Holly Jolly Christmas Weekend

This past weekend Sam and I spent getting into the holiday spirit. On Friday night, we met up at Sam's work downtown to go to the Nashville Christmas parade. The crazy thing is that in all these 9 years of us dating/married we have never been to the parade downtown. We started the night at my favorite place ever, which is of course the Old Spaghetti Factory.

We finished eating just in time to make it outside to see some of the fireworks. The Rudolph Run 5K had just finished, so we were just in time for the parade. We watched the whole thing, including all 5,000 shriners! It felt that there were that many at least! :)

 The Goodlettsville Little League led the parade. 

 This is Holiday Barbie in a box. Yes, they put a person in the box and she stiffly waved at people.

 Santa ended the show. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

After a lazy Saturday morning, Sam and I took some Christmas card pictures with my sister and her little family. It is always a good time when you get us together! When you throw in a crazy cute toddler you have an even better time! After pictures, Sam and I headed over to the Barrios house to spend the night enjoying some Christmas stuff in Nashville. There were a million other people who had the same idea to go to Opry Mills, so we passed on our eating plans and hoped the crowds got better. We took the girls to see Santa at Bass Pro after we ate!

 

This guy threw me off. At first glance I thought there was really someone under there...turns out it's just a machine. 

The girls rode together...we threw the boys in their own car...so we had some good laughs singing Christmas songs at the top of our lungs as any girl does! :) Amanda and I are still in a debate on the ending of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She says it ends "like Dallas minus J.R." who knows that the means?? I say it's "like George Washington." People are crazy I tell you...not knowing the real added ending to Rudolph! ;) We headed over to Opryland Hotel after seeing Santa and getting some coffee to see the lights. Sam and I hadn't been back since it flooded, so it was nice to be back and see everything looking nice. I still think I could go every year and still not have a clue where I was. It was raining, so we didn't get to go see the lights in the front and the nativity scene. :( That's the best part in my book. 

 She's been my girl since she was 3...

 The life of the party! :)

It was such a good time and made many new memories! There are so many more coming our way I am sure. Let the Christmas parties begin!

Tis' the Season

It's that time again when we get to get together with our friends and family and I think we brought it in pretty nicely. We had five Thanksgivings with our friends and family, which was more than our usual Thanksgivings get together. Amanda and I took off that night to go for our annual Black Friday shopping excursion. This year the stores opened earlier than normal, so the shopping started well before midnight and we stayed out until the sun came back up to greet us! It was a really fun time and brought on the Christmas season.

This past weekend Sam and I went to Gatlinburg for a little getaway with some friends of ours. We took this trip last year at the same time and had a blast. This year did not disappoint. We got to enjoy Friday off from work and walk the streets of downtown Gatlinburg. Saturday morning the girls were surprised with a girls day spa treat that the boys had already booked before we got there!! It was so nice to enjoy some time with the girls, but even nicer to have a massage while doing it! I also got my first facial, which I thoroughly enjoyed too! We took some time that night to do a little Christmas shopping while the boys watched football. The weekend ended way faster this year that is for sure, but we came back ready to face the last few weeks before Christmas!

Color Run Nashville

 Pinterest is an awesome thing. Early this year while scoping out other running ideas, I came across this thing called the Color Run. The name and picture obviously caught my attention, so I looked into it. Well, as soon as I read about it I was hooked. I had to do it! Little did I know that everyone else around Nashville would want to do it too! When I went to sign up, it was already sold out and I was extremely bummed! A couple of weeks ago though, I got the chance to get a friends registration and was able to sign up for the run with some of my friends. To say I was excited is an understatement. At the last minute, Amanda got to come with us too! Here are a few pictures of the day.

I am so glad that I got to do this run! Sam had to chance to do it too and didn't want to. When I asked him afterwards if he wished he had run with us, he said he did. Lessoned learned I suppose. We are definitely going to do this again if it comes back to Nashville. We are also going to get even more colorful the next go around because we know what to expect! I can't wait!

Night Out in the Street

On Wednesday night, Sam got a call asking if we wanted to go to the free Luke Bryan concert that was going on downtown. Of course this was something that we had to do, so we met up with friends at the Flying Saucer to hang out for a little bit and then we started out to the streets of Nashville to watch Luke Bryan. There were so many people down there and was starting to get stormy, so we didn't stay out there too long. It didn't matter though. Sam and I like to change up our normal routine of work, home, gym, bed during the week every now and then. It is always hard to get up to go to work the next morning, but the advice of my best is true...We shall enjoy it while it's just the two of us! 

Dressin' Up

...is hard to do as you get older. Sam and I try to be creative when it comes to dressing up for Halloween parties. This year our friends, Blake and Ashleigh, threw their daughter Quinnlyn her 1st birthday party with a Halloween theme. Everyone was suppose to dress up, but of course only about half of the group did making the ones who did dress up feel awesome! :) Well, this year Sam and I had a little bit of trouble coming up with something creative, but we did end up dressing up.

We dressed up as Joe Dirt and an 80's prom girl. I also could've been that girl from Napolean Dynamite, but either way something that I normally am not. 

Boone was an adorable little monkey. He cracked me up walking around in his monkey suit complete with a tail. It got better when he started eating a banana! LOVED IT! SO stinking cute! I love those cubby cheeks! :)

Regardless of the fact that only a few of the friends dressed up, it was still a fun night of getting together and hanging out around a fire! This seems to be the theme this fall and I love it!

Hello Fall

 This weekend was my fall break at work. Two years ago that would have meant that I would have a week to enjoy to myself, but now that means an extended weekend. I won't complain...I'll take whatever break I can get! :) This past weekend has been our weekend trip to Gatlinburg with Steve and Amanda. This year Sam and I wanted to do something a little different and go camping. This was definitely different from our cabin with heating and air, a hot tub, and a mountain view. We had a great view of the lake, decently hot showers, and a fire to keep warm. We weren't really expecting to have such fall like temperatures this weekend. Bottom line..it was cold, but we still had a great time. I must say my favorite moment of the trip was our little race of speed walking techniques. Amanda and I lost so bad mainly because we were laughing too hard to focus on speed walking. Yes, we do know how to entertain ourselves when we are freezing and tired due to our neighboring campsite that decided it was best to sleep during the day and stay up until 3 A.M. being loud and obnoxious! Luckily, night number two brought rain early forcing them into their tent early! :) Ahh it's the little things! :)

Like I said..it was cold. We had a fire, blankets, long sleeves, and hoodies and were still freezing!

 Great view of the lake

 Hanging in there bright and early Saturday morning. 

 Throwing a little baseball since they couldn't watch any football! I have to admit..I liked the break from football for one day! :)

 Amanda and Steve

 Lovely Lake

 A little windy

 We had a great dinner at least! Steak, chicken, salad, baked beans, and veggies! Yum! 

 Let it be known that we tried to take this picture ourselves at least 8 times before the boys came back. This was the best we got..it was much better than the other pictures but it made for many, many laughs! 

 Group Photo

 Breakfast of champions...Sausage, bacon, eggs, and chocolate chip pancakes! 

It was a great little camping getaway and kept with the theme of doing new things this year. We went to Tims Ford Lake which we had never been to and went camping with Steve and Amanda which was new too! I have found that although I do like things I know..I also like doing new things too! Who would've known! :)