Catching Up.

On Labor Day weekend, Matthew and I had a "staycation" here in Clarksville.

One of the things we've wanted to do is go visit the Jefferson Davis memorial-- clearly something you'd only encounter in the South!

On our way out, we rode behind this Mennonite buggy for a while.

We arrived at the memorial to find it resembling, alarmingly, another very familiar memorial:

That is located in Kentucky. That's right. THAT is the Jeff Davis Memorial!

Here Matthew is with a relief of the man, and to his left there are doors into the old elevator- looked SUPER creepy and we didn't want to pay $3 to potentially enter the Twilight Zone, so we skipped that attraction.

To get to the memorial we drove about 10 miles on country roads and passed some beautiful farmland, and the following old tractors. Matthew's Grandfather is a farmer and loves old tractors, so we took these photos to send to him, but I thought they were really lovely with the greenery growing around them so here you have them!

Tobacco! The leaves are so big and gorgeous!
I'm not a smoker, but it was neat to see these huge leaves.

The smoking of the tobacco leaves smelled SO good.
Here they are hung in this old dry house to dry out.

Also on our staycation I harvested the last real crop from my tomatoes and peppers:

I decided in order to make use of the 20 tomatoes I got I'd make a tomato sauce this time, so I fire roasted the tomatoes first- here they are with their little bums sliced to allow for easy post-roast peel.

And here is the sauce! Doesn't look particularly appetizing until you realize that the white stuff is garlic, the green stuff is basil, and it is ALL delicious!
I've got two bags frozen waiting for whenever I need 'em!
(and on a side note, I've decided to take up canning next summer... beware!)

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend we went to Jazz on the Lawn at our local winery. A familiar band was playing that night, so we went with some friends and took a little picnic complete with concord grapes and boursin cheese, and of course some nice chilled wine (oh, and Fried chicken, and bread, and brie, and fruit, and red velvet cupcakes). The picture didn't turn out well, but we had a great time!

The next weekend we had tickets to WICKED! It was, of course, fabulous. It was my 3rd time seeing it, and Matthew's first! It lived up to the hype for him and we had a WONDERFUL time. As usual it elicited the usual deep longings in me that theater tends to conjure.

Our dear sweet Matt and Melissa gave us a very generous gift for our Anniversary in August, and we decided to use it for dinner before the show! The follow is that delicious dinner:

My appetizer: Fried heirloom tomatoes with roasted red pepper sauce and goat cheese.

Matthew's Appetizer: the Germantowne Strudel of the day- a cheese and spinach combo I think, with a lemon glaze sauce. He LOVED it and my taste of it was glorious.

My salad with blue cheese balsamic vinaigrette. Also yum!

Matthew's cream of asparagus soup which I made him get since he wouldn't eat salad and it was included, and he ended up absolutely LOVING. He is still talking about it.

The fried cheesey popover was their bread of the day
(we gathered they have different dinner rolls each night).

My meal- pork tenderloin with mustard plum sauce, haricots verts, and garlic mashed potatoes!

Matthew's meal- some kind of steak I can't remember with a mushroom cabernet sauce and the same sides. Again, excellent.

My dessert- recommended by the waitress and OH so good... Apple walnut pie with BROWN BUTTER SAUCE. People, there is nothing better than this. And, oh yeah, a la mode (and ps, I don't even LIKE apple pie!).

Matthew's Bailey's Irish cream cheese cake with caramel and chocolate sauce (someone climbed into his dreams to figure out his idea dessert, and came up with this for him).

We had a FABULOUS meal, and are SO happy to have discovered this place! If you come here, we will go! (**INCENTIVE!**) Thank you SO much for Matt and Mel's generosity, and for finding the place for us to begin with!

And here we are, at the show. You can't see how shnazzy we were, but just know,
OH, we were schnazzy! And we are realizing we know Nashville well enough to get around without directions all the time, and that is neat.

Life other than fabulous weekend fun is good. Matthew is working hard, and I am working and schooling hard. I am teaching some folks to write (ideally), and learning a lot about puritans, literary theory, and writing non-fiction. Matthew is being super awesome, and looking forward to the change in job coming up at the end of November. More soon, I hope, but for now, there we are!