Stone Mountain State Park

Bottom line, relationships have to be nurtured and tended to. They often have to be repaired, rejuvenated, and re-established. Ruts can occur. Complacency can occur. Then it just happens that the next day the relationship is more like roommates than soul mates.

The weekdays get jam packed with work, errands and independent schedules that not a lot of time is put back into US. Yes, watching an episode of Modern Family on a Wednesday night right before bed puts us in the same room together for thirty minutes, but that’s obviously not enough.

We often tend to fill our weekends full of friends and family that sometimes I crave to just have him by myself. We have been SO busy lately that last Friday night, I honestly did not feel guilty by responding “no thank you” to an invitation for a couple drinks with our friends. “Charleston” and I have to pay attention to our relationship and keep reigns on our quality of time together because it can easily get out of control. It’s not hard on a Sunday to look back on the weekend and realize that our sleeping hours were the only ones we spent alone together.

Therefore, last week, when “Charleston” texted me at work to see if I wanted to go hiking on Saturday and asked if I wanted to invite anyone to with us, my response was clearly: Yes and No.

We were long overdue for US time. He agreed and we did just that. We nurtured our relationship; got back in touch with each other after a very busy month and spent all day on cloud-nine as if we were in our second week of dating. I fell in love with him all over again.

It was the perfect day to bring us back to US.

Stone Mountain State Park
Roaring Gap, NC

Yeap, that's my mountain man!

It was a super great hike; about 5 miles of various terrains and levels of difficulty. 

This picture doesn't do it justice but "Charleston" has long legs.  I promise.  I know this for a fact after trying to follow Rambo up the side of this mountain.  For every massive man step he was taking, I was three toddler steps behind him.

The stair stepper has nothing on Stone Mountain!

It was a gorgeous fall day and after our hike back down to the bottom, we drove to an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed a picnic lunch before heading back to Charlotte.

I love my mountain man and I will forever appreciate every second we get to spend together, just us.