Market Square Archives - Weary Wanderer

Santa in Knoxville! Well obviously. He’s everywhere 😉

Happy Monday, friends! I hope you all had lovely weekends filled with rest.

Ours was not restful! But … it was amazing. We flew out after school on Thursday to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Lotte ran with her team — the Colorado Coyotes — in the AAU Youth Track & Field National Championships races! She has worked so hard this year, and we could not be more proud. We can’t wait to see where running takes her. (And if it takes us on some fun trips like this past weekend along the way, we won’t complain.)

Knoxville was incredible! It didn’t hurt that it was decked out for the holidays, which you know I’m obsessed with. We stayed at a Hampton Inn (a major thank you to Gpa and his hotel points!) right in downtown, so we could walk to pretty much everything.

Chris worked Friday morning, so the girls and I went exploring. We hit up the Convention Center (which was the former spot of the 1982 World’s Fair and currently houses the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube, if that excites you) and the Sunsphere (Santa was there!), before heading over to the Knoxville Museum of Art (which was totally free and had the cutest little kids’ specific craft room) and then grabbing lunch at The Tomato Head (Santa recommended) in Market Square.

The Convention Center was all decked out for the holiday.

The Peppermint Trail was a cute holiday-themed scavenger hunt that some businesses participated in. There would be a little sticker outside their door alerting kids to their participation, and they usually had something hidden inside (an Elf of the Shelf, for example) and free peppermints or candy canes for kids who asked.

The Sunsphere was a lot of fun! It was pretty cloudy and overcast on Friday so we probably didn’t have the best view, but it was still fun to read all about the World’s Fair and see some of the memorabilia and get a birds’-eye view of the city, and …

See Santa! Emilia was smitten <3 I’m not sure if she really remembers much about seeing an in-person Santa from previous years, so this was pretty darn cute.

The Knoxville Art Museum was totally free and totally worth checking out! Besides the cute kids’ room (which had arts and crafts, toys, games, etc.), it was small enough to be very do-able with Littles, and the room with the miniature rooms was a big hit. They even gave us a paper when we arrived with a scavenger hunt to find things in the teeny tiny rooms. So much fun!

The Tomato Head was a fab suggestion! (Thanks, Santa.) I had their special — an eggplant parm pizza, made with gluten-free crust — and it was a delight!

We loved the sculptures and street art that you can find all over the place in Downtown Knoxville.

Lotte’s coaches organized a team dinner Friday night, and seeing Lotte with all her little running buddies was so cute! But let me tell you … don’t let these adorable faces fool you. These girls can RUN! There were some insane times in the race the next day from some of these ladies!

Saturday was race day! Lotte ran in the 9-10 girls heat, which was at noon. We had a chill morning and headed over to the field around 10:30.

Lotte was nervous, which made sense, since she was literally running with the top kids in the country.

But she held her own — despite the muddy course! — and ran the whole thing!

One of the main reasons we wanted Lotte to join. These cuties will have bonds for life if they all stick with it.

I couldn’t love this picture more. Not only for Lotte and her look of determination, but for Coach Dad Chris rooting her on in the background <3

FINISHER. You deserve all the accolades, little lady. So proud.

We waited around to watch one of Lotte’s friends run in her heat before heading back to the hotel to shower and rest a bit. After that we hit the town again! We went ice skating (ONLY MY FAVORITE EVER), and ate at Soccer Taco (so good!). Then we hit up the candy store, did a bit more of the Peppermint Trail, and took in some twinkling lights on the walk back to our hotel.