Family Vacation

Steve and I decided after a fun experience camping that it was time to start going on fun trips as a family and that our first family vacation would be to Nashville to visit some friends, see some sites and make memories!! Payton started the countdown a week in advance. She was most excited about getting to swim 2 days in a row and getting to see her friend Ari.

Steve and I thought we would break up the trip by taking 2 days to get there and 2 days to return and on those days we would try to play around at the hotel and see a little of the town. It worked out great. We planned to drive to Memphis our first day and get a big chunk of the driving out of the way and visit a student from UNT who just moved there. So Friday we left at 7:30am and headed to Memphis, TN.

We arrived in great time and got to swim and eat pizza that evening. Then the next morning we meet our friends for lunch at BB Kings Blues club. It was so fun we were able to walk up Beale Street and see the sites. The streets were roped off and these young boys were doing flips down the road and then you could put some money in their bucket. Payton loved it and of course wanted to give them some money to do more flips!!! Also at BB Kings they had live music which Steve and I loved getting to see and experience. Then our last stop in Memphis was the historic Peabody Hotel and famous ducks (more on those later). The girls loved getting to see the ducks and loved getting to see their "duck palace."The first leg of our vacation was great---Payton got to swim 2 days in a row, lunch with friends at a cool place to eat, the peabody ducks and boys doing flips down the middle of the street!





We had a great time in Nashville. We went to the zoo, the Adventure Science Center and the library for storytime. All with our friends which made it even more special!!

The Adventure Science center was an incredible interactive 3 story (i think) learning/play place. I only made it to the 2nd floor but Payton, Ari and Nikki went to the top! It had activities and displays of the planets, use of leverage, trains, crains, body parts, blood vessel network and on and on. Then we also went to their library---amazing. If you' re in Nashville with kids the library should be on the agenda to see. Storytime has it's own little auditorium, stage, puppet areas and also a fountain outside ---the children's section is an entire floor. I thought Denton did a good storytime but this was very good. Good times in Nashville.

Thanks Andy and SaraB and Nikki and Jeremy !





On the way home we stopped in Little Rock. When Steve went to book our hotel he realized that 8 out of the 9 hotels off the interstate were full and the only one with vacancy was the Peabody Hotel. How perfectly that worked out!!! I am sure we would not have chosen the Peabody if their had been other openings but hey it's vacation right?!! The girls were excited to stay where they could see the ducks....we had saw them in Memphis but missed the morning arrival and the evening departure so now we were staying at the hotel with the ducks!!

So after arriving at the hotel that evening we ordered pizza and off to bed. We had until our noon check out to enjoy Little Rock. That morning the girls slept until 8am!! Then we quickly dressed and were ready to head out to the water park (no pool), then the phone rang--- it was the hotel telling us we had a flat tire and that they would go ahead and put the spare on, take it to a tire shop, repair the tire and have our car ready for us by noon. Thank God that we are staying at The Peabody where the service is like none other! So we went quickly to the old state capitol building that was next door and then headed over to the water park--Payton and Langley loved it. Then back for the ducks at 11am.

Sharply at 11am the Duckmaster rode the elevator to the 2nd floor where the 5 ducks got on and rode down, then marched in on the red carpet and into the fountain where they stay until 5pm. This was another highlight of our stop in Little Rock.

At 12pm we check out, got into our car, tire fixed and headed home!!!!