Labor Day Weekend

Brian and I were invited to his classmate Brian Fraiz's wedding in Nashville, TN over Labor Day weekend. We have been wanting to have a little getaway without the kids for a while now, and I thought this would be the perfect excuse to get away before baby #3 arrives. I decided to surprise Brian, and I am thrilled to say that it actually worked! I kept the secret for over a month! The only hiccup was when he saw a hotels.com charge on our Discover account, I was so mad! So he knew we were staying in a hotel sometime, somewhere, but he stayed pretty clueless till about the day of. When he came home from school on Friday he went upstairs to change for our "date" and found a packed bag and our dress clothes laid out on the bed. Our dear friend and neighbor Becca (and her son Jaxson) stayed with the kids over the weekend (Landon was at the BYU game in Virginia). I can't even tell you how much we love the Woolf's... thank you so much for taking care of our kids! 

We drove to Lousiville, KY Friday night and stayed at the Sheraton on the Indiana side of the river. We got there just as the sun was setting... beautiful! I was pleased with my choice of this place... the bed was SO comfortable! It was nice to sleep in without kids waking us the next morning too.

There was a crazy amount of birds flying around... I felt like I was in that horror movie The Birds.

On Saturday morning we drove another 2.5 hours down to Nashville. The drive was gorgeous, I love all the trees. We went straight downtown to Broadway street where we ate lunch at the famous Jack's BBQ. It was delicious! We walked around for a little while, enjoying the live music at various bars/restaurants and peeking in a few gift shops. It was cool to see, but ridiculously hot- 97+ humidity, and it isn't really our scene anyway. We went to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel which is AMAZING! It is seriously an awesome place, I would love to stay there someday. Then we went to the wedding. It was a very nice ceremony at a Lutheran church. Afterward we went to dinner/reception at a country club. Everything was absolutely beautiful... definitely the nicest wedding we have ever been to. We felt a little out-of-place, especially when I entered the bathroom and found that they had embroidered cloth towels instead of paper towels to dry your hands on! Definitely a very upper class establishment! We got to sit with some really great people and had a very fun evening. The food was fabulous too. Brian and Whitney were so happy, it was great to share their special day with them. We look forward to hanging out more over the next 4 years while we are here in Indy. 

Entering Nashville

I think he could pull off cowboy boots, don't you?

Largest flyswatter I've ever seen! I may actually be able to catch one with that!

Gaylord Opryland Hotel

The golf course at the country club... beautiful

We drove home on Sunday, and while we had a great getaway, it's always fun to see our cute kids again. On Monday we decided to use our groupon for a bike rental downtown before it expired... we had two days left! Michael and Maddie came with us, which of course the kids were thrilled about... they love them SO much! It was a beautiful night, but I didn't think about holiday hours, and it was closed when we got there. But, we had a nice walk by the canal anyway. We decided to stop for ice cream on our way home, and it was amazing how exciting 50 cent cones are to our kids! Glad they can find joy in the small things. Maybrie told me on the way home that she loves family date nights! :)

Giving Thomas a haircut. Doesn't he look cute with a cape on?!

On Tuesday we met the Kirkwood's and Pulham's at the zoo, ate lunch, and then finally got our bike rental. We got a fun little two-seater with a bench for the kids on back. The kids thought it was so cool. It wasn't as hard or tiring as I thought it would be and it was absolutely perfect weather. We had a lot of fun! I love my little family!

Maybrie's showing off her cheetah stamp she got at the zoo! :)