Our Second Anniversary Trip

This year, for our anniversary, we went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We had not accrued a ton of vacation days at work, so we decided to take a mini-trip since we only had a few days available.

Hot Springs, Arkansas is known for none other than it's natural hot springs! Located in Ouachita Mountains, Hot Springs National Park is the oldest federal reserve in the United States! This was a great addition to our collection of stamps in the National Parks Passport Program.

The park is literally a mountain plus the adjoining roadside which houses many spas and bathhouses, called Bathhouse Row. You can go take a bath in the natural hot water, or get a massage, or other spa things. We did not participate in taking a bath, but I did feel the water in several fountains on the mountain side. The signs stated 143 degrees Fahrenheit! Wowzer.

Nicknamed "Spa City," we learned that Hot Springs was once a frequented vacation spot for many gangsters! We visited the Gangster Museum of America which told of the history and influence that gangsters had on Hot Springs. We ate at The historic Ohio Club and listened to live music. Who knows, had we visited 80 years earlier we could've dined with Al Capone, himself!

Lastly, we went to Magic Springs and Crystal Falls Water & Theme Park. No historic value, but lots of fun value. [Great sentence I just wrote right there....]

Check out our YouTube video of our trip by clicking here.

Or read our other blog posts about previous vacations:

Disney World

Fall Creek Falls, TN State Park

Ashville, NC

Chicago, IL

Smoky Mountains, TN

Charleston, SC

What We've Been Up To

I'm sure everyone is wondering what happened with the Cold Tuesday Morning. Its riveting, I know... Our last entry was posted on Christmas Eve. I really don't like that its been over 3 months since we've written anything, but it couldn't have been helped. Since then, we've experienced several changes and we've spent the past few weeks adjusting to these changes. Lets just start from the beginning.

1. I got a new job working at the University of Memphis. I am an Occupational Safety Coordinator and I started the beginning of January. Many people are very confused about what I actually do as an Environmental Health and Safety employee, and I'm not going to go into a long tangent in this post, but basically EHS people work for your company (in my case the university) for two basic reasons. The first is to keep all employees as safe as possible by eliminating hazards that could cause injuries or illnesses. The second is the save the company money through lower workers compensation costs AND avoiding OSHA fines. As I'm writing this, I've come to the realization that I'm going to write an more in-detail post explaining things an EHS person might do at work. 

2. Because of the new job, we moved closer to UofM, obviously. We found a perfect townhouse that has a wood-burning fireplace, huge bedrooms, and plenty of room for Koba and Yuki to chase each other around. And, its an easy commute to work. Although we have visited Memphis often, moving here has been different, to say the least, moving from a fairly rural area to the 23rd largest city in the United States! We've enjoyed trying new restaurants, doing Memphis things, and meeting new people at church and work.

3. Nathan and my dad went the the NHL All-Star skills competition and game on January 30-31. This weekend had been building up for almost a year since Nashville won the bid on the NHL All-Star festivities. When this season started, we decided to go in with my parents and buy half-season tickets to qualify to buy All-Star tickets. Well, basically we only got to use half of our game tickets before we moved and had to sell the rest, but we made the trip back to my parents house to enjoy a hockey-filled weekend. Nathan and dad loved getting to experience such as once-in-a-lifetime event (for Nashville) and my mom and I enjoyed watching it live on TV also.

4. Yuki turned 1. She's just so darn cute, still. Yuki Koehler was born on February 12, 2015. She enjoys eating, playing with Koba, getting belly rubs, and howling at the moon (literally, she howls like a little dog). Happy Birthday Yuki!

5. Nathan passed the CCNA test, so he is now a Cisco Certified Network Associate. Yay! This is us celebrating:

6. We celebrated Resurrection Sunday. It was a beautiful day to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead! We enjoyed the weekend with Nathan's parents and an Easter lunch complete with steak and pecan pie. Oh. Also, I joined the choir at church, so it was pretty exciting to get to perform during the celebration service.

As far as the next post on Cold Tuesday Morning goes.... I'm not sure when that will happen. We are going to try and post something at least once a month, but it isn't going to be near the amount of content as it was before we moved.

This Christmas!

As you know, we created a 2015 Christmas Bucket List. Well, there's only a few days left before Christmas, so I figured that I would post an update before this get super hectic. Here's a link to our Christmas Bucket List.

