A Rainy Day Trip

**As I'm typing, we are in the middle of a huge thunderstorm here in Clifton. One thunder clap just shook the house and set off a few car alarms. I swear, for such a small place, there's always something happening! **

Since I was such a good little housewife last week (ha ha), Mike took me on a day trip to Williamson County, just south of Nashville. Our first stop was Arrington Vineyards, a relatively new winery that is owned by Kixx Brooks (of the famed country duo Brooks & Dunn). Mike packed us an awesome picnic lunch in our adorable picnic basket (wedding present from our friends Terra and Mitch Greenwell. We love it and we love them!). The view was lovely, the winery is up on a small hill overlooking the vines and some rolling country fields. 

The tasting at Arrington is free, but you only get to choose four wines to taste. Mike and I each chose four different wines to maximize our options, and split each taster into a sip for each of us. I am not a fan of overly sweet wine - I love a good dry white or robust red - so I tried the 2010 Viognier, the 2009 Red Fox Red, the 2009 Cab Sav, and for kicks, the Raspberry dessert wine. Mike, who prefers anything containing 10% residual sugars, is more a white/dessert wine kind of guy. I know, we're weird. Mike chose the 2011 Stag's White, the 2010 Riesling, the 2009 Syrah, and the Port style Encore dessert wine.

Overall, the wine itself was... well... meh. Having been spoiled for the last few years by the vast array of award winning Virginia wineries, I think we've developed a rather particular taste for Shenandoah and Blue Ridge vino. I'm not going to say that all of the wines at Arrington Vineyards are bad, but I liked 1/8 and Mike liked 3/8 of those tasted. We settled on bringing home a bottle of Viognier (my favorite) and a bottle of the Encore port (Mike's favorite). Then we uncorked a Stag's White (mutually enjoyed) and chilled out for a few hours watching a torrential downpour soak the countryside from the safety of a pleasant tented patio. Overall it was a pretty relaxing afternoon, and when we had our fill of picnic and wine (and rain), we headed up to Franklin, Tennessee to explore!

I created a new KMP logo this week - I love the simplicity of it. So cute!

Loved their twinkle lights

RAIN.

Franklin is an adorable historic town just south of Nashville. It reminded us a lot of Alexandria, Virginia - lots of red brick, old buildings, Mom & Pop shops, fancy boutiques, and quirky cafes. One such place is a cupcakery (which was a familiar concept to us, having moved here from DC - the Fancy Cupcake Capitol of the World) named Cowgirl Cupcake Company. It was a really sweet little shop in a neat remodeled old house. Mike and I shared some Key Lime Pie cupcakes during Cupcake Happy Hour (half price cupcakes!) and they were delicious. Thumbs up for Cowgirl Cupcake Company!

It was still raining, although much more lightly, as we walked through Franklin, so I have less photos than I would have preferred. It's really tough to hold, and manually operate, a DSLR camera while holding a cupcake, purse, and an umbrella. My adorable COACH umbrella is a very pretty lavender color, and I love it so much, but I don't like to let Mike hold it for me because 1) I can do it myself, this isn't the 1830's, 2) it's a girly umbrella - he would look really silly, and 3) he refuses to stand under it anyway because "real men don't need umbrellas." Whatever, I told him that I won't feel bad for him if he gets pneumonia. 

Anyway, Franklin is adorable. A few months ago, around the same time Mike applied for the Clifton job, he also applied for a job in Franklin's City Hall. They never called him though, so he wanted to see their City Hall and enjoy a good laugh, since they obviously didn't know what they missed out on. ;)

Literally the only pictures I took that weren't completely dreary were: Mike in front of City Hall and a couple fun portraits of us next to a cool old bank building. Mike wasn't entirely cooperative, I have a pretty hilarious string of him making funny faces, but I picked my two favorites to share. In a rare incident of relinquishing control of my precious camera, I let Mike take a few portraits of me. I hate pictures of myself to begin with (you know the saying "those who can't do, teach?" Well, in my case, it's "those who don't photograph well, photograph!"), but my sweet husband could barely find the shutter button. Result: a few crooked portraits, a great one (with an accidentally cool angle) of me laughing at him, and a few of my boobs. Insert eye roll. Men!

Clifton Rules, Franklin Drools!

Goofy Husband!

I did see this neat half-moon stained glass over the door to what is obviously the Roberts Building. I really loved the colors, I wish the brick hadn't been so wet, it would have really added to the pop. 

Speaking of color pop, I did manage to snap this beauty from the passenger's seat on the ride home. As the rain clouds moved West, the sweet summer sun began to shine through the clouds as it set. The resulting colors were gorgeous. This photo scrapes the surface of how pretty it was, especially how the colors bounced and reflected off of the wet pavement. Tennessee is such a pretty state, every time the sun sets I think it's better than the night before!

Sorry, this post was SUPER long. Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end! :)

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