Zone Matthew has been researching all about shih poo's and looking up different breeders in and around Nashville while I am trying my VERY best to convince Matthew that it would be better to wait until we are in a house to get one. 

It's really hard to do that when he keeps sending these kind of messages to me throughout the day...

and then he started adding little messages "from the puppy" to them

STRAIGHT UP KILLIN' ME Y'ALL.

#staystrongshelby 

And yes, my husband's name in my phone has a smiley face beside it. It has been that way since we started talking back in spring of 2010 and I don't think I'll ever be able to change it. :)

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BEARS & PUPPIES

GATLINBURG

We had the best time in Gatlinburg this past weekend, and as usual we were sad for it to end.
This was our first trip just the two of us since our honeymoon so we were really excited and had been counting down the days until we left. We stayed in a cute one bedroom cabin that we fell in love with. Our cabin was called Sugar Booger. It was even called Sugar Booger on Google Maps, how precious?! It's completely outdated with floral wallpaper everywhere and could use some new paint (we have been watching too much HGTV, hello Fixer Upper!) but that is what we loved most about it other than it's location! If you are looking for a cabin I highly recommend looking into Mountain Laurel Chalets!

We left bright and early Friday morning around six and decided to stop in Cookeville and meet our friends for breakfast at Chick-fil-A, because is there a better breakfast for a road trip? No.

We got to enjoy this beautiful sunrise on Friday morning

We can't travel without road snacks!

Not pictured: Matthew's road snack...Buncha Crunch

Our first stop once we got there, Smoky Mountain Knife Works. Matthew and my dad love this place. We took our time and browsed different knives and guns, and even picked out my dad's Christmas present! Matthew decided on a new pocket knife and then we headed to the Lodge Cast Iron store. If I could I would but every piece of cast iron in there. Especially in their scratch and dent section. A small scratch and they knock off 40%...I'll take it! Unfortunately since we have about 0% of cabinet space in our kitchen we decided to just browse the store. We still enjoyed it though!

We were almost into Pigeon Forge when we started getting hungry. Matthew saw this place called Boogaloos and decided that's where we NEEDED to eat. I was a little skeptical about this place as there were only 3 cars in the parking lot at lunch time. Matthew was feeling adventurous and talked me into trying it...without looking up any reviews...gettin' crazy y'all!

I had the caesar salad with blackened chicken and Matthew got the chicken strip basket with fries. 

It actually turned out to be REALLY good! There was no one there so we enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and the waiter was on his game since he didn't have to wait on anyone else. The waiter did say they are really busy at night, which we believe as it is a sports bar lol. They had it decorated really cute for Halloween. It was good enough that we would definitely go back...during the day! We love finding places like that.

Our next stop was The Christmas Place. Hands down this is one of my favorite parts about coming to Gatlinburg. I could stay in there and shop forever. Matthew gets his time at Smoky Mountain Knife Works and I get my time at The Christmas Place...compromise y'all compromise. ;) We picked out a few really cute pieces!

We finally made it to the cabin and unloaded the car. When checking in the guy told Matthew to watch out for the bears, they are active this year. Of course when Matthew told me that I about died from excitement, but tried not to get my hopes up because we have been told that before. 

We decided to stay in on Friday night and just relax. We ordered Pizza and went and picked up a Red Box movie. Ski Mountain Pizza was on the way up to our cabin so that's where we got our pizza from. It was okay, but not something we will get again. 

We got back to the cabin for the night and Matthew started the fire while I got the pizza and drinks out to eat. And yes, I brought our favorite candle with us. #noshame

The location of the cabin was absolutely perfect. We were about 5 minutes from downtown Gatlinburg or as we call it, the strip, but we still had beautiful views of the mountains and fall foliage.

This is the view from the living room upstairs.

The cabin was perfect for the two of us, and we plan on going back to that exact cabin if the dates are available!

The view from out bedroom on the first floor. We absolutely love the glass sliding doors on the first and second floor.

Matthew had to leave early Saturday morning to go to work and I was wide awake so I watched Christmas movies on Hallmark while waiting for the sun to come up lol. 

LOVE Snap chat filters!

The best way to enjoy my hot apple cider.

Matthew got back from work around 11 and he took a nap, then we decided to go to Ober Gatlinburg.

We rode the sky lift 3 times and played mini golf. We were going to do the alpine slide but it started sprinkling and they closed it for the day. Huge bummer! While we were riding the sky lift we looked for bears but never saw any. Someone said they saw some off in the distance but we never them. I was convinced I was never going to see a bear in the wild...LOL little did I know.

I was really afraid we had missed the leaves changing colors since they had reached their peak the weekend before (from what I read on various travel sites) but I think we went at THE best time. We couldn't stop talking about how gorgeous the colors were. I told Matthew it's something about Gatlinburg, because even the green leaves were a different green than the ones here at home. 

When we got off of the sky lift this is the beautiful views we got to see!

I'll share about our Saturday afternoon and trip home Sunday, tomorrow!

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GATLINBURG

Weekend trips are the best trips

Matthew's older brother recently bought a house in Chattanooga. He has been there a little over a year and decided to get out of renting and find a house. Well this weekend I was finally able to see it, and I loved it! It's in a nice and quiet neighborhood and he has plenty of space!

We met Matthew's brother and parents in Murfreesboro for dinner and to get Nathan, so he could ride to Chattanooga with us. We got to Chattanooga pretty late Friday night so we got a little tour of his house, talked and then crashed for the night. 

Saturday we they helped him move some last big things from his apartment and then went downtown for lunch and walked around. I love walking on their bridges in Chattanooga and getting to see all the pretty views. 

and I love the Snap Chat has filters for different areas.

HAAAAY Walnut Street Bridge ;)

One of our friends from Tech is going to school in Chattanooga now and just moved in his new apartment so he joined us for lunch.

We ate at Genghis Grill downtown. It was my first time eating there and it was pretty good. The small size bowl is still too much for me, but would make a great second meal. I think I seasoned it a little too much, so next time I will go easier on the sauces lol.

Saturday night we went over to one of Andrew's friends house for dinner and a movie. They actually knew them from college. Kayla and I have been friends on social media for awhile now after meeting briefly the last time I was in Chattanooga. She had posted a picture of their new farmhouse table that her husband built them a little bit ago so when I realized we were going to their house for dinner I got really excited to see it.

Here are a couple of pictures of it that she posted on her Pinterest 

Don't you just love it?! Matthew and I have been looking up plans for farmhouse tables every since we left their house Saturday night! Matthew and I both agreed that we would love to have a farmhouse table in our house one day!! Also, Kayla and Allison both told me they read my blogs along with other ones (Hiiiiiiii Kayla and Allison!!), how fun! 

We went to church Sunday morning and then to Old Chicago Pizza for lunch. Y'all we ate well on our trip ;) I haven't been to Old Chicago in years and had forgotten how good it was. My mouth is watering thinking about those huge slices of pizza now! After lunch we packed our stuff up and headed out soon after that. 

It was a great weekend and I am so glad we got to finally see Andrew's house! Such an exciting time for him!

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Weekend trips are the best trips