Kiss Under the Mistletoe. I'm so happy and blessed to have Nathan to spend my Christmases with. 

Look at the Lights at the Opryland Hotel. I have been to the Opryland Hotel before, and have even been there around Christmas (The first time I'd been there at all was with Nathan, if you can believe that), but I'd never walked around and looked at the outside lights. This year, we wanted to do this together.

Make Christmas Candy. Last year, I made Christmas cookies and candy for our Christmas Party, but this year, when we realized we were not going to be able to host a Christmas Party, I just decided to randomly make the goodies. 

Go See the Dancing Lights. Last year, we discovered the Dancing Lights of Christmas at Jellystone Park in Nashville. The ad recommends bringing your pets, so last year, we brought Koba, and he actually seemed to like it. This year, we were brave and brought both Koba and Yuki. Well, they really enjoyed the light show put to music by staring at the car floor the entire time....

Sleep Under the Tree.... Well, we never slept under the Christmas Tree. Honestly, we wouldn't have fit under this year's 2-footer, but I just wanted to show a picture of our tree ;)

Have a Christmas Movie Marathon. I collect Christmas movies and so every year, I try to watch as many as I can until I get annoyed with the cheesiness. This year, I didn't get far into my marathon. We did watch a few, and we also went to see "How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical." It was enjoyable.

Undocumented Items...

• Go Black Friday Shopping
• Drink Hot Chocolate

Our Christmas Bucket List Failures....

• Watch a Christmas Parade
• Host a Christmas Party
• Sleep Under the Tree

More Mistletoe Photos

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Movie Marathan

It's that time of year again to bring out all of my Christmas movies! I collect Christmas movies and I try to watch as many as I can every single year. This year is no different! 

During college, I would invite people over every single night to watch various movies with me (check this video out!)  I'm so excited this year, that I even made a calendar for Nathan and I to follow along!

What are your favorite Christmas movies? Leave a comment below!

November 29 - Charlie Brown Thanksgiving AND Charlie Brown Christmas
November 30 - How the Grinch Stole Christmas
December 1
December 2
December 3 - A Christmas Story
December 4 - The Polar Express
December 5 - Home Alone
December 6 - Home Alone 2
December 7 - Jingle All the Way
December 8 - Christmas with the Kranks
December 9 - The Nightmare Before Christmas
December 10 - Holiday Inn
December 11 - The Santa Clause
December 12 - The Santa Clause 2
December 13 - Saturday Night Live Christmas
December 14 - Elf
December 15 - The Family Stone
December 16 - Love Actually
December 17 - This Christmas
December 18 - Christmas Vacation AND The Muppets Christmas Carol
December 19
December 20
December 21
December 22 - Miracle on 34th Street
December 23 - It's a Wonderful Life
December 24 - White Christmas
December 25
December 26

BPP: Fall Bucket List Update #2

This is another update on our completion of the 2015 Fall Bucket List! We are really enjoying this!

Go on a Hayride - This year we went on a hayride at my parent's church Fall Festival. It was a pretty fun time: corny scary stories that will inevitably make kids cry even though they are not that scary PLUS the weather was almost perfect for a hayride! We enjoyed the hayride, as well as the hayride in general!

Carve a Pumpkin - This particular Bucket List item had a deadline. We had to do it before Halloween. Well, I guess we didn't HAVE to, but I wanted to, so we did. This was the first time Nathan had ever carved a pumpkin, and the first time I had ever used the pumpkin carving tools. We carved away while "watching" the Nightmare Before Christmas (there wasn't much watching because of our carving intensity). The pumpkins turned out mighty fine! [mine is the cat; Nathan's is the skeleton]

Watch Football Games - SO, the plan was to visit our Alma Mater and watch Murray State play a football game. We planned the weekend, arrived in Murray, then right before the game started, we decided not to go because it was raining and cold. Most likely, we'll not be going to a live football game this season, HOWEVER, we have been watching football on TV more this year because of the fantasy football interest that our house has. Since we didn't have a picture from us going to a football game, this Patriots Pride selfie will have to do.

Make Caramel Apples - I have to say, this was way harder than I had anticipated. I'm not saying its a hard recipe, I'm saying you have to be READY to swirl those apples in the caramel! The result was delicious as expected :)

Click here to see the previous post with our first 5 Fall Bucket List completions. Stay tuned for the final installment of our Bucket List completions!

