Family Beach Trip

It has been a desire of mine for a long time to take a trip to the beach with our whole family. Last week, that dream came true, and it was awesome!

Here are some of the highlights:

Sunsets

Sunrises

Morning time

Clear water

Surfer girl

Ice cream

Dolphin cruise

Beach girl

Sister time!

Silliness

Getting to experience the beach with my nieces.

Time with my college guy

Sweet couple

Sisters!

Daddy and daughters

This sums up how we all felt about our time at the beach!

Downtown Nashville

One of my favorite things to do in downtown Nashville is to walk on the pedestrian bridge. Long-time Nashvillians will remember it as the Shelby Street Bridge, one of the bridges that brought cars back and forth into downtown Nashville. It was shut down several years ago and reopened as a pedestrian bridge and was later named for John Seigenthaler. You can read the history of it here.

Since we have had a guest from France here for a few weeks (well, actually, she is the guest of my sister and family, but I've joined in on the fun and have enjoyed getting to know Paloma, too), we wanted to show her the downtown Nashville area and the views from the bridge. It was a beautiful evening for it last night and we got some great pictures with the Nashville skyline as the backdrop.

  

We also walked around a little bit in the downtown area, mainly to go to a souvenir shop. I wanted to find a painted wall that I'd seen in some local photo shoots and we got some impromptu shots of our own. Definitely a fun backdrop if you're downtown with friends or family (3rd Ave., South, just across the street from the Johnny Cash Museum).

Frozen

See that sweet, little hand resting on her cheek, leaning on my leg? That's how I got sit to watch the movie, "Frozen" for the first time the other night (yes, I'm eight months behind). Mary Lane, Erica and Jeanette needed to spend the night at my house while Russell and some other guys painted their house, so I thought it would be fun to watch the movie together.

I loved the movie, but my two favorite parts were not on the screen. One was having Mary Lane cuddle next to me for the entire length of the movie (well, she got a little fidgety towards the end when she was trying keep from getting too sleepy). She would give me a little running commentary along the way. When it first started, she looked at me and said, "We only have the songs, not the movie," meaning that they watch videos of the songs on You Tube, but haven't gotten their own copy of the DVD (yet). We had fun laughing at Olaf the snowman and I comforted her when things got a little suspenseful. So sweet!

My other favorite part was when the first notes of "Let It Go" started playing. It may have taken me eight months to see the movie, but I haven't had my head in a cave all this time, so I knew what was coming. I think I may have even alerted Erica to what song was coming up (probably not, she's a smart cookie). She had been lying next to me on the couch, quietly watching the movie, but when those first notes of the song began, she got up and stood in front of the TV and sang along with Elsa and did the motions, too! It was a phenomenon I hadn't seen before! I couldn't decide whether to watch the movie or Erica. So cute!

I'm so glad that I waited to watch that movie with my nieces so that I could put that night in my memory bank for times when we can't sit together on the couch!