Nashville

A couple of weeks back I took a little business trip to Nashville, TN. I've never been to Nashville, and so I took the opportunity to get out and see a little of what the 'City of Music' had to offer..

I stayed in the 'Gaylord Opryland' Hotel -- which was HUGE. Nine acres of gardens, waterfalls, rivers, shops, restaurants, and nearly 3000 rooms all under one roof. In fact, it's the largest Convention Hotel in the country outside of Las Vegas and it was beautiful. Amazing, actually.. especially all of the indoor gardens/water features. Here's just a sampling of the wonders that are there:



In addition to just exploring the insane hotel, we also took the shuttle into town one evening and had dinner at B.B. King's Blues Club. I had catfish and fried green tomatoes for the first time -- both were better than expected. Nashville is a lot smaller and friendlier than I had imagined -- just a couple of 'downtown' streets that we explored.. and live music everywhere. They definitely take their country music seriously down there! :-)

The highlight of our trip was a visit to the Grand Ol' Opry. I was a little shocked when my boss wanted to go, and I mostly went just because I felt bad making him go by himself. However, I'm glad I did. It was definitely an experience. I've never been to the taping of a live radio show.. in fact, I'm not really sure how many of them are even out there anymore. We went to the 'Country Classics' night and between the old country music and the announcer actually reading all the commercials, I felt like I'd been transported back in time. It was more fun than expected and definitely worth the trip -- even if I didn't recognize more than two songs and none of the artists. Here are some of the highlights:



It was a fun little trip.. and the Conference I went to wasn't bad either.. (Actually.. it was quite amazing.. but full of all sorts of work-related stuff no one else would care about..)

Baby Chad

We just spent the weekend in Maryland visiting with Sharon, Greg and the kids. We were able to go a little earlier than the rest of the family, so we got to spend some good quality time with them (and Chad is actually still there while I'm at a conference in Nashville.. so he's still spending quality time). We played wii, hung out, took the girls to and from the bus stop every day and even got to see a very cool dance performance by Angela:





Chad and I were also able to go down to DC on Saturday and do a little site seeing. We ate lunch at Old Emmit's Grill -- one of the oldest eating establishments in DC, and then spent the afternoon at the International Spy Museum -- which is a terribly cool place for any of you planning a DC trip and wondering what to do..

It's so beautiful back there with all the green and trees. It rained the entire time we were there, but we didn't mind too much -- sometimes rain is a refreshing change from the desert.

While we were there, the rest of the family joined us, and Baby Chad was blessed on Sunday night. We were happy we could be there for the event. In honor of his big day, I thought I'd post some of the better family pics..









We had a great weekend and hope we have the opportunity to come out to Maryland again to visit soon.