Nashville 2024

 Tyler and I decided to take a little vacation to celebrate Tyler's birthday and an early 15th anniversary. See when Tyler left DMC he had some trips scheduled that ended up getting cancelled. His plane tickets had already been paid for and if he didn't use the credits, he would lose them. So we decided to take a little vacation on DMC's dime... we considered it a little compensation for the abrupt ending to his job. We debated about where to go... we considered California, but quickly decided no because California is a dump lately, we thought about Vegas, but we've been there so many times before. We've been to New York, and just got back from Florida. We also needed somewhere that we could do over a holiday weekend. We finally settled on Nashville because Tyler had never been there before. 

We flew out on Friday, February 16... Tyler's 41st birthday! Talk about a fun birthday weekend!! I love Tyler so much and love that we could spend 4 days celebrating him! We arrived in Nashville, checked into our hotel, and then walked to Broadway to find somewhere to eat. Broadway is a large street with bar after bar of struggling singers hoping to get a break and make it big. It was raining and very cold, so we went to the first place we came to: Margaritaville. 

Hey, does't he look handsome for 41!! 

We got a huge plate of Nachos to share and listened to a fun band for a few hours. 

The next morning we had tickets to 3rd and Lindsley. This is a place where local songwriters talk about how they came up with their songs. We loved it! They had 5 different songwriter/ groups who each sang about 3-4 songs each.  

We really like Old Hickory

And Clint Daniels. He wrote the songs "Some of it" by Eric Church, and "Brokenheartsville" by Joe Nichols. 

The last songwriter was Kent Blazy who wrote Garth Brooks' song "If Tomorrow Never Comes"

After the show we walked back to Broadway. So many people told us that we had to eat at Hattie B's and have their Nashville Hot Chicken. We waited in line for over an hour before we even got into the restaurant. 

Our food was really good, but I must have ordered my chicken too hot. It was so spicy... even for me who loves spice. 

We walked up and down Broadway 

We took this picture of this mural of the Tennessee Titans for Caden who loves the football team. 

That night we had tickets to the Grand Ole Opry. 

I have been to the Grand Ole Opry when I came to Nashville with my parents and grandma about 20 years ago, but Tyler didn't know what to expect. The Grand Ole Opry is the longest running weekly country music radio broadcast. Country singers can get "inducted" into the opry and they come to perform at least once a year. 

The first singer was Mark Wills. He was popular when I was younger and I knew all of the songs he sang. 

This is Jeannie Seely who has performed at the opry the most times: over 5,300!! She was... old. 

There were about 3-4 other performers who I didn't recognize, but the last singer was Deanna Carter. She was also popular when when I was in high school. 

The next day we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is Taylor Swift's guitar. Makayla loves Taylor Swift right now. 

I grew up listening to George Strait and Reba McEntire because that's who my mom loved. I was so surprised at how skinny and small all of the singers are. 

Vince Gill was one of my favorites when I was like Brynnli's age. 

And who doesn't love Garth Brooks and Keith Urban

After that we walked to the Ryman Auditorium and took a tour there. Johnny Cash's tour bus was part of the tour so we got to walk through it, which was so interesting. The bus was straight out of the 70's and Tyler said it reminded him of his Grandma and Grandpa's old trailer. 

We toured the Ryman which was the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. It actually started out as a church. 

We got a picture in front of the bat building. The top of this building looks like Batman's mask. 

After our tours we went to lunch at Jason Aldean's Kitchen. They had live music and the food was really good. 

In the background is the Tennessee Titans stadium where they play. 

And this is the famous bridge that goes over the Cumberland river. And yes, it was super bright. 

Tyler said all he wanted to do on the vacation was sit and listen to live music, so that's what we did!! We spent the rest of the night going to different bars and listening to whatever band was playing. Some we stayed for hours, and some we left after 10 minutes, but we had so. much. fun!!

Bill Roemer was one of our favorites. We listened to him for a few hours. 

Then we ended our night at The 12/30 club for dinner. 

