Nashville time

Packing everything including the kitchen sink ... often used words. This time it seems to be true as you can read later, ha-ha.

Friday (May 5)

Not our most enjoyable drive to Nashville ever. At one point it rained so hard that we could hardly see anything (this photo doesn't really show it). If it is like that it is even too dangerous to stop and pull over because somebody could run into the back of you. Luckily that scary part didn't take too long.
The bad weather had been forecast and for the first time ever we had backed the car into the garage so we could load inside.

Anyway, we arrived safely and William (of course) spent the night with us. That's why we have to come on a Friday. No school the next day.

Saturday

The weather was somewhat better and we decided to visit the Cheekwood Botanical Garden. As I have reported many times before ... there is a very nice toy train display and William always loves seeing that. We spent a long time there. Lots of things were in bloom and of course, he loves flowers, plants and trees and things like that.

In the Japanese garden section he said that it was beautiful! 

There is a "Burr Garden" with a big bush at the edge. It must be the only one in the whole place without a name tag. Of course because that's the one I would love to know what it is. Lovely flowers.

In a big grassy area he got his exercises running forth and back ... and then plopping down for a second to take a rest.

Hardy amaryllis. Who knew there is such a thing?

We decided on the Olive Garden for lunch. I used to like their soup and salad and haven't had it for quite a while. Money was not wasted on William because he ate everything ordered for him and he even got a desert courtesy of the house. Check that off as a success.

Sunday

After another sleepover it was church in the morning as always ... at 9 am ... rather early. He likes his Sunday school so of course we stayed. Lunch at our place and to the Nashville Children's Theater for a performance at 2 pm. We had an extra ticket and Kim met us there. We had a great time. 

It was not empty like it looks in the last photo. We were just early.

In the lobby before the performance:

Sunday afternoon

Helen is working on a big project for her work place. Huge. So we kept William afterwards a little longer. The weather had greatly improved so we went to Longhunter State Park.

William was a trooper walking the whole loop with us. When we left we saw deer next to the road close to the parking. 

We didn't drive far though and parked again. We had promised William to try and fly a helicopter which we had brought actually last year. Silly me I had not realized that you shouldn't fly it in front of the townhouse because it most likely wouldn't survive crashing on the hard surface. And it is definitely not an indoor toy.

He had a lot of fun with it in this grassy area. You pull a string and it lifts off.

No sleepover since William will have school all week. James and I got a few walks in the neighborhood. That felt very good. I did a walk Tuesday evening when a full moon just started showing itself. James didn't need any more steps that evening because he and Helen had done a "real" hike that day - - - their Camino training.

Wednesday morning we did a really good walk very early. The smell of these along the way almost gave you a headache. But it was so very nice.

Since we had burned off some calories we decided on a real breakfast. Soft boiled eggs etc. 

It was so lovely. We had put up the sun-sail and also enjoyed other meals there later.

And then Thursday was the day .... the comment about bringing the kitchen sink! We really did. The top mount one from Virginia would replace the one here which I had never liked. The bowls in the old one had rounded bottoms that everything you tried to soak in would fall over. And you never could keep the white looking nice.

James had tried and called three plumbers from the home adviser list. Only one called back. Good thing we had forgotten to get an estimate on the phone. We might have changed our minds. We almost had heart attacks when we got the bill. Oh well ....

It's a great improvement though and I love it. And the sink itself was free, ha-ha.

And while the plumber was there my new stove/oven came too. We had bought it on our last visit. The old one had those heating coils which were so crooked that no pot ever stood straight on them.

I had to try out the oven the same day. Made cupcakes for William's class in honor of his birthday. Oven worked fine! Let the birthday celebrations begin!