A Weekend Getaway at the Cabin & Some Last-Minute Shopping!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and is celebrating all the holiday festivities! It’s been such a hectic week, so I didn’t carve out time to finish this post up, but I’ll pick up where I last left off and make a Christmas post soon.

After Thanksgiving

After we returned from the Thanksgiving celebrations in Kingsport and Chilhowie, we had the usual work week and not much to post about during the week. But the weekend of December 7th, we went to Korea House because I’ve been craving some Korean food.

I absolutely love getting the dishes that come with a meal. Stephen ordered the Bulgogi again. I decided to stray and try something a little different this time, but I can’t remember the name of the dish.

Anyways, my meal was basically kimchi with tofu and pork. It was a yummy dish and all, but I quickly realized that despite how much I enjoy kimchi, I don’t like it that much to make it my entire entree. Plus, I’ve only ever had it cold, so having it at a hot temperature was a bit different.

On Sunday, we finally made the cute little stepping stone from our anniversary! We haven’t taken a picture with it, but it’s a cute little thing.

We had to leave it in the mold to harden for a day or two. The lettering was tricky because we kept trying to imprint the letters before the mixture was set to do so. The A is a bit wonky, but it gives it some character!

Here’s the origami flower that Stephen made as well. He watched YouTube videos to figure out how to make them.

In the flowers, he wrote some promises to me that were similar to our vows that we recited on our wedding day.

Such a sweet and thoughtful gift, and he did so well!

I can’t remember what I made on Tuesday night, but I just had this immense craving for some noodles! I mean, I just made dinner and everything, but gotta cave to the crave, you know what I mean?

I took a small creative liberty with my ramen by adding shredded carrots, sesame oil, green onions, an egg, and sesame seeds to make it a little more fancy. It was pretty good, so next time I’ll have to put some more protein in it to add some more substance than just the standard broth and noodles as a default.

On Wednesday the 10th, I took a break from work and caved to another craving that I’ve been having for weeks — Panda Express. I haven’t been here in months, so I thought it was acceptable.

Of course I bought some spring rolls, and I ordered a plate of Beijing Beef and Orange Chicken with the Chow Mein. I’ve never had the rice, but I love the noodles too much to even order a half size of it. I ordered through the drive-thru and the person told me that the noodles would take about 3-5 minutes to cook. I ended up having to park in the front to wait to get my food until then. I was half afraid that they would forget about my order, but the worker brought it to my car and all was well! It looks like they gave me more noodles for waiting so long — or I’d like to believe that.

I forgot how much I missed Panda Express, so I’ll have to go back in a month or so.

On the 13th, Stephen’s mom booked a cabin in Pigeon Forge to stay for the weekend. So whenever Stephen got off work on Friday, we made a stop to eat at Chick-fil-A for dinner. He orders the regular Chicken Sandwich while I get the Spicy one, because it’s even better! I also got a Diet Frosted Lemonade as well to top it off.

Traffic wasn’t too bad, surprisingly. What’s funny about this trip was we were trying to stop at a rest stop but we missed the turn in for it. We ended up backtracking and was driving to Nashville! We didn’t notice it until I looked at the GPS and I saw that we were headed back. No wonder the GPS kept trying to make us turn around, but I thought that was just Stephen’s phone acting up.

We probably drove 20 miles until we realized it, so that added an additional 40 minutes to our drive. It was a pretty funny mix up!

Once we were in the vicinity of our cabin, we struggled to find it for about 20 minutes! This included Stephen and me walking to peep on cabin numbers to see if we were relatively close to our cabin, Keep Calm and Bear On. We were not and I was freezing.

By this time, it was a few minutes after midnight. We called his parents for the directions, I also had to pull up the map for the cabin to find better directions, and simultaneously was trying to guide Stephen where the cabin was.

We made it in one piece, what a relief! The cabin was cozy and I snapped a few pictures of it.

I didn’t use the tub. Stephen did though and the water pressure was low, so it took forever to fill up. By the time it did, the hot water was mostly used up and it was lukewarm, so I don’t think it was that fun.

I’m sad that I didn’t get a good picture of the arcade table to the right of the picture, but it was so fun! I was a bit obsessed with playing Arkanoid, which was basically Breakout.

I like to pretend that I can play pool moderately well, but it’s a hit or miss when I play. I think the flooring was off because all the pool balls tended to roll to one corner more than the others!

Here’s our pretty view.

