Winter Fun!

This has been our kids highlight of the winter! Whenever the weather is mild enough, out comes the four wheeler and sleds for hours of entertainment! Here they're hanging out with Jada, Isabella & Hailey.

Nashville, TN

I figured I better finish up with these trip posts before they are too much a part of the past!

The view as we fly away from Nashville.

Downtown Nashville, taken from the pedestrian bridge over the river. I do wish we would have taken more time to take pictures of all the beautiful historic buildings. Some of them had amazing detail! It was getting dark when we were downtown on Sunday, and the traffic was horrid because of a football game, so we made the best of it!

The football stadium where the Tennessee Titans play. We came into the city just as the game finished. We saw thousands of people come over the pedestrian bridge. By the time we got to the pedestrian bridge an hour later, there was only a few drunks making there way over. Titans were the loosers in this game, which was maybe a good thing. The party atmosphere was rather quiet! This stadium sits exactly opposite of the downtown Nashville picture.

Saturday night we spent the evening at the Grand Ole Opry. Normally the Grand Ole Opry performances are next to the Gaylord Opryland Resort, but at Christmas there are other performances happening there, so we got to see the Grand Ole Opry at the historic Ryman Auditorium, "the mother church of country". The big name for the night was Patty Loveless, and of course you have to wait right until the end to hear her, and she sings 2 songs. Most performers only sing 1 song, and a few get to do 2. The worst is listening to their crazy commercials after every song. They were so lame, but by 10:30 at night it was starting to get funny. We can say we've experienced the Grand Ole Opry, not sure if it would be a must to see if we were in the neighborhood again. For the price of the tickets, we'd just as soon see a Homecoming.

Marty Stuart and his fabulous superaltives! Their outfits and actions were entertainment enough! The guy playing the guitar was hilarious, looked like he'd peed his pants.

The show is about to begin! Just as you see it on T.V.

Ready to go check out downtown Nashville. Next time we would spend our time in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. We decided we had liked that area better last time. But we can say we've been to Nashville:)

Gaylord Opryland Resort

When we stopped in Bell Buckle, a lady there told us about this light show at this resort. The Gaylord Opryland is a HUGE hotel/conference center. It's where anyone from the average joe to the famous stay. Inside they have different botanical gardens and conservatory's. At Christmas time they hang around 2 million lights inside and out of their resort. We were told that if you park by the mall (where its free), you can walk to this place and tour it for free! And who doesn't like free entertainment! We spent a good chunk of our Sunday evening walking this place. The unfortunate part was that there were busloads (I mean like tons of busloads) of kids being dropped off for some convention and they were clogging up the place.

One of the atrium's.

A live poinsetta tree in one of the entrance's. Notice the huge chandelier!

One of the many entrance's.

Someday we can come back to stay?!?

There was a life size nativity scene set up outside. The open Bible acutally has the Christmas story written on it. All the trees were light up, each individual branch. And to top it off, it was a beautiful night to be wandering around outside!

If you didn't want to be cheap like us... you could take a carriage ride around the place. Doesn't it just look surreal?!

Misc. Road Shots

You just never know what you will see around the bend! Beautiful driving in the hills of Tennessee.

Every city, town, village you drive through has a church, or two, or three, and it is guaranteed at least one is a Baptist church. I originally took a picture of this church because of its steeple, and later realized it too is a Baptist church! This church is located in Huntsville, AL

I took this shot while driving by, and was kind of impressed how it turned out! It was a huge steeple that could be seen for miles!

We stopped at a roadside turn out about 20 minutes before Huntsville, AL. At this point we were at the top of a mountain range. The temperature was right around zero all day, and the wind was cold, but I believe it was still warmer than at home!

Our view from our hotel in Guntersville, AL

Unique stops in Tennessee

We tried to be adventurous on our trip to Tennessee and here are a few of our favorite unique places that we found...

On the Sunday that we were in Nashville, we attended church at Christ Church in Nashville. That had been a dream of mine and it was exciting to see that dream fulfilled. Christ Church is famous for its choir. (it's funny that most people have never even heard of the Christ Church Choir, but they really are famous!) This choir has been on some of the Gaither videos in the past, which is how I would have first heard of them. The choir is directed by Landy Gardner and his wife Joy is the worship leader. Joy sings on a lot of the videos and I always really enjoy her style. I thoroughly enjoyed the choir that morning and it was extra special to hear Joy sing a solo during the communion part of the service. After the service we got into the car and had no clue where to go for lunch. I opened up the Nasvhille guide book and checked out restaurants in the area we were at. Came across the Copper Kettle and we thought it sounded good enough, and easy to get to from where we were. So off we went, and as we started down Granny White Parkway, we realized that we'd hit the very upscale part of Nashville. It was a gorgeous drive, windy & rolling streets, massive homes on acreages, lots of trees, so worth the drive. And then in the middle of nowhere, was the restaurant we were looking for, and as you can see by the picture (above) , it doesn't look anything upscale! Henry even questioned me whether or not we should stop, but it was 1 o clock and I was hungry, so I said lets try it. You had to walk around the gas pipes to get to the front door, and the host was standing outside to let us in. BUT, it was a really unique little restaurant, and so worth the stop. They only served brunch on Sunday, which was a little pricier that we'd have liked, but it was FABULOUS food! So if you're ever in the Nashville area, we highly recommend this gem of a place!

This picture shows the main street of Franklin, TN. Franklin is about 20 minutes from Nashville and has a very historic downtown. The buildings are amazing, and many are well over 100 years old. We toured all the little shops. Definietly more upscale than Bell Buckle, but fun to wander around. We had lunch in another unique restuarant. We enjoyed Key Lime & Pecan pie for dessert, well worth the purchase!

This was my dessert at the Bell Buckle Cafe! Old fashioned oatmeal spice cake with homemade caramel topping. Yum, yum! The food was amazing at this place. All homemade and delicious but you do have to like your food deep fried if you want to eat foods from their culture! The smoked pork chop is a must try!

This is the inside of the Bell Buckle Cafe. The ceiling had business card tiles.

This is the main street of Bell Buckle Tennessee! I had come across Tori Taff's blog a number of months ago (Russ Taff's wife). I went there once, and never much thought of it again. A week before we were to leave, I surfed through her blog again. She was blogging about little weekend trips her and the girls were making to all the unique places around Nashville, and she blogged about Bell Buckle TN and it's amazing Cafe and antique shops. (Her daughters have actually run into Keith Urban at the Cafe in the past) So I checked it out on the map and realized it was only 5 miles off our path! I was so excited! We had a lot of fun checking out the antique shops, old general store, more modern stores and the Cafe. The Cafe has live music on Friday nights, so we were able to enjoy a little bit of that as well before we left. In this town, the people were extremely friendly and hospitable. One storeowner gave us lots of tips and suggestions of things to do and see in Nashville. We took her advice about the Gaylord Opryland Hotel...more to come on another entry. Bell Buckle...worth the stop!