Spring Break 2013 Part 1: Nashville

Spring Break finally arrived for us the first week of April and that could only mean one thing, another road trip!!!

We met up with my cute parents in Nashville!  I just love my parents, they are the best.   And I think this is such a great picture of my dad, isn't he cute? :)

My parents were able to secure a timeshare condo that would sleep 6, so Ethan and I got to sleep in a hotel with only 2 of our kids! It was awesome!!!  Eliza and Bolton stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, they loved their new beds. 

  

Pretty lady.

We just had fun hanging out (being dorks!) together the first night.

We headed to the mall, Opry Mills for our entertainment and dinner.  The kids were so excited to see the Lego store.  While we were looking at stuff, Bryant said with awe in his voice, "This is the coolest place I've ever been."  Since we're cheap (more on that later) we just bought one little set of 4 guys, one for each of the kids that care.

Then we had dinner at the food court.  I was still stuffed from my lunch so I opted to just have a smoothie, the kids thought that was a great idea.

In the morning, since it was raining we thought we'd go to the children't museum, but apparently a whole ton of other people thought the same thing.  There was not a single place to park (not even in the illegal places you would think!).  So we opted to head out to the one place Bryant had asked to visit on our trip to Music City...

The Parthenon.  Did you know that not only is Nashville Music City, but it is also the "Athens of the South"?  Pretty cool.  Does that make Athena the Goddess of Country Music as well?

This place is seriously awesome.  It is a full size replica of the Parthenon in Athens.  Nashville hosted a kind of world's fair in 1897 (a centennial celebration) and built a replica, but not to last permanently in honor of the event.  As it fell apart they decided to build one full size to last in Centennial Park.  It was amazing.

Check out how huge these doors are.  Ethan is 6 foot, I think he came up to the door knob.

This also happened to be the mister and my anniversary!  Twelve years!  I can hardly believe it!  He just keeps getting better and better as the years go by.  I'm so blessed.

He was getting pretty cold, so we pulled out the tiny (yet stretchy) baby hat.  I just love this baby!!!

Inside is an art museum and this amazing statue of Athena.  If you've seen the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief movie, this is the place where they fight the hydra (if you've read the book, none of that's in there... its very, very loosely based on the book, but I digress).

The statue is 41 ft 10 in and is the tallest indoor statue in the western world.  Just the figure of Nike on Athena's right hand is 6 ft 4 in.  Its quite amazing.

These are small models of the carvings on the east and west sides of the Parthenon.  My boys were quite scandalized by the nudity.

  

Funny story, recently I told Ethan that this Christmas I was kind of disappointed because I saw him looking at instruments online but I didn't get any under the tree.  When I told him that he said, "You've been serious about wanting a mandolin all these years?!?!"  Honestly, I've been telling him I want one since his 30th birthday and we got him his new guitar.  I guess I wasn't believable.  Ha!

Anyway, he said to me, "Hey, I just realized... its our anniversary... we're in Nashville... you want a mandolin..." so he hopped onto Craigslist and found one for me!  I am so excited!  I figured out how to play Twinkle, Twinkle and Old MacDonald that day.  Then I figured out I Am A Child of God the next day.  When we got home I learned 4 chords and can now play I'll Fly Away (one of our set songs!) with Ethan.  It sounds awesome, though I am very much a beginner, its very encouraging to have some success!

My parents watched the kids while Ethan and I went to dinner for our anniversary.  We had a great time!  I asked Ethan to help me come up with a top 10 things we've done together since we got married (and births of children couldn't be any of them) we took turns choosing something.  We ended up with more than 10, I texted the list to myself, but I can't find it now... let's see if I can remember them...

• Our wedding and the big day
• Our honeymoon to Zion National Park
• Our Optometry school tour road trip, 2,600 miles touring the 3 schools on the west coast
• Graduation from WSU, big surprise party!
• Moving to OR
• All our trips to the coast, but especially our Ft. Stevens trip
• Graduation from Pacific
• Bryant's baptism
• All our getaways for Academy (Florida and Boston)
• Having a pool in our backyard

There were a couple more that I can't recall, but it was fun to talk about things we remembered and loved about each of these things.  So many wonderful memories together.  Love him.

When we got back to the condo, Grandpa had put the baby to sleep.  Is there anything sweeter than a baby sleeping on your chest?  I'm not sure.  

So, we didn't do any of the country music stuff of Nashville, but we had a fabulous time!