A Paleo Easter

This year, Easter Sunday was the weekend before Kourtney's wedding so we decided to stay in Tuscaloosa to avoid making the long drive too many times in one week. We planned to just make a simple dinner for the two of us after church and hang out at home. Then our sweet friends Susan & Doster, who also attend the same church we do, invited us over for Easter lunch at their house. They follow the same diet we do, and we always share recipes, cookbooks, websites & meal ideas. So we decided that the dinner would be 100% Paleo. I love being creative & trying new recipes so this was such a fun idea. We had quite the spread!

A Paleo Easter - Menu

Ham

Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Spicy Collard Greens

Deviled Eggs

Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

Sweet Potato Casserole

Fruit

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Lemon Cake

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cashew Icing

Red & White Wine

My contribution was the asparagus, bacon-wrapped dates, and carrot cake cupcakes.  Even though it was certainly different that the usual holiday fare everything was SO good!  We drank wine and chatted for hours after the meal.  We had such a great time!

                            

And here is a picture of me (Brent would not take an Easter picture with me in our Easter clothes so I had to take them of myself) in my Easter attire from this year (for documentation purposes):

Previous Easter posts:

2012: Easter Collage

Happy Easter 2011

2010: We Love Claritin

Easter 2009

Hiking Journal: Rainbow Falls

On Saturday afternoon we decided to hike to Rainbow Falls.  Rainbow Falls is on the Boulevard trail, which is one of the trails to Mount LeConte.  So even though we weren't planning go go all the way up, we were anxious to see what another LeConte trail was like.

The trailhead was located in Gatlinburg off near the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.  We had actually never been in that area before but the trailhead for Trillium Gap & Grotto Falls is also in the same area (another route to LeConte).

It was no joke starting out!  It was steep and rocky.  My knees were hurting from the day before and I was tired & hungry.  All of that to say that I honestly was a little bit grouchy starting out and had to eat a good bit of dried mango to make it up the hill. :(  I might have complained a bit more than usual.

Along the way, it is quite rocky with some huge old trees. Lots of mountain laurel also; in the spring I'm sure this hike is absolutely gorgeous.

And then we were there!  It had been cold recently, and there was still some snow/ice around the falls.  They were gorgeous!  We totally ignored the warning signs and climbed right up the rocks to be as close as possible.  We realized at this point that that the hike was well worth it; this might have been one of our favorite hikes so far!  But at this point I couldn't have imagined hiking on up to LaConte!

So, in summary - this was a pretty tough hike, but short and well worth it!  Rainbow Falls is definitely something to see!

Hiking Journal: Jump Off in the Snow

In mid-March we made our return to the Smokies.  We had been away for too long!  It was time for more hiking and relaxing in the mountains.  I had a long weekend, so we found a dogsitter, Brent took off on Friday, and we headed for the mountains.

We had a few hikes in mind; unfortunately we were limited a little bit - the Chimney Tops were closed and the road to Clingman's Dome was still closed for the winter.  On Friday, we decided to hike to the Jump-Off.  The first part of this hike is the same hike that goes to Charlie's Bunion, the hike that we did last year on Black Friday.  One thing we weren't prepared for: SNOW!

It was so cold, and actually quite icy in places.  We definitely weren't wearing the most appropriate shoes. We were both slipping and sliding all over the place.  We debated turning around several different times, but decided to keep on going.  And then we made it!  The views were gorgeous!

We were really nervous up there -- we were right there on the edge of the cliff and it was so snowy & icy.  It would have been so easy to fall!  Brent did not appreciate me standing so close to the edge in the photo above.

It was so slick & scary on the way back.  There were a few times when I just sat down & slid down the ice. Much better than falling!  It look a long time navigating the trail, trying to step where others people had stepped or in the dry/muddy places.  I was so relieved to be back on dry ground.  Unfortunately, there was a casualty on this trip.  Brent was carrying the camera in his backpack and actually fell off a rock straight on his back, breaking the camera. So that was pretty sad, but we did get lots of use out of it...it was probably about time to replace it anyway.  :-(

We were so happy to get back to the car and out of our wet, muddy clothes.  We also made a mental note for next time - must invest in some trekking poles and crampons for snowy winter hikes!