Daniel and Christa: The first holiday season of our marriage

We meant to post these pictures a while ago, but just haven't had a chance. This was Daniel's first autumn experience in Tennessee! I sadly was not there. He took these pictures, even the one of himself, which is impressive. He enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at Centennial Park (the one with the Parthenon). and jumped in piles of leaves until his childlike heart's desire was quelled. As a result, he picked me up from school covered in little bits of leaves (in his hair, clothes, all over the car) and it's been wonderful to enjoy the changing of the season here.

Tennessee is truly beautiful if you get a little bit outside the city. It's a place just bursting with green. One of the places that has become our haunt is Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. We go there Saturday mornings before Daniel goes into work. We just walk around, sit and talk, climb trees . . . :) This last week we ate at the Cheekwood Restaurant called the Pineapple Room. Daniel had a veggie quesadilla with roasted red peppers and melted brie, and I had a turkey quiche (very festive as it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving!) Here's just a sample of what it's like:

In addition to just generally enjoying how beautiful it is, we've also been enjoying our first holiday season as a married couple. We decided to take a trip during the Thanksgiving holiday, thinking it would take our minds off of not being with family. And we spent the Wednesday before Turkey Day in Atlanta - at the High Museum of art. I posted about the exhibits in the last post, but let me say they were amazing! I wish we could have taken pictures of the pieces we most liked to share with everyone - but alas for copyright issues! One of them in the Louvre collection was a sculpture called "Lion killing a snake" by Antoine-Louis Barye. The original piece in itself was amazing, but they had also collected miniature and trial sculptures for the masterpiece. Seeing the evolution against the final product was incredible.

We pulled this off the internet to give an idea of the piece. It's larger than life size - it's huge.

I'm not one for modern buildings, but this Museum was an exception.

And of course, the crowning joy of our holiday season . . . getting the Christmas tree! Even as I write Daniel and I are sitting in the glow of our tree, eating chocolate chip cookies and drinking a glass of riesling. Yesterday was in fact our 6 month anniversary, and we decided cookies, wine and a christmas tree at home was the best way to celebrate. Oh yes, and listening to the audio version of Lord of the Rings.

This is the story of how the Baugh Christmas Tree came to be . . .