Nashville Weekend

Ben, Wyatt, and I went to Tennessee this past weekend to visit Ben's family and also to go to the Jason Aldean concert in Nashville.  We had been planning this weekend for months, and had lined up Ben's family to keep Wyatt on Friday while we stayed in Nashville for the concert.  Wyatt was so happy to see his Pops, Aunt Susan, and Great Uncle Alfredo upon his arrival in Murfreesboro and Ben and I knew we were leaving him in good hands. 

Once we dropped Wyatt off, we headed to our hotel to get ready for dinner and the concert.  We walked around downtown for a bit before finding a place to eat and finally ended up at Broadway Brewhouse which was about a half block from the arena. 

We finally got seated at the bar and toasted with our beers. 

After dinner, we headed straight to the arena.  I did make Ben pause outside to get a picture of the two of us before heading in.  Then we rushed to our seats since we didn't want to miss the opener - Luke Bryan. 

The concert was awesome and we had a great time.  Both Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean are those "every song's a hit" type singers .... you may not think you know all their songs but then you see them in concert and realize that you do. 

We went to a couple places on Broadway after the show for drinks.  I can't remember the name of the first place, but once it became apparent that we were about 10 years too old to be in that bar, we left.  (We saw one girl try to sneak in through the window ... she was promptly escorted out by the bouncer!   Ahhhh ... to be 19 years old again)

We thought we would sleep late the next morning since Wyatt was with his grandparents but that wasn't the case!  We were up and at em' fairly early and I enjoyed taking my time getting dressed, fixing my hair, and putting on my makeup.  (Such a luxury)  Then we went to the most fantastic breakfast at a place just down from our hotel called Puckett's Grocery. 

After lunch, and a quick stop at my favorite Murfreesboro shoe store we headed back to Lolly and Pop's house to see everyone. 

Wyatt is quite the popular kid -- as his Aunt Weez, Aunt Susan, and Great Uncle Alfredo all made a special trip to Murfreesboro just to visit him while he was there! 

He enjoyed playing with his Lolly on the iPad ....

destroying the house with his Aunt Susan ....

and playing with Great Uncle Alfredo and Aunt Weez too!

I never did get a good picture of Wyatt and his Pops, but W followed him around all weekend long and had the best time with him too! 

OH!  and I have to give a special thanks to our friend Dr. Roof who came to our house on Saturday to supervise and direct the furniture delivery that we had.  Soon I'll do a post about our (finally furnished) living room! 

Playin' in the Dirt

If you were to walk into my house today and you could manage to overlook the random Mr. Potato Head pieces littering the floor, or the Elmo toys that were tossed from the balcony you would notice that I have three live plants.

1) A tree thingy in my dining room.  I manage to kill this about twice a year and subsequently replace it.
2) An aloe plant in my living room.  This ole' boy is struggling, but I am determined to make it thrive as it came from my grandmother's aloe plant.  I screwed up by trying to thin it out.  I did that about  a year ago and it just hasn't been the same since.

3) A peace lily in my living room.  I've successfully kept this puppy thriving for over two years!!  And, I realize that killing a peace lily is no easy feat.  But can we ignore that little fact and just applaud my accomplishment?  Thanks.

I think I read somewhere that, based on the size of my home, I should have 8-10 live plants inside for ideal air purification.  Well, there is just no way on earth that I could possibly manage that many plants.  I would need a staff for that!  That being said, I do love succulents and think they are just such a charming addition to any room.  Also, they're pretty hard to kill (my aloe plant being a prime example).  So I found an idea for this succulent terrarium on Pinterest and decided to try it.

First, I found my container -- a pretty, but inexpensive glass bowl thingy that I found at the Miz.  Then, I scooted off to PetsMart to buy activated charcoal and pebbles for my container.  Can I please digress for a moment and talk about how disgusting PetsMart is?   I could go the rest of my life without darkening the doors of that wretched place again.  After I had all the basic supplies I went to Home Depot to buy the mini succulents and the cactus soil. 

I did this little project last night, so the lighting in my pictures is horrid but I'll share anyway. 

