Feb-DO-ary 2017

Friday, February 3, 2017 - Our national spirit was pumped up once again as we traveled down to Chattanooga today to see the U.S. Men's National Team in Chattanooga vs. Jamaica in a friendly soccer match.  We arrived just about game time at Finley Stadium and the place was packed despite some pretty  frigid temps. We had great  mid-field seats (photo below) along with our friend, Chris, and his son, Ethan, who plays soccer and is going to a camp this summer at Duke (can you be jealous of 10-year-old?).  The game was tight and thrilling with the boys in red, white and blue squeezing out a 1-0 win.  Their first win under their new coach, Bruce Arena.

The impressive crowd was announced at nearly 18,000 - a near sell-out for a game that didn't mean anything really and with temps in the mid-30's.  Nice job, Chattanooga!

(EDITOR'S NOTE:  This two teams met up again later in the year in late July for the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup Championship with the U.S. squeaking out another close victory by a 2-1 margin!)

Saturday, February 4 - We got up fairly early for a weekend day for breakfast today in Chattanooga at the new Maple Street Biscuit Company - a regional chain with this being its first location outside of Florida.  The biscuits are over-the-top and delicious.  Above is my order of The Farmer - fried chicken, bacon, cheddar cheese and house-made apple butter.  It was amazing!  We had to take a long walk afterwards down the hill from Ashlee's mom's house across the Walnut Street Bridge and back to work off some of the calories.  Luckily the weather was mild for early February.

Tuesday, 2/7 - We continued our Oscars research tonight with a viewing of Lion at our nearby Providence Theaters.  It is a fantastic film and Dev Patel certainly does deserve an the hardware for his supporting-actor performance.  We had dinner before at the always-tasty Red Robin.

Saturday, 2/11 - We had tickets to see one of our favorite young bands out there, Safetysuit, at The Cannery tonight.  They put on a whale of a show with an almost full house and the biggest crowd they had ever played before in Nashville they said.  We caught a couple songs from the opener, Royal Teeth, who were pretty good too.  We had a great dinner at Suzy Wong's House of Yum beforehand.

Tuesday, 2/14 - We decided that instead of dropping a C-note for a fancy dinner in Nashville on Valentine's Day (sorry, Rolf and Daughters) that we would spend some of that said-money on another addition to our pool.  Say hello to Mr. Narwhal!  Yes, we have a giant-pool-float addiction!  We admit it!

I also stayed local with a couple of other gifts for Ashlee including chocolate-covered strawberries from Lana's Drizzled Desserts over in Mt. Juliet, and some beautiful orange and yellow tulips from Henderson's Flower Shop here in Lebanon.   Ashlee, in return, got me a cool  ice-cream cake that looked like a giant Sweetheart candy (which I love) from our local Baskin-Robbins. Dinner consisted of one of our go-to staples:  party pizzas!!  Now that's a Valentine's worth remembering!

Friday, 2/17 - We headed to Nashville tonight to see St. Paul and the Broken Bones at The Ryman for their second of two SOLD OUT shows.  The opener was Ruby Amanfu and she was pretty good.  We had dinner before at the amazing Monell's at The Manor.  St. Paul and the boys from Bama were outstanding including a very unique "under the rug" rendition of "Broken Bones and Pocket Change" (photo below).

Saturday, 2/18 - Monday 2/20:  We had a great long-weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio.  So great, in fact, that it gets it's own separate page (see next blog entry).