Hello from Nashville!

Hi Y'all. Sorry I couldn't help myself, it is so exciting to be here! We left yesterday and made the whole trip in one day. We spent 15 hours travelling yesterday (by car) and I have to tell you that my kids were GREAT!!!! Shane and I were so pleasantly surprised that not one of them complained at all. They sat in the car quietly without fighting or even getting too restless. Of course we got a few "are we there yets" but even that was minimal. We loaded them up with activities to keep them busy. We had colouring, movies, Nintendo ds, a tablet, a notebook, and some books. I have to say that going to the mall near us can be more painful than this drive was!

Since we didn't break the drive up into two days, we didn't stop anywhere along the way to look around. We have made note of a few places we would like to stop and see on the way home next weekend. We will see, hopefully we will take our time and stop along the way but by then we may just want to get home.

We arrived a day early, so naturally we had today to get out and look around a bit. We went to Ihop for brunch (the kids were so tired they didn't even stir this morning until I cracked the curtains open a little and let the sun into the room). We inadvertently found a mall when we found Ihop so we went to check it out. Chloe got a few new things from Macy's to wear back to school. We may go back later in the week so I can pick up a few things that I saw (we will see, it depends on how much I spend before then! LOL).

When we got back to the hotel, we went to register Shane for his conference. We toured the hotel a bit (the conference is at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel) and found a shop that sells Haagen-Dazs ice cream by the cone! We can't get that anywhere at home. Sorry that the pictures below aren't great. I took them with my iPhone and I only had one hand free so the phone was a little shaky. Both pictures were taken inside the hotel.



The kids enjoyed swimming in the indoor pool before going to get something to eat. We decided to try out a place in the hotel called Stax where you build your own burgers. The burgers were huge (each had 2 patties-and they offer more if you want!!!!!) I could barely get it out of the box without it falling apart, let alone get my mouth around it!

It is now 9:45pm and the kids are chilling in bed watching tv. Tomorrow Shane's conference starts so he will be gone from 8AM until 5PM. Could be a long day with the kids but I imagine we will occupy ourselves by the pool for a couple of hours and maybe do some more exploring.

This hotel is amazing and there are some awesome areas in here. So many places that would be great for taking pictures of the kids. I am planning on finding some time to do that too this week. I will keep in touch and let you know how things are going here.

Have a great night.

Deb