Roadtrip to Tennessee and safetly home again.

It's been two years since we went up to Tennessee and spent a weekend with my cousins Kelley, Glen, Rebecca and Lane. In that time, my sweet sweet Aunt Betty, and Uncle Alvin, as well as my cousins John, De, Christian and Hunter have all moved up there too. We had hoped to all go up there as a family, but Mitch was unable to join us, but I went ahead and tagged along with my Mom, Josh, Amy and Amy's parents and went anyway. We left on Thursday night, and drove all night to get there. Its a 10 hour drive, so we laid the children's car seats back and rolled on down the road.


We arrived around 7 am, and were greeted by Aunt Betty and Uncle Alvin with a nice hot breakfast waiting for us. Mr Larry, Josh and Amy went upstairs and got some rest. I slept the last 2 hours and tried to rest on the couch when we arrived, but alas, my children would not allow it! ha! We enjoyed the day just laying around the house, went and drove around the property and then got ready to head to Nashville to visit the Grand Ole Opry.

These are some pictures from the property (above) and some fun ones I took of Hunter and Christian, as well as B&B at Aunt Betty's house (below)

The Grand Ole Opry was fun, but Brax man had an accident and ended up pants-less for most of the night (drive me nuts, he does!). When we left there, we stopped for dinner at a Logan's Road House and had a very nice meal, before the late and long drive back to the house.

Saturday morning we all met up and went to the pumpkin patch. The kids were dressed for cold weather that really never came, but it made for super cute pictures :) They had pumpkins, a petting zoo, a huge slide, corn maze and little train. The kids had a great time!

Braxton, Christian, Hunter and Brookelynne

Kelley and Lane

After the pumpkin patch we went home for naps and then had a fantastic dinner with everyone there (except Rebecca, silly girl had to work!) Uncle Alvin had smoked the meat all day and it was just fantastic. Aunt Betty made the rest of the dinner (with a little help. here and there from the rest of the ladies at the house). And they had a Birthday cake for Josh and Brookelynne as well, which was nice, since it was Josh's birthday and Brooke was spending her birthday away from Daddy.

Sunday morning, all the Starlings and Freemans made it to church (except Uncle Alvin who had to get on the road back to FL) and Mom, me and kids joined them. It was a very nice service, in a fairly large church. We really enjoyed it. After that we had lunch at the house and just relaxed at the house for the rest of the afternoon. Around 4, I finally got to lay eyes on my sweet Becca, who had been working all weekend! We had a good time hanging out and catching up while the kiddos napped with Gabba.

Monday we all went to the National Park and saw the waterfalls and park. It was so pretty! Here are some of the shots I got of sweet family in beautiful scenery!

Then we all went to lunch at the local steakhouse and had a great time eating together and then singing "Happy Birthday" to my sweet beautiful birthday girl! :)

After lunch we visited the Amish, and made some quick decisions to go to Nashville for dinner. Aunt Betty and Mom offered to keep the kids, so I was able to go without them, which was such a blessing. I'm so grateful to have a chance to be an adult, and not just a "mommy" on the trip. This trip to Nashville was different than the Friday night, we went to this awesome restaurant/bar that has line dancing and tables and it was great! We had a fantastic time. Here are some pictures of our night!