Vacation — Then Catching Up

Sorry for the 2 week hiatus, but the family went on a vacation/hubby business trip to Nashville, Tennessee! We have been to Nashville several times, and we never get tired of it… We stayed in the Gaylord Opryland Resort, and as always, it was beautiful and we had a blast.

The first full day we were there, we went to the resort’s water park. The kids and I went last year, but this year we had to take Luke with us. The kids forced him to do the surf simulator…hahaha Luke and Wyatt also did the drop slides (where they close you in a tube and the bottom falls out)…NO THANK YOU! I’m more of a tube-slide person.

In the evenings, at the top of the hour, the resort held a water show at one of the indoor fountains. They played music and timed the fountain to the song. We went to at least one show every evening.

Nashville is full of amazing food options as well! Our rule when we travel is: No eating at places we can get back home. And we always try a new place if we visit the same city more than once. This trip we hit a couple different restaurants that we hadn’t eaten at before. We went to Paula Dean’s Kitchen (AMAZING!), The Aquarium (you get to see all kinds of fish swimming around while you eat), and we also tried The Stillery (let’s just say the Nashville hot chicken is HOT!!!)

In addition to playing at the resort, we took a day and went downtown and walked Broadway. There was music coming at us in every direction, and we could hear aspiring artists playing in some of the restaurants. I know the saying is “When in Rome, do as the Romans”……however, with our family it is “When in Nashville, go to the boot store”. HAHAHA We had three teenagers who all were in need of a new pair of cowboy boots, and they picked some really nice ones! I think that just means that next time it’s Luke and my turn to get some LOL

And now that we are home………………I’ve been overwhelmed with playing catch up. I have been in the garden every. single. night. For hours trying to get it cleaned up from being gone for a week. I usually do a walk through every night and pick a stray weed or two….but not having done that for a week, I had a lot of weeds to pick. It is all cleaned up now though, and everything is growing nicely. I have baby roma tomatoes, baby pumpkins, we picked our first zucchini, and the lettuce and peas are thriving.

One final note for this post….. we all know the story “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”……. There again, our story is a little different, “If You Send A Girl To Rural King”….. SSSoooo….our homestead grew by 34 little feet. I bought 17 meat chicks! I would have bought more if they had more, but I bought the last of all that they had. For anyone who knows me, I am NOT bird person….but here I am killing it being a crazy poultry lady. *insert eye roll*

Hope everyone is having a great summer so far. Leave me a message of how you’ve been beating the heat!