Weekend Fun

This weekend has been pretty busy, and has been flying by. On Friday, I had the day off, so I took Elliott in for his 6 month check up. He is currently 22 pounds 3 ounces, 271/2 inches long, and doing very well.

Elliott update:
- Loves to sit up, and is doing very well at it. Still a little wobbly, but doing great
-Sticks everything in his mouth right now
-Can still only roll over from back to tummy
-Still smiles all the time, but does not giggle very much
-He is a pretty happy go-lucky boy
-Eating some solid foods, it's going ok. He is very wiggly to try and feed
-Still loves his bottle and pacifier
-All he needs to go to sleep is a full tummy, pacifier, and a blankie, and puts himself to sleep
-Rides in the car like a rockstar, barely makes a peep the entire ride
-Usually has a daily blow out
-Does not spit up much at all (Emma was terrible with this)
-Loves his big sister Emma and always has a smile for her, loves to watch her
-Loves to snuggle
-Does not like to sit in his highchair very well, gets fussy pretty quickly
-Usually tuckers out around 7:30 or so at night
- Cutest little boy in the world!

Elliott also got his required vaccinations, and he took them like a champ. He cried pretty hard when he first got them, but then he was ok after that. No fussiness or temps at all. Rockstar!

Friday evening, we brought the kids out to John's parent's farm for the night. We hung out and ate pizza with everyone and then we headed back into town. John bought us tickets a while ago to go to The Old Crow Medicine Show at the District. It was the first time we had been to the District for a show, and it was pretty fun. It was a very good performance, but it was standing room only, so it got a little sickening to deal with all the other people bumping into you constantly. Also, people were getting pretty drunk by then end, but it was very entertaining and we had a good time.

Saturday was a pretty busy day. We got to sleep in because the kids spent the night at Jim and Barb's, which was glorious since we were still behind a little bit since our trip. John mowed some lawn in the morning since we didn't have the kids, and I picked up the house some. We brought some lunch out to the greenhouse and potted some plants and played with the kids. We spent most of the day out on the farm, and then finally headed back to town.

Saturday evening was pretty uneventful. I gave baths, fed the kids and got them settled down for the night while John went and shot a house and mowed the church's lawn. It was a pretty active day, and it didn't take much for us all to climb into bed and call it a day.

Today, Emma and I went to church, while John and Elliott slept in, since Elliott decided to be a little bit of a pill last night. After some lunch, and playing outside, the kids are sleeping right now and I am enjoying some quiet time. We plan on shooting some photos of Elliott and Emma later today in a park, it the kids will cooperate. We don't really have any professional shots of Elliott, and Emma is almost three, so it's a good time to get some shots of her again. I am hoping it works out, we are in desperate need of some nice photos of the kids. We still don't have very many of Elliott in our household yet, oops.

So, anyway, it's been a great weekend and a great May. Time is just flying by, and I wish it would slow down just a little bit. June starts tomorrow, and I am super excited for summer, but I know that summer always flies by in a hurry. But, bring on summertime :)

Go Twins!

Helping Grandpa in the Greenhouse 

Cuties :)

Our Nashville Adventure: Day 3

Monday, which was Memorial Day, was our last full day in Nashville, and the day of Erika and Bert's Wedding. We actually had accomplished most of what we wanted to do in Nashville by this point, so we decided to just wing it, and we had a pretty fun day.

We started off the day by eating breakfast at a Waffle House, which is apparently I think down south, and they are supposed to be very good. I thought it was good, but not a whole lot different than like a Perkins in my mind. But it was good.

After breakfast, we headed to the Parthenon which is in Centennial Park. Basically it's the exact replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It's a pretty random thing, but it was pretty cool to see. It's also a museum inside, and it hosts art shows and things like that. We got to walk around on the inside, and it was pretty cool. I don't think I need to ever see it again, but it was fun to walk through.

After the parthenon, we did a little more souvenir shopping and then we got ready for the wedding. The wedding was in a State Park called Cedars of Lebanon. It was kinda a rainy day, so the wedding was in a building in the State Park and then the reception was also inside.

It was a very short ceremony, like I am talking 10 minutes and the whole thing was over. After a wonderful BBQ supper, we had a good time dancing and visiting with everyone once again.

After helping with some cleaning up, we got out of there at about midnight, and decided to just call it a night since we would be spending the entire next day traveling. It was a beautiful wedding, and we were so happy we could help celebrate the special day with Erika and Bert.

Tuesday was kinda a crappy day, basically everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We left our hotel at around 7:00 am, filled up with gas, returned the car, and got through security all within an hour or so. We also ate some breakfast at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in the airpot.That all went very smoothly, but then our first plane was delayed about 20 minutes, which made us nervous we would be late for our second plane.  

When we finally go to Dallas, and hurried to our next gate, our next flight was delayed 2 hours, due to some weather issues. So, we spent a lot of time in the Dallas airport. We finally made it to Sioux Falls at about 5:30pm, and then I proceeded to leave my new Nashville hoodie on the plane, so I had to wait a good half hour for them to get that back to me. All I wanted to do was be home and see my kiddos.