The supplies:  cactus soil, mini plants, pebbles, activated charcoal, glass bowl. 

First, I put a thin layer of pebbles in the bottom.  This is supposed to help the drainage, which is evidently important if you don't want to kill succulents.  (I hate that word)

Then, activated charcoal.  I think I read that this is necessary for air filtration or something?  Who knows.  If it turns out to be an unnecessary step, that would be a good thing considering that is the whole reason I went to the dreaded PetsMart. (I forgot the picture of this part, but its not really much to see anyway)

Then the dirt.

Then, you plant your little plants in a cute pattern.  I like the final result, although I do think there is one 'open' area in this terrarium that I don't really like.  However, according to Mom, you must plant things in odd numbers so adding a 6th plant is out of the question.  I do not think 7 will fit.

Hopefully I won't kill  it!!!!  

OH!! And I guess this new addition technically achieves that whole 8 plants goal, huh?  I'm not so sure these count because they are miniature. 

Tracey's Bachelorette Party

This past weekend, several girls traveled down to Cancun for Tracey's Bachelorette Party!  We had booked this trip back in August, so its been a long time coming.  Also, I have to give a HUGE thanks to Ben who kept Wyatt by himself all weekend.  (I'm pretty sure he was exhausted by the end)

Becky, Tracey, Erin, and I flew in from Atlanta and ended up meeting Mary Beth and Sarah at the airport in Cancun.  Let me tell you something about customs at the Air Tran terminal in Mexico:  they are efficient!  Seriously!  They  have done extensive studies in queuing, and have found that the best approach to a mass of people is to let them stand in one big herd and fend for themselves.  Mexican Queuing Theory - I remember reading all about it in my operations management books in grad school.  Am I taking this too far?  Probably so, but seriously, I believe we actually spent less time in the airplane than we did in that line.  You can sorta see the herd of people in the background of this picture!

Once we met MB and Sarah, we got on our little shuttle bus and headed over to our resort! 

Another thing about Customs/Immigration in Mexico? They don't feed you lunch while you're waiting in line!  Therefore, once we got to the resort and checked in we literally threw our bags down in the room and went to have lunch by the pool.

After lunch it was a bit overcast, so we just wandered around the resort for a bit and took some pictures.

It looked like it was clearing up, so we went to our rooms and changed and went to the beach side restaurant for a snack and drinks. 

 That evening, we all got gussied up for drinks and dinner.  Hilariously enough, the beach side restaurant where we had afternoon snacks and drinks was called Pina Colada by day and La Deva by night.  They did have a different menu and the most delicious fried ice cream that I've ever had! 

After dinner, some went to bed (it had been a long day) while MB, Tracey and I went to the hotel lobby for drinks. 

Saturday morning, we slept in late (well, late by my definition), had a leisurely breakfast and headed down to the beach to relax!  The weather seemed to be perfect - a little overcast so it wasn't too hot, but still nice enough to relax outside and read. 

Around lunchtime, it started to look like it was going to rain so we went back to the beach side restaurant for lunch.  It did rain so we ended up spending quite a while there just chatting and having fun. Here is our crazy bachelorette drinking green tea!!  We're a wild bunch, I tell ya!

The afternoon turned out to be pretty rainy, so we just kinda hung out until it was time to get ready for Tracey's lingerie shower and dinner.  We did make her dress up in silly bachelorette stuff, of course!

I wanted to get a group picture before or after dinner.  Buuuuut someone couldn't hang (no names mentioned, Becky) so we did not.  We did however, have a wonderful Italian meal and quite a bit of wine ....

We took it back to the lobby bar after dinner and unfortunately the only  picture I took was of this Mexican Wrestler.  I wanted to get a picture of his face, but didn't want to be too obvious! 

Sunday was a short day, as we had to leave around lunch time so we all got up ate a quick breakfast and went outside to enjoy the weather for a while before leaving.  Oh! And we also met a new friend!!  (thisiguanadontcare)

We took a few more pictures on the beach before it was time to get ready to leave.  It was a quick trip, but such a great time with girlfriends and of course we all enjoyed celebrating Tracey's upcoming wedding!