It was so amazing to have my beloved husband home for our first wedding anniversary! I wasn’t sure if it would happen, but it did and I am so incredibly thankful! We planned our honeymoon/anniversary trip months ago and I had been counting down the days! We booked a cabin in Gatlinburg for 4 nights/5 days. The original cabin we booked was 2 bedrooms/1.5 baths. At the time I booked it, that cabin was one of the only ones from that rental place with internet, which we needed for The Sarge to do his school work. We chose that rental place because they had a special that if you stayed Sunday through Thursday, you got the 4th night free. Heck yeah!!

The day we were driving up there, it was snowing. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Gatlinburg, it is in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. However, the locals were telling us that they are not used to getting snow! It had been snowing some that week, before we went. We called some friends of ours who live there to ask about the roads. They live on a mountain and were not able to drive from their house to the main roads! My mom was worried we wouldn’t be able to make it to our cabin. I confidently told her “I have been praying about this for months. That we will have clear roads and safe travel. And my God is good! I’m not worried about it!” She looked doubtful and I said “I’m just believing like you taught me!” We got on the road and I prayed consistently. “Lord, let us have safe travel. Keep us safe from the ice and snow. Let us not have any car problems! Protect us with your angels.” We had clear roads the entire way! My God is so good.

The office of the rental place is closed on Sundays, so they leave packets for guests checking in. We found our packet and saw that they had given us 2 maps. There was one for the original cabin we booked, with a post-it note saying “You will NOT be able to drive to this cabin due to the ice.” I quickly looked at the other map and it said “We have this cabin as another option for you. Let us know which one you choose.” It was on the same road as the first cabin, but closer to the main road. I looked up the website on my phone and saw that the new option was a much better cabin. A Luxury cabin!!! So obviously we chose that one!

We walked in and it was so beautiful!! We were so excited!! The main floor had a living room with a fireplace, kitchen, dining room with a little reading nook, bedroom with queen size bed, full bath, deck with hot tub, and a wrap around porch. The upstairs had a small seating area in the loft, the master bedroom with a king size bed, seating area, jacuzzi tub, full bath, and a wall of windows! Which was gorgeous to look out of! The basement had a pool table, foosball table, sofa & loveseat, large flat screen tv with cable & dvd player, table for playing games (which were provided), a wet bar with mini fridge & microwave, full bath, and washer/dryer. It was so nice! I was in love with this cabin.

The first night was amazing and when we woke up, there was snow everywhere! It was so beautiful. We got at least 5 inches, but I think it was closer to 7 inches by the time we left! We knew we were not going anywhere that day, and thankfully we had food! We watched movies and he did schoolwork. Just relaxing and fun.

We had planned on letterboxing every day, but since we couldn’t get out of the driveway (the road was clear by the 2nd day!), we decided to make stamps for planting letterboxes. I also made a stamp for our new trail name. We decided to use one instead of our separate names since we are married. Much better now.

By Wednesday, The Sarge had cabin fever. Literally! He wanted to get out and explore so badly! We didn’t have a shovel at the cabin. We looked around and found a broom and a dust pan. He bundled up and went out to “shovel” the driveway off! With the dust pan!! It was so cute. It worked too! We were able to drive away around 1:30pm. We went looking for a few letterboxes. Some of them we were not able to find because of the snow. But we ended up finding 10 that day! Which is a record for us, I believe. We wanted to get pancakes somewhere, but by the time we left the cabin, all the pancake houses had closed! Apparently they are only open for breakfast. We were kinda bummed, but we ended up going to Cracker Barrel to get pancakes. They were yummy!!

The next day we had to check out. We packed up and did everything on the checkout list. Said goodbye to our cabin and headed out. We had a list of about 15 letterboxes to look for. We found the first one! But to get to it, we had to drive further up the mountain than we had before. I was nervous because of the ice on the road. We made it safely. The next one, which was very close by, was up a gravel road that was COVERED in snow. We decided to skip that one. We went several other places. Even some of the indoor boxes we were looking for were unavailable to us because of the snow. It was disappointing. We still had a great day though. We agreed that we will save those clues and go back when it’s warmer to find them.

We took our time going home that day. We have always had a blast every time we go on road trips. We sing along with the music, talk about our plans for the future, get to know each other even better. I love road trips with The Sarge! It was the first trip we had taken all by ourselves and it was the most amazing trip ever! I am so happy we were able to do it. I think I fell even more in love with him that week. Just being with him constantly. It was perfect.

Well, I know you guys are itching for pictures! Since I have so many, I’ll do a gallery view. I hope you like them! We didn’t take too many of us, but you can look forward to more of those when he’s home for good! Without further ado…

Check back tomorrow for the story of our first anniversary (the actual day!)