Anderson Road Fitness Trail

Or, our first "hike" as a family of four! We are now a family of four! Yay!! It's been amazing and wonderful and I can't believe our little family has grown by one.

Now that our family has grown, and I can walk more than ten feet without feeling exhausted, we really want to make an effort to get outdoors more. Hiking, camping, biking, I want to do it all!

In order to start off easy for this recovering mama, we chose the Anderson Road Fitness Trail which is paved and just over a mile.  While I would probably never visit this trail again, I'm so glad this is the first one we chose because when we passed the 1/2 mile marker, I felt like we had already walked five miles... who knows what would have happened if we had gone on a real hike!

STUD!

Brenden wrangled Kian and Nova while I had sweet girl in the baby sling.

 When you look at the map, most of the trail goes right along  Percy Priest Lake, but in reality you don't have much of a view because of all the trees.  They do have several cut offs with benches where you can go to sit and stare.

After the 1 mile marker, you walk on the road back to the parking lot.  Not ideal with a dog and a stroller. But we made it or more specifically, I did it! I walked a whole mile without taking a break..what an accomplishment ;) This is just the start though, I can't wait to get out there more and push myself. 

Fall!

Kian in his first leaf pile! We are so excited that fall is here and can't wait to throw Kian into many more leaf piles as this beautiful season continues.

The Zoo!

We spent the day at the Nashville Zoo and made a little video to remember the day.  Kian was very serious about the whole affair and calmly inspected all of the animals, except the goats.  The goats he tried to live with.

date night and the most perfect weather

But then we arrived at the park and the weather was perfect! The storm had pushed out the humidity and left a cool breeze. 

pitching stance

The Sounds were wearing "Darth Vader" jerseys.

The mascot, Hot Chicken

At the bottom of the ninth the score was still 0-0, and as the teams were getting ready for the 10th they announced that the fireworks were cancelled. We left, and as soon as we got to the car is started pouring again, we pretty much have the best luck. 

The next day we found out that there had been an hour and 30 minute rain delay at the bottom of the tenth after 2 outs and in the end the Sounds lost.  But we had fun and next time we are sitting in right field where servers come to you and keep you in drinks and food!

Sky Blue Cafe

 Kian and I went out to Brunch with Bob & Leah last Friday at Sky Blue Cafe in East Nashville.  It was SOOOO good.  I ordered the eggs Benedict and I devoured every bite, I could not get enough. The cafe serves mostly breakfast foods, a few sandwiches and booze of course.  What would a brunch place be without booze? They also have a hot sauce bar that includes custom hot sauces, which basically means it's my happy place.  We will definitely be going back and we may even take Brenden with us.

so long apartment

We said goodbye to our apartment the other day. The apartment where I went into labor and then brought Kian home to, and where he later learned to roll over and crawl. As excited as we are about our new home it ended up being rather sad. This apartment was so good to us.  It was the perfect size, in the perfect location and it was Kian's first home. How can you not be sentimental about that? We are already becoming sentimental about our new home and we've only been here a few weeks.

If anyone is looking for an apartment in the Nashville area, let me know and I will be happy to lead you to our prior home.

Nashville Zoo!

Last week during one of the days I was completely over being stuck in the house with a sick baby and   we'd read all of our books and played with all of our toys, I decided we should go to the zoo.  I had just bought a zoo pass the week before so it wasn't that outlandish of a decision but I don't really think Kian was up to it. Anyways, being the great mom that I am, I did not bring the camera for Kian's first trip to the zoo, but I have some really epic cell phone photos to make up for it. 

Doesn't he look thrilled and not at all like he's sick? my poor boy.

Here is a barn

This was the most exciting animal encounter of the day, he came right up to us. 

Beautiful old house that I had recently learned the history of during 4th grade reading and was very excited to see.

Hey elephant.

Totally and completely interested in giraffes

Just kidding, he's all about bubbles!!

Okay, I felt like I was in Australia because you can for real pet kangaroos, they even had joeys! I've never had that opportunity before and I did not take advantage this time but next time, I am totally petting a kangaroo.

We probably spent five minutes watching the flamingos.  I don't know why, they aren't particularly interesting.

And that wraps up our zoo trip. We also visited the snakes and frogs but Kian was only interested in ceiling fans and it was too crowded for me to want to take pictures.  Next time we go it will be with a healthy baby and hopefully I will remember the camera.

Hiking Tennesse / Radnor Lake

turkey vulture

This morning we went to Radnor Lake. This is sort of like a bird sanctuary that is in the middle of the city and it's not really a hike.  There are trails there but we were told by friends we could use our stroller to walk the main path so that's what we did.  It looks like they took a stretch of road that was falling apart and turned it into a jogging trail and then made the area around it a park. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

The lake is very peaceful and you can see that there is a ton of wildlife in the area as evidenced by all the fallen trees from beavers, the constant sounds of birds, and many turtles sunbathing all around the lake. And it's only a few miles from the highway but you would never guess that. We did a little bit of birding and saw a turkey vulture, a woodpecker, and some other birds we couldn't identify.  Professional birders for sure.

The only problem with this area is the parking.  It's lacking.  We got there early and pulled into the first spot we saw, questioning wether or not it was a spot as we pulled in. When we came back over an hour later there was a line of cars sitting at the entrance to the parking lot, just waiting.  So if you plan to go, get there early and take one car.