Tennessee Trip!

Our Yankee and Confederate Friends at Travellers Rest

Our white trash trailer pub

Nashville, Tennessee Temple

The General Jackson Showboat on the Cumberland River

A sculpture thing that we kept thinking was a roller coaster

The Parthenon

In Bicentennial Park with the Capitol behind us

Fire Power!

Dark Horse Recording Studio

The Ryman Auditorium- the original home of the Grand Ole' Opry

The Country Music Hall of Fame

Eating ice cream at Mike's on Broadway

Inside the Ryman

The King

The "Batman"/AT&T building

Yumminess

The PBL Team

We had an AWESOME time in Nashville Tennessee! Ronnie took 3rd place in Computer Concepts in Ogden at the state business competition a few months ago, so he qualified for Nationals, which is why we got to go!

We took the redeye flight out of Vegas, had a layover in Minnesota and got to Nashville midmorning and hit the ground running! We got to the hotel, changed and were out trying to find the White Trash Cafe (by my request, because I think redneck stuff is funny). We searched and searched for a half hour before finding out it had closed...and for good reason....it was way nasty! Then we found the lovely Sally's Pub featured above and couldn't resist taking a picture; redneck/trailer trash was our theme for the trip. Ronnie had to go to opening ceremonies so I wandered around downtown with the supervisors wife, Elizabeth. Ronnie and I finished out the night by going to Demo's (YUM!) at around 11pm then went to bed to be up EARLY in the morning to go to the temple.

Day two started out doing a session in the Nashville Temple which was teeny tiny compared to a lot of the temples in Utah. We had a lovely time and then hurried back to downtown to eat at Jack's BBQ before getting Ronnie to his test. Jack's was seriously THE best meat we have ever had! It was a dirty, grimy, dingy little place, but it was delicious! Went back to the hotel and took a much needed nap while Ronnie took his one, twenty minute test of the whole competition. When he got back we went to all the honky tonks and listened to all of the singers trying to "make it big" and had a blast! Later that night we went sight seeing and tried to find a ride to the Bluebird Cafe, which was highly recommended by everyone we'd talked to about Nashville, with no luck :( Finally around 11pm we got a hold of our rental car and made our way there. SO WORTH IT! It was this quaint little cafe where song writers can go to bounce their songs off of an audience. It was so intimate and the singers were all so talented! We even met Liz Rose, the woman who co-wrote a lot of Taylor Swift's songs!

Day three was Sunday so we got gussied up and found a ward to attend. The people were all SO nice (outside of church as well)-Southern Hospitality is definitely real. We were treated to music even in church with an 11 year old organ prodigy and a clarinet/piano duet that was amazing! The guy was first chair clarinet in the symphony and his wife was a pianist/opera singer. I didn't even know that clarinets could make sound that beautiful! After that we went to Centennial Park to look at the Parthenon, which is almost identical to the one in Athens down to 1/8 inch difference. Then we went to Centennial Park to see the wall of history (exactly what it says) and lot of really cool things in the park. It was nice to have Sunday inbetween all of our touring so that we could take a rest and not feel guilty about missing out on things.

Day four we went to the Dark Horse recording studio where artists like Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, Martina McBride and more have recorded their albums. It was a really neat, homey place where the stars can just relax (or so the guy said). Later that day we went on a bus tour that showed us starts homes, battlesites and the like and ended at the Ryman Auditorium the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. All of country music's legends have performed there and it's acoustics are second in the world only to....The Mormon Tabernacle! Woo woo! We stopped by the Country Music Hall of Fame but didn't get to go inside for lack of time. Went to Demo's again (our refuge from the bars downtown) and then Ronnie went to closing ceremonies while I enjoyed cable tv. Went to Demo's one last time for their yummy chicken and rice soup with the gang and then it was all over :)

Day five we flew home from Nashville, back track to Detroit and then finally to Vegas, then home to our sweet baby Chloe! My sweet parents watched her for us (my Mom even took it off from work!) and she was so good for them all week long! It was our first time leaving her for overnight, let alone a week so we were aching to see her! She was so stinkin cute when we finally got home-she was all giggles and smiles and would only go to Ronnie or me. Sigh. It was a great vacation!