Smoky Mountain Honeymoon

This was the view from the bed. Um, awesome to wake up to!

Outside of our cabin in Sevierville, TN...and my smokin' hot husband (sorry)

This picture was actually meant to show how steep the drop-off was behind our driveway. It did not succeed, but you can see a bit of how high we were and our view!

Christmas "village"

We antiqued.

We went sight-seeing.

One morning, we woke up to this...I took this from inside of the cabin's loft. Seriously amazing!

We went horseback riding. (See?? He IS a cowboy...)

We went ziplining.

We went hiking.

We did some more sightseeing.

We did some (a lot of) eating. (And we got a free dessert for being newlyweds.) :)

We went zorbing. (See below video if you don't know what that is!)

Zorbing in the Smoky Mountains from Alina Strain on Vimeo.

We did some more eating.

Some more antiquing.

Some shopping (@ Mast General Store in Knoxville).

And some flying.

Basically, we came, we saw, we did and we loved it all. Easily the best week of my life; not because of anything we did necessarily, but because I had an entire week of the Mr. all to myself with zero distractions, zero stresses, zero work/school, zero to-do lists...just one solid (almost) week of pure, simple quality time. This week, "real" life started again. It's certainly an adjustment as I start working again (which means I'm at home alone) and he's started his neurology rotation (...which means I'm at home alone for 10-12+ hours a day...), but we'll get into a routine, I'll make new friends and rekindle old friendships in this new-old city, and we'll figure out the ebb and flow of life and marriage. Today, I chose to have an attitude of gratefulness (yesterday was a rough one) and expectancy. My love, in his honest love for me, reminded me that God has a plan in all of the struggles and that I needed to suck it up. He is right. My attitude is purely what it is by my own control, so this morning, I hit a "reset" button and determined to refocus, choose a better attitude and go to God first for strength (that's not my husband's job either).

Whew. Didn't see all that coming...so to end on a happy note, we got some teaser pics from our photographer! :) :) :) Visit her at Jackie Cooper Photo.