We stayed inside and played games on Saturday. We just went out to get medicine because Stephen’s mom wasn’t feeling so well. We stopped and looked in one of those super tacky gift shops because she believed and bet that it had medicine — which it did not. But man, so many odd things were in that store.

On Sunday, we had to check out by 10:00 AM and we managed to snap a few pictures before we had to officially leave.

After checking out, we headed to a pancake restaurant. We hadn’t planned on it, but we went to the same restaurant that we ate at in March. We thought we’d have an hour wait or longer because there were so many people waiting in line. It took Stephen a while get through the line just to put our name down.

A pleasant surprise was that we were seated immediately after that! I guess it was mainly big parties that had to wait that were hanging out around the restaurant.

Also, none of us ordered pancakes. Stephen ordered oatmeal and a waffle with orange juice to drink.

I ordered some type of breakfast hash skillet.

The biscuits were so soft and fluffy. I only managed to eat a half of one and it was much more food than I anticipated. My scramble mix had bacon, sausage, and ham in it and I could barely eat half of it.

Stephen’s mom ordered a similar skillet like mine.

Although, I should’ve ordered what she had because hers was what I was initially wanting to order, but I guess I didn’t read the menu correctly.

Stephen’s dad had to go back to the cabin because he forgot his hat at the cabin, so Stephen’s mom ordered oatmeal and a side of fruit for him.

After we finished our breakfast, we walked around at The Island in Pigeon Forge. The pretty fountain had a small water performance that was synchronized to Christmas songs. I missed out on capturing it on video, but trust me, it was really neat!

You’d think with how terrible my eyesight is that I’d wear sunglasses, but evidently not. Instead, I’ll just keep squinting!

I’ve been wanting some beef jerky but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money on it. Stephen persuaded me to buy it since I haven’t had this kind in a year and this one will last me a month or two.

It’s the hottest in the shop and it’s so, so good.

We headed back to Nashville once we finished up at The Island. It was a brief goodbye, but we’re heading back to East Tennessee on Sunday, so it’s not much longer until we see everyone again!

On Monday the 16th, I had to take my friend KaSandra to the airport. We had to leave at the apartment by 4:15 AM[!!] and it was raining to make it worse. You know the friendship is real whenever I wake up at 4:00 AM in the rain to take you to the airport! I avoid driving in the rain as much as possible since I wrecked in it three years ago. That was a terrifying experience altogether — especially since I was three hours away and my parents had to drive and pick me up!

Anyways, we got to the airport early and a little before she had to be there by 5:00 AM; so, all was well. I picked her up on Friday a little before noon. Stephen had a work party at noon, so KaSandra treated me to some coffee!

She ordered The Griswold, which only came in a hot version. I ordered and iced Yorkshire and absolutely loved it. I’ll need to make a trip to The Well again for it since it’s seasonal!

Saturday

Alexis came to visit and we headed to Opry Mills to do some minor Christmas shopping. We ate at Chili’s before we did the shopping. My feet were sore by the time we left.

We started off with some chips and salsa — and good thing we did because we had to wait a bit for our meal since they were super busy! Alexis ordered like the 3-meat trio fajita combination, and I ordered the Chipotle Fresh Mex Bow. Mine had chicken and shrimp and I loved the spice kick and the avocado in it.

After the mall trip, I could finally check some people off the Christmas list, so yay! We headed back to the apartment to get Stephen and head to Eastern Peak because we were getting hungry again, and this was around 7:00 PM.

He had already eaten by the time we made this decision, but he ordered a salmon roll as a second mini dinner.

Alexis ordered her Cali roll — minus everything but the crab and smelt, so basically a Crab roll, haha. Along with it, she ordered the Lo Mein.

I got my lovely Tofu Drunken Noodles.

Stephen was nice enough to take a picture of us.

Her gift came that day, so I hadn’t wrapped it or got the last remaining stuff, but her gift for me was so sweet! She bought and wrote me “Read Me When” letters fit for different occasions because she knows how much I love letters! I’d been eyeballing the roll-on perfume oils at Francesca’s for so long, and they smell so lovely!

I’ll make a Christmas post for the next update. I’m working on a new series that I’ve been wanting to create for the blog, but I haven’t dedicated enough time. So, exciting things to come soon! [Hopefully.]

Since it’s Thursday, my posting is super off, but I’ll be adjusting the schedule to work around the newer things. I hope everyone had a wonderful and merry Christmas!

What’s up with everyone this week? Have you ever stayed in a cabin in the mountains before?