Untangling Life: Nashville in November

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We had a delicious meal and were very thankful to share it with some extended family.

My cousin Kelly joined us for the second year in a row. It's nice to have family in a neighboring state (North Carolina.) Yes, it does border Georgia...look on a map.

I didn't take any pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner this year so to see Cousin Kelly you could look at last year's Thanksgiving post -or- for your viewing pleasure I present cousin Kelly held by yours truly circa early 1990s.

(yes my bangs are permed and yes Kelly looks exactly the same)

We were also fortunate to share Thanksgiving with MeMa and PaPa.

MeMa's 40th birthday (or something like that, hence the question mark) fell on the day before Thanksgiving.

Tyler and Lauren wanted to make her a cake all on their own.

Well done kids, obviously MeMa was very impressed.

Happy Birthday!

The day after Thanksgiving we took off for a little road trip.

Nashville, Tennessee, here we come.

We took a short (if you call 4 hours short) detour to show MeMa and PaPa the Smoky Mountains and Cherokee country.

Before leaving Georgia we stopped and hiked around

Tallulah Falls.

It was beautiful and the weather was perfect.

As we drove on toward the Smokies, the weather took a turn for the worse. We ran smack into the cold front which meant rain and fog for the entire trip over the mountains.

Bummer.

I was too chicken but Matt braved the cold and biting rain to snap a picture at the North Carolina and Tennessee border.

After hitting every single light in thick traffic we finally made our way through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and then enjoyed a smooth stretch of highway taking us to Nashville.

Nashville was a blast!

We heard some live music

(and took the kids)

We toured the Ryman Auditorium.

--awesome, highly recommended--

--see a show if you can--

Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff statue in the lobby

(I fell in love with Minnie Pearl during the tour. I would love to find some old dvds, tapes? of her.)

We also toured the Country Music Hall of Fame.

I first visited the museum with my dad shortly before he died. Our next trip to Nashville, after he passed away, I chose not to visit the museum because I wanted my only memory of the Hall of Fame to be that when I went with my Dad. (He was absolutely enthralled.)

However, I decided to visit it again this time and try to see it through his eyes.

I'm so glad I did.

I was a bit emotional (I hid it well) but I thoroughly enjoyed my father-in-law's (PaPa's) reaction. It reminded me so much of my dad.

THANKS for the memories!

After two days of Museums and two early evenings (we left by 8pm okay?!) of live music on Music Row, we rewarded our very well behaved children (the bartenders even said so) with a trip to the

Nashville Science Museum.

We've been here before but since then they had completely renovated and added-on. We ended up spending about five hours here.