Our last day in Nashville we went to The Listening Room. We got to hear Scarlett Egan sing for a few house. This place is similar to 3rd and Lindsley where you get to hear songwriters talk about how they came up with the ideas for their songs. 

Scarlett reminded us of the show Nashville that we used to watch a few years ago. The singer in the show that reminded us of her was also named Scarlett. 

After that we met up with my brother Lance and my sister in law Heather for lunch. Lance and Heather live right by downtown Nashville and Lance still works for Vanderbilt University doing virus research. They took us to one of their favorite restaurants, Edley's Bar-b-q. We had fun catching up since we don't get to see them very often. Lance asked what we did on our vacation and we told him that we wanted to be obnoxious tourists and do all the touristy things, and that's exactly what we did! He laughed and said it sounded miserable. He hates country music and tries to avoid downtown Nashville as much as he can. 

There is one funny memory we need to include in the book. The kids stayed at Terry and Craig's house while we were on our trip. When we woke up the first morning we had a weird video Makayla sent us of Brynnli sitting on the couch looking like she had been crying and a weird text Makayla sent at midnight asking us to call her. But since my phone goes into "do not disturb mode" at 10:00, we didn't see any thing until the next morning. We assumed the kids were fighting and we were ready to yell at all of them for fighting at Grandma and Grandpa's. Turns out that the kids were not fighting... Brynnli had the flu. She woke up in the night and didn't feel good, but she didn't make it into the bathroom. She puked all over her sleeping bag, the rug, and even all over Caden! Grandma and Grandpa got everything all cleaned up, but the poor thing could not keep anything down. She threw up all night and all the next day. We felt so bad for her and so bad for Terry and Craig. It was just the 24 hour flu, so Brynn was feeling much better by Sunday. But then... when we called to see how they were doing on Monday morning, Caden had been throwing up all night long. He got the 24 hour flu all of Monday. I was convinced we were coming home only to get sick, but luckily no one else in the family got sick. 

Back to reality, right? We had so much fun on our little weekend get away. It was so much fun to spend 4 days with Tyler all to myself. Happy Birthday to my best friend and happy early 15th anniversary to us!!

A Winter Campout

 Tyler and Caden went on a winter campout with some of the other kids in our ward... why? Well, I don't know. They planned to sleep on the snow... that's right, no tents, just tarps and sleeping bags on one of the coldest nights of the year. They were supposed to sleep in some cave, but because of the huge snow storm we got, they had to move it to a different campgroud. The temperature was expected to get down to 10 degrees at night and only a high of 20 degrees during the day. Tyler made sure they packed lots of clothes to keep them warm and they were off...

They got to the camp spot and had to dig out the fire pit to get the fire started. Tyler said it was so cold that you just didn't want to move. 

I packed the boys some breakfast burritos for dinner. They could warm them up by the fire. 

Look how high the snow was!

The boys got all snuggled up in their beds. First there was a tarp on the bottom layer, then their sleeping bags, then they would position the tarp over their heads to help keep them warm and keep the snow off their faces while they slept. By 10:00 they were in bed. Caden said they didn't sleep very well that night. They woke up all through the night. Caden said it was cold, but it was ok. Tyler said it was cold and he was worried about the kids all night, so he didn't sleep great either. 

I was so worried about them all night long as I was snuggled all warm in my bed. 

The next morning they woke up early and had cup-o-noodles for breakfast. 

Here's the cute deacons who survived the winter campout: David, Nate, Caden, and Johnny. 

And all the boys and leaders. 

The kids got to go sledding before packing up all the stuff and heading home. 

Caden's first thing he did when he got home was to take a long, hot shower. 

If you're wondering what me and the girls did while they boys were camping? We went to the women's basketball game with the Jones boys. Makayla was really into the game as you can tell. 

We also slept great in our warm bed all night and slept in the next morning. 

So why did they go on a winter campout? Tyler told Caden it was so he could say he did it and take his kids someday. Sounds about right.