Okay.... so it's been a while...

Sadly, it has been over a year since I last blogged. Sorry about that. I promise I will try to do better! But let me fill you in on the high points since then.

Last July, John and I bought our first house here in Nashville!!! We had only been married for ten months, but we were literally about to EXPLODE out of our townhouse. Before we got married, we both had two fully furnished apartments/townhouses. Trying to cram as much of it as possible under one roof (plus wedding presents) was just not working. Also, our townhouse was in "the city" close to Vanderbilt, St. Thomas, Centennial and Baptist. You can imagine the noise from helicopters and sirens. Not to mention traffic. We were dying to move somewhere quiet, away from the city and where we could spread out a bit. So we decided it was time to start looking at houses.

We had the most wonderful realtor ever. (If anyone is in the market for a house in the Nashville area and needs a realtor, please let me know.) Since we were first-time home buyers, she was so thorough with us, always making sure to explain every detail of the whole buying process. We looked at about 10 to 15 houses total, but finally decided on one in West Nashville in a very family-friendly neighborhood. Our new house is a two-story brick house with black shutters and white columns. It's about 40 years old, so it has some character which we love and we are currently working to put our own touches on it (I'm sure I'll be blogging about that later!). While we still live in the city of Nashville, we are now away from the "city" part. Where we live now is very residential - no helicopters or sirens - but we are still just a 10 to 15-minute drive to all of the entertainment, restaurants, etc. of West End and Downtown which is nice.

Shortly after we moved in, we went to the Humane Society and got our first dog, Annie, a German Shepherd mix. As we were walking through the kennel looking at all of the dogs that were up for adoption, Annie was the only dog not jumping up and down and barking like crazy. This is what immediately drew us to her. After all, we were new to our neighborhood and didn't want to be THOSE neighbors with THAT dog. Sure enough, Annie has been the best dog ever - very sweet and docile. The neighbors love her, especially the kids because she's so nice and gentle.

Right about the same time we got Annie, I switched jobs. Before, I was working in HR for a healthcare consulting company located close to Downtown Nashville. When we moved, I realized my commute was going to double, so I started looking for jobs closer to where our new home would be. After interviewing for my current job on the day we closed on the house, I was offered the position the next week. The timing of starting my new job and moving could not have been worse! I had 3 days between my old job and my new job to finish unpacking (or at least try to put a big dent in it). Luckily, my mom and mom-in-law were here and were a HUGE help. Not to mention the friends that helped with moving. We could not have gotten it done without them.

I currently work in Recruitment (I'm the Recruitment Systems Administrator) for a hospital corporation headquartered in Brentwood. I am so excited that I do not have to get on the interstate to go to the office in the mornings anymore. Brentwood is about 6 miles from our house, and I can just hop on Old Hickory Blvd (2 lanes the whole way) and I'm there in about 20 minutes. The company I work for is wonderful and the people there are amazing. John is still the General Manager at a pro-audio company on Music Row. This month will mark his 3-year anniversary there.

This weekend, I am home alone while John enjoys a bachelor party/trip with some of his guy friends in Blue Ridge, GA. They are renting a cabin in the mountains and going white water rafting on the Ocoee (spelling?). John loves white water rafting, so I know he'll have a good time. As for me, I've been shopping this weekend (unsupervised which is dangerous) and relaxing. John's mom is arriving mid-week to stay with us so that will be fun to have her here for a few days.

So...those are the high points for us over the past year and brings everyone up to present. New job, new house, new dog....Life is good and we feel very grateful and truly blessed. God has been good! We will be better about updating the blog going forward, so keep checking back for updates!

It's been a while...

We are such bad people! Our last post was over a month ago! Not too much has been going on here - just work and play. Oh, and trying to our taxes done on time - who out there dreads tax season every year? We have been out of town for the past two weekends. Last weekend we went to Pickwick Dam, TN to spend time with our families and celebrate the slew of birthdays we all have between February and March. The weekend before that, we went home - John went off to Super Bulldog Weekend and I went off to a friend's baby shower.

This was the view from our hotel room in Pickwick Dam...

Here we are at our family birthday celebration at the Catfish Hotel, one of the oldest family-owned restaurants in the country...

And what birthday celebration would be complete with a delicious cake from Edgar's? The cake was huge! We ended up giving the bulk of it to the waiters and waitresses in the restaurant!

Here we are at with some of Pickwick Dam in the background...

On the way back from Pickwick, we took the Natchez Trace back to Nashville and stopped at some of the sights along the way. We try to take the Trace home whenever possible. It's so peaceful, there's hardly any traffic (no stoplights or stop signs whatsoever!), and it's conserves gas b/c of the speed limit. Plus, it takes the same amount of time for us to go home by the Trace as it does the Interstate.

This is a creek that runs across the original Natchez Trace. There are places along the new Natchez Trace where you can get off road a little bit and travel down the original Trace. This is one of the spots where we traveled the original Trace.

This is the sight where Merriwether Lewis of the great Lewis and Clark explorer duo died - this was erected over the spot where his remains were found. According to the plaques here and at the Grinder House close by (the Inn where he was staying), his gun accidentally went off and killed him.

Here is a picture of part of the original Natchez Trace. You can't really tell from the picture, put the pathway is extremely narrow. I don't know how a buggy with two horses pulling it side by side would have made it. It would have been a stretch for one horse and a buggy in my opinion. Of course, I guess it's always possible that the original Trace has changed some over the years.

