henry horton state park; date #8, a hike through a cedar glade

 so, we are trying to keep up with the dates and are definitely running a little behind.  we had a nice warm afternoon together and decided to head to a park we had never visited before.  this area has several cedar glades and we chose to visit the one in the henry horton state park located in chapel hill.  there are 3 trails to hike but the hickory ridge loop runs around a cedar glade.  if it looks this beautiful in january, imagine what it will be like in the spring when the native wildflowers begin to bloom.  we plan to go back to see that for ourselves.

 we actually left the trail and walked down to the bottom of this crevice.  the temperature immediately dropped about 10-15 degrees and it was incredible to look at up close.  amazing what water can do!

 peek-a-boo...a natural hole/tunnel in the rocks 

 ferns growing in the moss on the rocks

 lichen-they just rest on the ground, no roots to attach them

 close up of the moss and lichen

 a cedar tree growing in the rocks

 cactus? we found a bunch of them

 what the trail looked like

 we weren't the only ones hiking the trails-deer were following the path too!  we also came across a flock of wild turkey.

 we followed these yellow paint marks to make our loop on the trail.  it took us about an hour since we stopped a lot.  afterwards, we went for lunch at martins bbq in nolensville.

 pulled pork sammiches!  fresh cut fries, mmmm.....

little piggy at the door of martins bbq

date night-thrift stores and korean food

cell phone photo alert...sorry, i do not like to take a camera into a restaurant and if i take photos during a meal, it is always with cell phone.

darry and i decided to make a date of our afternoon together. when i arrived home from work and the basketball game he was watching ended, we headed over to the west side of town. along charlotte avenue is a group of thrift stores. we visited unique thrift store, southern thrift, goodwill and salvation army. darry had the only purchase of the day-a vintage islanders stanley cup hat. i was in search of vintage table ware or pie dishes as well as any kind of stuff that i could work into the decor of our house. needless to say, i came up empty handed. after a couple hours of mindless browsing and lots of giggling over the stuff that was for sale, we headed east towards home. we stopped of to fuel up at portland brew and then landed in our own backyard. after a much needed trip to the grocery store, we bickered about dinner and decided if this was a real date, it required a dinner out.

our choice, tofu house on antioch pike.

the little plates of condiments delivered before our soup arrived. we had (from 12 o'clock) green beans or sea weed salad, bean sprouts, cucumbers, traditional cabbage kim chi, eggs for the soup, a sauce for the shrimps i ordered, potatoes and a spicy daikon.

i ordered mushroom tofu soup. it had noodles, oyster mushrooms and lots of tofu.

darry ordered kim chi tofu soup

entrees are delivered with the soup and i chose shrimp with scallops

darry ordered the braised short ribs

all in all, the food was good and we ate all that we could. the soup comes to the table at a full boil and stays hot for a long time. tofu soup looks as if it wouldn't be filling but you will be surprised at just how filling it is. if you are not a fan of spicy foods, this isn't the place for you-even though i ordered my soup mild, it still had a bite to it and i used some of the rice served with it to take the edge off.

so, 7 down and plenty more to go in order to hit 25 dates in a year. we had a fun afternoon/evening and i look forward to the next date.

celebrating the year-25 dates for 25 years

for those of you out there that might be thinking that i have given up on the 25 dates for 25 years, think again. we work in a field that does not let us enjoy a leisurely holiday season. it is very stressful and busy that we generally look back on it and wonder if it even happened. so in honor of that fact, i am calling this holiday season, date #3 & 4, officially, we blinked and missed it...actually, we did have a chance to do a few things together. we spent time cooking together and watching movies and hiking with the dog

here is something else we did, we went on a real date, #5 was a trip to bell buckle for a day of browsing in antique shops and lunch in the bell buckle cafe.

if you go to bell buckle, be sure to go by phillips general store. billy phillips does an amazing job with the windows.
the other window to the store. check out the store too-it is so jam packed that you could spend a week in it and not see a fraction of what is in there. be sure to visit the bluebird antiques and ice cream shop owned by his parents around the corner from the general store-it is just as jam packed and they are a nice bunch of folks to visit with!

date #4 was a holiday movie festival at our house. we watched so many but these are a few of what we enjoyed together.

there are three movies on this disk-we watched them all

date #3 was a collection of hikes we took with the dog-sometimes just around the block and other times over at the ag center, see the photos of one over here. we have some catching up to do if we will make it to 25 by september. we'll make it!