BPP: Fall Bucket List Update

A few weeks ago, we created and posted our 2015 Fall Bucket List. So far, we've gotten through about 1/3 of our items, so I thought it would be a good time to show you guys the pictures from some of the fun times we've had this fall!

Host a Fall Party - We had originally planned to have a bonfire at our Fall Party, but it rained the whole day leading up to to the party. Instead we just grilled hot dogs on the George Forman, and made s'mores in the microwave. We had a great time eating, talking, and playing games!

Watch Scary Movies - So far this fall, we've watched 'Alien' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street.' We watched Alien from our couch, and Nightmare on Elm Street at the Drive-In. This was the first I'd seen both of these movies, and they were good, but I'd personally be fine to not watch anymore this season.

Brew Spiced Lattes - Uhhh, we went a little crazy on our Fall Keurig flavors.... We bought (in addition to our usual ones) Caramel, Pumpkin Spice, and Hot Apple Cider. This is the best we're going to get on brewing spiced lattes, I think.

Go on a Hike - For part of my birthday festivities, we went to Mammoth Cave and did a little hiking and mild spelunking. It was a pretty fun time, and a great addition to my birthday weekend.

Enjoy a bonfire - We do this at least once a week. I would suggest to anyone to invest in a fire pit, because it is so relaxing. We enjoy winding down and talking for hours next to the fire.

Labor Day Weekend as told by Selfies

Saturday Night: Pentatonix Concert. In June, we bought tickets to go see PTX at Bridgestone Arena, and the concert day finally arrived! I had seen them in concert 2 years ago when my parents came to visit me during my internship in Maryland. The venue in Maryland was much smaller, so it was a different concert with a different sound, but the concert this weekend had a much higher energy. 

Also, the PTX's song library has definitely grown, so they had more songs to choose from at this concert. It was a great night and an awesome concert!!

Sunday: Relaxing at the lake. My family was camping all weekend at Bumpus Mills campground on Lake Barkley, so we decided to drive up for a few hours and relax with them. We decided to decline actual camping this year after last year's Nathan-being-miserable and me-getting-food-poisoning fiasco. 

Anyway, the main events at the campground on Sunday included riding around on the boat for a bit, eating grilled chicken legs, and me starting a fire with flint! I had a good time, and Nathan didn't die from being outside (although he insists he was close), so it was a successful day.

Sunday Night: Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation. Last week, we worked our way through watching the first 4 Mission Impossible movies and capped the marathon by going to Bowling Green to watch the newest installment, Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation. We both liked the movie a lot, and I would recommend people to go see it.

Since all of the movies are fresh on my mind, I will now rate them all based on how much I liked them. Warning: Spoilers for the first 4.

1. Mission Impossible. You literally don't figure out who the bad guy is until the very end! If this wasn't the first movie, I might not rate it number 1.
2. Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation
3. Mission Impossible III. I liked this one because he actually had a more of a motivation to complete the mission, since his wife was abducted.
4. Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol. This one is good. I liked the high intensity scene when Ethan is climbing the building and his suction gloves stop working and the scene after that.
5. Mission Impossible II. This was the only one that I really didn't like. I have no idea why, I just didn't like it. Maybe its because there were too many instances with face-pulls.

One thing to note with Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation is that Ethan Hunt is looking pretty old...

Monday: The Historic Railpark Train Museum. Even thought we and Nathan's parents have been talking about going to the Train Museum in Bowling Green for months, Monday's events were an impromptu adventure! We loved the history and interesting aspects of going through actual train carts (even though it can easily induce claustrophobia!) and the neat intricacies of the huge model train setup. 

We spent quite a bit of time learning about how the railroad system influenced so much of American and Bowling Green history. Afterwards, of course, we got ice cream.

It was a good weekend!

BPP #14

Hey hey party people! Its been really relaxing the past few weeks, which has been great since May and June were so crazy!!

For our anniversary we got some photos taken (reminiscent of engagement photos). We got them back last week and WE LOVE THEM! You may have seen our post from Monday, but if not, click here to see more of our anniversary pictures! Photo cred: Josh Salley

My cuz, Kaitlynn, was in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." On one hand, it was pretty funny. On the other hand, it was very entertaining. On the other hand, the music was great. Thumbs up if you get the reference. She played the role of Tzeitel, and it was weird seeing her get married, but she did great (and the other people did great also)!