Nashville

Josh travels regularly for work and I finally decided to tag along and accompany him on a business meeting to Nashville, Tennessee. We flew into Nashville on Friday evening and had 48 hours of fun until I flew back on Sunday night and Josh stayed in Nashville for two more days of work. It was such a great weekend. Josh had a bit of work on Saturday, but we also had plenty of time to explore Nashville and have fun enjoying each other's company without our kids.... which rarely happens!

 This was my first trip to "the South" , so our first stop on Friday night was getting a good southern meal at Hattie B's Chicken. Oh man, this was a fantastic restaurant choice. (Thank you, Yelp!) 

 Yum.

 It was all amazing, but our favorites were the fried chicken, pimento mac and cheese, and the banana pudding. So, so good!

We also had two delicious meals with work clients, which prevented me from snapping pictures:

Another good southern lunch at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant (as seen on Food Network) and a delicious steak and seafood dinner at Sperry's Restaurant in Franklin. Yum.

 After dinner we walked to Centennial Park and to check out the Parthenon, all lit up with Christmas lights. The Parthenon is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. So basically, this was a fancy international vacation :)

On Saturday in between Josh's work commitments we spent time walking around downtown Nashville. It was exactly what I would have pictured: Lots of fun and energy, tons of boot and cowboy hat shops, live music blaring from literally every restaurant. It was such a unique experience compared to all the other cities I've explored. 

Boots, boots, boots!

Lots of record shops and Country Music paraphernalia 

 We loved this fun candy shop. They lured us in with delicious samples of warm chocolates and caramels and then we had to take a few for the road!

We had a nice walk across the Cumberland River Pedestrian Bridge. 

On Sunday we slept in (!!!) and went to church in Franklin. We also walked around the Nashville LDS Temple, which was beautiful. 

It was such a fun trip and such a good time with Josh! 

Our kids were babysat by Jake and Tyra's family and they had such a fun time with their cousins. They were sad to leave. This was the first time I've ever left Tate and to top it off he had been having some breathing trouble. Tyra was a saint to not only watch my kids, but also to deal with Tate's nebulizer treatments. 

As a side note, we only have a few more weeks with Jake and Tyra's family until they move to Chicago :( We are so sad! We've been so lucky to live by them this past year and a half. What a blessing it has been to live so close to family!