July & October Cheekwood Trips

I’m not sure why I never posted the pictures from our Cheekwood trip in July whenever Alexis was with us, but since Stephen and I were there just last Friday, I figured I’d recap and combine them both since I took more pictures! But really, I’d need a few more posts if I were to take a picture of the whole place. It’s just so beautiful, and you must go if you’re ever in the area!

July Cheekwood Visit

This day was excruciatingly hot, and I was slightly traumatized by a butterfly, so maybe that’s why I forgot to upload this trip to avoid my fear, haha. Stephen has a video of me freaking out over a butterfly as I tried to take the picture below. Here’s the little guy that freaked me out.

In the live video of this photo, I shamelessly retreat away from it. Luckily for me, the live version is not on WordPress. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in a post, [I know I did in my bio,] but I’m afraid just about every type of bug. Yes, this includes butterflies, ladybugs, lightning bugs, and whatever other bugs that you consider harmless. [Minus flies, gnats, and mosquitos. those are just so annoying, aren’t they?]

Well, when I took the picture, the butterfly flew toward me, and that freaked me out a ton, and I ran away and slightly screamed. So, at 24, my fear is still here.

Anyway, Stephen wanted us to go that particular weekend because there was a cool Bonsai showing. There were so many of them! I didn’t take a photo of them all, but just a couple.

It’s crazy how they take so many years to grow to become what they are now! I think it’s pretty cool that there are people that take the time and effort to grow a plant that they may never get to see in its adult form. Also, they’re really taking a gamble that the next caretaker of the Bonsai will make sure to tend to it. Then again, I’m sure they have all that figured out in the planting process, but I just don’t know about that situation.

As for the outdoors, there’s always people sitting around this picnic area, but this one time, there weren’t any people! This table has the Swift family on it. How cool is that!?

Also, I love Lover, but Speak Now just holds a wonderful top shelf in my heart. Sophomore year was a bit rough, so this was a perfect album to jam out to! Just the start of her career, I literally grew us listening to the album she released and it seemed to just fit what I was going through at the time. As for her earlier albums, I remember singing “Fifteen” during my legit freshman year. So funny and slightly embarrassing those times were, but I miss them.

We were in a little hut outside in the garden. Just thinking back in time, these are how people lived hundreds of years ago, with no air conditioning!? Yikes. A luxury that has spoiled me, no doubt. It was so humid in the hut too. Hardly any breezes blowing, so we didn’t stay for long.

We adore this balcony area.

Okay, for this trip, I actually managed to take some pictures inside of the mansion.

The staircase is gorgeous, and the light? So mesmerizing! It’s like a source of light just beaming down.

Next room is this pretty blue room. I love the details of this one. The windows are super cool.

I need a wall-to-wall library filled with books. This room was so large. I could imagine how dreamy it would be to just be surrounded by so many books and have your own personal library!

This trip to Cheekwood was super fun! There are lots of construction areas, so I’m curious to see what the new gardens and displays will look like within the next year!

Transitioning to Fall

Catching us back up, Stephen and I decided to go to Cheekwood on Friday since the weather was just warm — and not scorching hot! I was having a bit of an emotional morning, and when I managed to calm down, we went to Zaxby’s because their Zensation salad is back for a limited time, and I just adore them!!

I honestly don’t know why I love this salad so much, but I would get it about twice a week or so whenever I was in Kingsport!

Stephen took one for the team because he’s not the biggest fan of Zaxby’s [although, he’s been here twice now.] He just got some chicken and fries. I usually love their chips, but they’re sometimes a gamble to get because they’re either not completely cooked or have waaaay too much salt seasoning on them – which turned out to be the latter for this meal, but I’m still going to eat them! I also inhaled my salad, so I was ready for the day, haha.

Next Stop: Cheekwood!

Outside in the garden area, they had some storybook characters that were made by people scattered throughout the walkway area. I found it funny that Little Bo Peep startled Stephen because her face looked so real! Not gonna lie, she had wonderful facial details.

Also, if you give a mouse a cello, I’d say he’d be wanting a whole orchestra next. Can’t he just be satisfied with what he’s got, or is he just pressing to see how much he can get!? Smart and greedy tactic. Haha, I barely remember how the book went, but I love it.

Hedwig made me a bit sad, but cool to see her included! Stephen was laughing about the Peter Pan display because the clock’s hands fell on the ground, so I snapped the picture with him pointing at them.

Inside the lovely mansion, once again.

When we went with Alexis, I forgot to take a picture of the entire library, so here’s most of it! Isn’t it a dream!? This room smells like books, and that is a dream within itself.

This next room was the Drawing Room, I think? I’ll get back to you on that. Anyways, I love the detail and design of the ceiling and molding!

We came just a day early because the entire gallery upstairs was closed off because new exhibits are opening on Saturday. We’ll have to come back.

Here’s that beautiful covered balcony view that I took previously, only it’s facing out in the yard and garden! Could you imagine just sitting here and reading for a couple of hours? Some odd tan lines when sitting on the balcony, but it would be so nice!

There’s just much greenery, and here’s a closer look of the pool area.

Here’s some pretty flowers as well to brighten your day. Some just happen to be late bloomers, but hey, we’ve all been there!

Pumpkins Everywhere

They had a few of these set up at the entrances of the walkways. So cute! I hadn’t even consider them setting up these cute pumpkins everywhere, but makes total sense. Plus, you can see our shadows in a lot of these photos, haha.

Left and right, you just see a bunch of pumpkins!

I remember when this walkway was once filled with so many flowers, but the pumpkins make such lovely decorations as well.

They also had these cute houses set up! You could purchase pumpkins as well, so that was a cool thing. Here’s the first one that we saw.

And the second was at the very beginning, but we stopped by it on our way out.

This was probably my favorite visit to Cheekwood, just because we decided to finally come whenever the weather wasn’t 90 some degrees and frying us! Haha. Also, I’m loving the seasonal decorations. I’ve never been at this time of the year. It’s always been in the spring. I’m mostly looking forward to winter whenever they’ll have all the lights set up! Plus, we’re eager to see the new galleries and exhibits, so I can’t wait to go back.

Winding Down Our Friday

For dinner, wet thawed out the hamburgers that we made a couple months ago. [Here’s the FWMD post if you missed it.] I’ll have to add some details of this experience for those of you that cook and eat this again later on.

We rented two movies from Redbox, mainly because I got a promo code to rent a free DVD. Since the kiosk is at Kroger, we made a quick pitstop inside so I could stock up on some sour gummy worms to enjoy the movies! We’ve gotten into the habit of blowing up the air mattress because it’s comfier than the couch that the previous apartment occupant left. [It doesn’t recline or anything!]

The first movie we watched was Spider-Man: Far From Home, and I was pretty lost since I never watched the other one, or any of them. It was pretty entertaining! I don’t dislike the superhero movies, but they just aren’t ones that would catch my attention and want to watch on my own, but I enjoyed the movie.

Since we have a 4K TV, Stephen told me how terrible the Five Feet Apart DVD would look on his TV, but I watched it anyways. It was after 11 PM when Spider-Man ended, way past his bedtime, so I enjoyed watching Five Feet Apart on my own – even if the image wasn’t as clear! He probably didn’t wanna watch this sad romance movie, but I’m sure he would’ve liked it.

So, we ended our Friday night with a little kick-butt action and a heart wrenching movie. Sounds a lot like my music, but it was a a wonderful day, nonetheless!

Do you have any must-have snacks to eat while watching a movie? If you were given two movie genre options to watch for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Have a wonderful rest of the day, everyone!