Finally, finally we made it home. I was SO happy to see the kids. And then, with both our families in our house, I couldn't find anything. Like Elliott was screaming because he was hungry, and I couldn't find a damn bottle, and Emma was screaming because she wanted to play outside. I was stressed to the max. And Emma's blind in her room was randomly broken as well.

Eventually everything calmed down and was better, but it was just a long day of traveling and things going badly. So, the trip to Nashville was awesome, but the traveling home was kinda a bust. But we had a good time getting out of the midwest for a while, and we remembered how fun traveling was, and we can't wait to do it again!!!

Waffle house (look at that crowded table)

The Parthenon 

Statue of Athena inside the Parthenon 

My wedding date 

The happy couple 

Our hotel 

Our fun little rental car

Crazy day of traveling 

Our Nashville Adventure: Day 2

Our second day in Nashville was just as busy as the first day. We ended up sleeping in a little since we were up for 22 hours straight, and heck, we were on vacation without our kids, why not sleep in?

Once we were up and at 'em, we headed downtown for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. This was a pretty cool museum. I really like country music, and it was fun to see all sorts of guitars, clothes, awards, and other belongings of the most famous people of Country Music. They also had special exhibits featuring specific people. For example, they had a Kenny Rogers, Luke Bryan, and Alan Jackson exhibit that were very interesting to look through. We spent a lot of time looking through things in this museum, and it got a little overwhelming at times, but it was really fun.

After the Hall of Fame, we headed downtown to find someplace to eat. We ended up eating at the Wild Horse Saloon, which had very good BBQ. Afterwards, we walked around downtown checking out the bars, live music, and doing a little shopping.

In the evening, we headed to Bert and Erika's groomsmen supper. They had it in a park, served up some food and drink for us, and we all had a pretty good time. They had bean bags set up for us to play, and we got to meet Bert's family which was mainly from Georgia. They were all very nice and it was a fun little party.

Afterwards, we went back downtown with Johnny and Kristina and did the bar scene again. We heard some very good music, drank a little too much beer, did some dancing, and overall had a very good evening. We were downtown until about 2 am, and we stopped at a handful of different bars. It was a really fun experience. Nashville is such a fun city, I definitely want to go back again someday.

Country Music Hall of Fame 

Kenny Roger Grammys

Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits Album- Platinum 12 times

Elvis' gold piano

Johnny Cash

Garth Brooks

Taylor Swift

Downtown

Lunch at Wildhorse Saloon 

The Ryman Auditorium 

The Bluebird Cafe- where Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift were discovered 

Honky Tonk Bars 

Our Nashville Adventure: Day One

John's cousin, Erika, got married on Memorial Day in Nashville, and John and I were lucky enough to be able to attend, and make a little vacation out of it.

This past Friday night, my parents and sister arrived at our house to watch the kids while we were gone. It was nice to visit with them a little before heading out of town. It was really hard to say goodbye to the kids knowing we weren't going to see them for 3 nights, and 4 days. That was the longest we have ever been away from our kids so far. So, it was a little sad to leave them behind.

Saturday morning, my dad dropped us off at the airport and we flew out at 7:00 am. We had a great day of traveling on the way to Nashville. Our flights were on-time, went smoothly, and we just brought carry-ons along, so we didn't have to worry about our luggage. We had a layover in Dallas, but by the time we got to our gate they started boarding within 10 minutes, so it was timed very nicely.

We arrived in Nashville at around 12:30 pm. We rented our car and then met up with John's aunts and uncle to eat some lunch and a BBQ place in town. After a great meal (and catching up with relatives we don't get to see very often) we checked into our hotel, The Inn at Opryland.

After we got settled, we met up with the rest of the family in the lobby and made our plans for the day. It also happened to be Mildred's 90th Birthday on Saturday, so that was pretty cool.We decided to go to the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, which contained some large atriums with beautiful plants and flowing streams and waterfalls. It also contained some shoppes and restaurants, in which we spent some time strolling around in buying souvenirs. It was a beautiful resort to walk around and explore, we really had a good time spending some time here.

After the resort, it was time for the Grand Ole Opry. I was really looking forward to this and it did not disappoint. At first I was a little bummed because there weren't any "big" country stars booked, but everyone who played was very good and very entertaining. It was such a good show, and so much fun. I would go back to Nashville again, just for the Grand Ole Opry. Plus the history and the feeling in the building was awesome.

The show went until about 9:30pm, and then we made our way back to the hotel. After we cleaned up a little, we went to the Nashville Palace, which was the first of many honky tonk bars we went to. We ate some supper (we were starving by this point) and listened to some great live music with Johnny and Kristina. We stayed out until around 1:30 am, by that time we had been up for 22 hours and had a very busy day, so we were pretty bushed. We headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

We had an awesome, action-packed first day in Nashville. It was a great time!!!

Gaylord resort waterfall 

Beautiful stain-glassed window

Glass sculpture 

Everyone checking out the resort 

Magnolia tree 

Stayed tuned for Day 2 in Nashville :)