Jeanie's Birthday and Park Fun!

Hey Y'all!

 Today we celebrated a birthday in the Winstead house! Miss Jeanie, the woman I sit with, and pretty much one of my grandmothers due to marriage, had her 79th birthday today! We made some really fun plans to go to the Timeless Elegance Tearoom on Main street for lunch today, and I was so excited to take pictures and show y'all how wonderful main street is, but things happened and plans were changed and we ended up going to Cracker Barrel instead.

As disappointing as it was to not be able to go the tea room, cracker barrel is still such a fun treat! For anyone who has never been there, let me tell you about it. It's a southern restaurant chain that offers not only good southern cooking, but it also offers a store where you can buy holiday themed decor, clothes, toys, and loads upon loads of candy; from giant lollipops that you used to drool over as a child (and if you're anything like me, you still do), to goo goo clusters, pretty much every flavor jelly beans, fifteen pound chocolate bars, and anything else that you could possibly be craving. I used to love going here when I was little because my parents would always reward my good behavior with a candy of my choosing. Another reason that I loved to go here when I was young was because of the games!

While you're waiting for your warm delicious food to arrive, it's always fun to challenge and opponent to a game of checkers, or you can try your hand at this game! Me being me, I forgot to look and actually see what this game is called, but I can tell you that Miss Jeanie is very good at it. (I called this game this pin game when I was young so that's what I'll refer to it as now). It's a pretty simple game. The board is full of plastic "pins" and there is one empty hole. You have to jump the pins (the same concept of checkers), and you'll take the pin out and place it aside. The object of the game is to only have one pin left standing in the board. When I was showing Miss Jeanie how to do it, I had three pins left standing, but when Jeanie did it, she only had two left! Let's just say that she is the new master at the pin game. This game makes me really nostalgic because every time my grandpa would come up from Georgia we would always play this game together, and he was so good at it.

I would have to say that we had a very successful birthday lunch! 79 never looked so cute!
If you travel anywhere in the south, you're sure to come by a cracker barrel somewhere, so maybe to some people, having one of these in Morristown isn't "special", but it is to me. I've had many of dinners here with my friends and family and to just sit down somewhere and have your mind instantly flooded with such warm memories, well, I'd have to say that that is a pretty special place. 

Let me tell you about another special place in Morristown: Panther Creek Park!

We are quite lucky here in Morristown because we have a good number of parks. We have a park on the lake where you can feed the fish, a park that has a water splash pad that's great for kids in the summer, we have a disc golf course and plenty of places to play baseball, but Panther Creek is my absolute favorite, for many reasons.

This may be hard to see in the picture, but this is actually a pretty steep hill on the side of the road when you first enter the park. I have so many good memories on this hill! I've had many of long talks with friends, Frisbee playing, and one year when it snowed a bunch of people all came together and we had a giant snow ball fight! Living in a small town where it hardly snows, you can always be sure that when it does snow, you can get everyone together for some sledding and hot chocolate!

Panther Creek offers so many amenities to outdoor enthusiasts! They have a play ground for the kiddies, or adults because let's be honest, we all still have a notion to swing every time we see one, they have a pool that's open in the summer, soccer fields, volleyball and tennis courts, walking trails for horses and humans, pavilions with charcoal grills and picnic tables for parties, and they also have a beautiful lookout point that lets you take in the breath taking view of the lake that surrounds this town. I've had so many picnics and barbecues in this park growing up and even now, that every time I come here I'm just overwhelmed at how much of my life I've spent here and how I've not until recently really appreciated how much beauty this park has to offer. 

In the picture above is another wonderful thing that the park has to offer. It's very hard to tell exactly what this is in this picture, and the only way you can tell what it is without seeing it in person is if I climbed to the top of a tree and took a picture from above, but let's be honest, I'm not going to be trying to climb a tree anytime soon. At the very tip top of the park is a heart. It has been molded by concrete and filled in with grass and it is absolutely stunning. You can drive around the heart in your car or you can park by a near by pavilion and walk to it, and I enjoy the latter because the walk there is stunning, especially right now when all the leaves are bringing out their warmest colors. 

This heart is also very special to me because this is the very place where my wonderful husband proposed to me in 2013 on Halloween! We had a cheeseburger picnic, because who doesn't love cheeseburger picnics, and we had the entire park to ourselves that evening and it was one of the most memorable days of my life. The weather was perfect, the leaves were bright orange and red, and there was an infinite feeling of love and security that day. This is one place that I'll always look to go to in my many years to come.

You can almost always guarantee that no matter where you go in this town, you're bound to run into someone you know, and low and behold, lil miss Alisha was here! Me and Mikey had such a time visiting with her and her friend tonight and we got to take some really cute pictures of her VW Bus!

I hope that if you've never visited this park that you get the chance to, because it really is a marvel in a small town that can not be surpassed by night clubs and shopping malls. This is a place that has gotten me through breakups, helped me find peace, brought me closer to friends and family, and at some times has served as a safe haven. I'm extremely happy that a place like this exists in our little home we call Morristown!

One more interesting thing that happened to me that I thought I would share with y'all. My husband goes in to work in the mornings at seven, so normally the first text that I get from him is asking me how I slept the night prior. This morning, he texts me and tells me that he bought 89 tall boy cans of mountain dew for five dollars. I thought he joking, because I have no idea how he would have even come across this many mountain dews. Well, he wasnt.

This is my life now. Open our fridge and you will be blind sided by the vibrant green and red that is a mountain dew can. It was "too good of a deal to pass up." Welcome to the south y'all.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed living and writing it. I hope you'll continue to read and see why I love living in a small town. Until next time!

Bye Y'all! xo