Is the Kraker house crumbs?

Okay, I don't know about everyone else but it was REALLY windy around here last night. Wind gusts stayed in the 50 - 60 mph range for what seemed like hours. Actually, I really think it was for hours. Last night, after John and I came home from going out to eat, we unlocked and opened our door to come inside and almost couldn't get it shut again because the wind was blowing so hard.

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Down further south in Columbus, MS, my parents were having worse problems. A tree fell on the their house! Now, keep in mind their house has survived EXTREMELY high straight line winds (much worse than yesterday) and tornadoes (Columbus has been nicknamed "Tornado Alley" in the past) and has never had a tree fall on it (in fact, it just survived a two tornadoes a couple of weeks ago). Yes, we've had trees fall AROUND it, but never on it...they have fallen in the yard, in the pool, on fences, across both ends of our driveway (blocking us in), and on the garage we have in the back but never actually directly on the house. Wouldn't you know that it would be a cold front to break their streak of luck. The two windows on the front porch belong to my old bedroom. I am so glad I wasn't in there asleep when this happened - I would have had a heart attack....

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Oh, and FYI, I am really upset with our Sanitation Department. We had the trash put out ready to go today (Wednesday is our trash day) and the wind blew it over. Although I was home at the time, I didn't realize it. The trash can was only half full and while it was indeed laying on its side in the grass (six inches away from the curb), the top did not come off. I could understand them not wanting to pick it up if it had blown half way across our parking lot and had gross trash all around it, but seriously, it just tipped over in its designated place with all its contents still completely inside. And, yes, they did not pick it up. I know sanitation workers probably don't enjoy their jobs but how hard would it have been to pick up our trash? What happened to people taking pride in their work and doing their job to the best of their ability no matter what? I'm afraid these are values that are disappearing from our generation at a rapid rate.

And the winner is....

NASH STREET!!!

Starkville, Mississippi

http://www.nashstreet.com/

Last night, John and I attended the 26th annual Colgate Country Showdown (http://www.countryshowdown.com/) at the Ryman here in Nashville. The Ryman is the former home of the Grand 'Ole Opry. Basically, the Showdown is the American Idol of country music with a slew of famous former contestants including Billy Ray Cyrus and Martina McBride. People compete at their own local, state, regional, etc. levels and the regional winners wind up here, competing for the chance to win $100,000. Congratulations to Nash Street on their success - they're on their way! Afterwards, we went to a reception for the band at the Sheraton downtown. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing some people from back home!

The Ryman Auditorium (http://www.ryman.com/)

The Showdown was hosted by LeAnn Rimes.

Here are all the finalists on stage right before the winners were announced singing short clips from their most favorite songs...

Here is LeAnn Rimes singing before the winners were announced...

And here is Nash Street with their grand prize...$100,000 from Colgate!

The Parthenon

Tonight, John and I decided to go for a walk in Centennial Park, home of Nashville's replica of the Parthenon in Greece. This is where John proposed to me a little over a year ago. Here are some pictures we took while we were there...

I left here a little over a year ago with one ring. Now, I'm back with both rings! :)
They also had some Christmas decorations in different places around the Park...

MSU highlights, candle lights, stage lights, and Christmas lights!

Well, last weekend we went home for Thanksgiving...it was the first time we had both been home since we've been married. We also celebrated my little brother's 23rd b'day while we were there. We both enjoyed seeing friends and family while we were home and WATCHING MSU BEAT OLE MISS IN THE EGG BOWL!!! I am so glad they beat Ole Miss!

Here's little Rob blowing out his candles...

When we got back to Nashville, we set up our Christmas tree. This was the first time in probably three or four years I have been able to have a Christmas tree because I wasn't moving during the holidays. We can't fit my Christmas tree in our living room here (we have way too much furniture), so we used John's 4 1/2-ft tree. We ended up putting it on top of one of our end tables. I also forgot my ornaments in Columbus as well, so we bought ornaments last-minute to use for this year. It just wasn't worth the 5-hour drive or risking breaking them in the mail to get them here. We'll survive somehow... :)

Sorry, no make up for me in this pic! :)

Last night, we went to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (the TPAC) to see Irving Berlin's A White Christmas. It was a really good show. I have always told John that I would like to have a white Christmas one year, so I guess I got it this year! Hahaha! At the end of the show, it "snowed" on the audience with soap suds that closely resembled snow flurries which was really neat since it almost never snows here in the South. It may be as close to snow as we get for this year!



Tonight we went with a couple of friends of ours and saw the Christmas decorations at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. All I have to say about that is WOW... I don't think I have ever seen so many Christmas lights in my life. By the way, Christmas lights (white lights) are one of my most favorite parts about Christmas! Here are some pics from our visit below...and, really, these pictures don't do the hotel justice...

Here are some pictures from outside the Gaylord Opryland Hotel...

We went on the Delta Riverboat while we were there. It sails along throughout the hotel - the river is about a quarter of a mile long and contains more than 450,000 gallons of water from all over the world. Here is a picture of the "dock" where you get on/off and a picture of us in the boat.

Here are our friends we went with, Daniel and Andrea...

Here are some random pictures of decorations throughout the hotel. Like I said earlier, the pictures are nothing compared to the real thing.... These are just a few of the ones we took while we were there.

We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and that everyone is doing well!