Our Weekend || A Wedding Getaway to Nashville!

Caleb and I had the opportunity to venture to Tennessee this past weekend for a wedding of an old friend. He grew up in church with the bride, Heather, so we all knew each other already! Also, my bestie was a Bridesmaid in the wedding, which made it even more fun!

They seriously got the perfect weather for a November wedding date. You really never know with November. It could rain, it could be 20 degrees and snowing, or it could turn out to be mid 50's and just tolerable enough to not wear a jacket. Luckily, that last one is exactly what we had. The glow from the sun we had all day was JUST right and I couldn't stop smiling. Michael and Heather, thank you so much for letting us be part of your big day, we had so much fun!

Thats my bestie, Lynds! She and Heather have been roommates for the last few years, so this was a bittersweet day for them!

Their reception was way too much fun! Heather and Michael's friends were all so sweet! We left feeling like we made a bunch of new friends!

Rewind to Friday night when we arrived in TN, we stopped at our favorite book store in all the land; McKays. We discovered it about 3 years ago with Erin and Jared when we made a road trip to Memphis for a wedding Caleb was in, and knew we had to make the pit-stop again. Seriously, I had like 7 books in my hand, all for about .50 cents to $1.75. There was actually one brand new book I've been wanting and it was $7, but that's still a quarter of the price if I had bought it brand new from any other store! We headed back to our hotel and ordered a pizza, watched a movie and called it a night.

When we arrived back home Sunday afternoon, I took a MUCH needed nap. It. Was. Glorious! I'm really excited that we are approaching some SERIOUS free time now that this weekend is behind us. It's much needed. We have one more wedding in December, but guys, we have 4 free weekends before that. I can't even handle it! As much as we love photographing weddings, and serving our clients, its time to take time for ourselves and I'm pumped about it!

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend as well!

Nashville: A Trip to Remember

I got to spend an entire weekend in Nashville with two of my greatest friends! I am still coming off of a weekend-high. A quick weekend getaway is exactly what I needed with some of my ladies!

Angie and I met up and drove down together on Friday, and the time change worked in our advantage as we got to Nashville around 9:30! The three of us spent entirely too much time hugging and catching up, but Lyndsie made sure we made it to Cookout to get some shakes...um, SO delish!!

We actually hit the sheets pretty early, because we knew we wanted to get an early start to our day Saturday - which we did! We woke up and got ready together, which took us all back to college. It was awesome. We headed to downtown Franklin and hit up some of the cutest local boutiques. I snagged some new sunglasses because my eyes were dying, we headed to Frothy Monkey to try the famous fruit tea, and traipsed around eyeing everything.

After a couple hours we got hungry so we waited entirely too long for the town's best chicken - Hattie B's. We took it to go and went to a local lookout called Love Circle and had ourselves a little picnic.

We headed to another strip of stores and I finally got to meet some of Lyndsie's Nashville friends! We, of course, stopped for ice cream at Jeni's!

I had way too much appreciation for this mischief.

We headed back to Lyndsie's to watch episode 1 of Fuller House. None of us were expecting much because we all heard it was so terrible.  Ummm. We kind of loved it. Sure, it was cheesy, but so were the originals! I also loved that it was taped infront of a live audience, so the reactions/laughter was totally real.

We dolled up for a fun night out and surprised Angie with a mini early-bday celebration! She's halfway to 50!!!!

We may or may not have also enjoyed Sprinkles where we had a late night cupcake-fest!

After this we headed to a dueling piano event and it was kind of the coolest thing ever. I expected something totally different than what it was - but it was amazing. The pianist played/sang a TON of 90's songs, and my girls and I had way too much fun dancing the night away singing some of our favorite classics!

We didn't get to bed until about 2AM, but we still woke up for an early breakfast - to make sure we maximized our time together. Lyndsie slaved away in the kitchen making chocolate chip pancakes, eggs and fresh fruit! Is their little dining area not the cutest thing you've ever seen!?!

Goodbyes are always dumb, so we made them quick, and promised it wouldn't be so long until we all can get together. I am so lucky to have these gals in my life! Thanks for hosting us, Lynds!!! It was a blast and a half.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I'm feeling refreshed and ready to tackle this week! I hope you are, too!

Watch out Nashville!

So, its always inevitable...we just kinda grow up. You find your few close friends over the years, and you all just start following the different paths of life. For some of us, its college, marriage, a major job transfer, for others its simply based on the urgency for change.

I made a decision my Freshman year of college to only surround myself with people that challenge me to be better. People who look at life with optimism and joy...and people who will lend an ear when I need to talk. I'm thankful that I found them.

Blurry shots I found from 2008.

Today is the day my Lyndsie moves off to Nashville; her dream city! Since we were twelve, we haven't lived more than 5 minutes from each other. Not that we hang out weekly as it is, because both of our lives are far too busy for that, but it'll be SO weird not being able to swing by her house and drop off our favorite ice cream, or call her on a random week night to watch our favorite movie together. I know I'm going to miss her like crazy, I mean, we've been best friends for about 10 years now...but I just know she's going to do some some awesome things with this new adventure of hers. So I can't help but be psyched for her through this exciting, terrifying, and awesome next chapter in her life!

It really got me thinking about all the different paths we take. None of which are the "wrong" ones to take, but no two paths are the same, either. Thankfully, I know that no matter WHERE life takes my friends and I (emotionally, or geographically), we will always have each other. Fun packages will be sent, Skyping will ensue, and hopefully spontaneous road trips will be in the books.

So Lynds, I love and miss you already!!!
HAPPY FRIDAY!

That time we went to Tennessee

Time to "throw it back"...isn't that what Thursdays are for? Oops... I'll make it the new Tuesday ;)

One random Thursday in 2011, Caleb was talking to his brother/sister in law, and they wanted to know if we wanted to go to Nashville with them and catch the away Bengals game vs the Titans. Caleb then asked me if he thought we should go for the weekend with them (at this time, I was going through a sort of rough patch in my life... read here, so I needed a fun weekend away). So of course I was totally game for that.

We headed out, did our usual gas station stop... picked up some delicious bite size snacks, and were on our way to good ole' Nashville!

The road-trip was spent listening to the 78 random CD's from 2004 on that Erin had in her car, and we loved every last second of it. Screaming to Papa Roach, Chris Brown, Katy Perry, etc.

We immediately checked into our hotel, grabbed lunch at the Hardrock Cafe and spent the rest of the evening running around Nashville and taking ridiculous pictures of each other, you know... what we do best.

Then we took (what would have been a long walk) a free bus ride over to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and traipsed around inside!

After a ridiculously fun night, we woke up early, grabbed breakfast and got ready for our Cincinnati Bengals to beat down on the Titans.

We ended up winning this game so you know we had to celebrate by running down the streets of Nashville like crazies.

This year, once another normal football season is upon us again (cant wait!) we plan on making a long weekend road-trip to Chicago.

Moral of this story? The four of us are basically some fun people to party with. Hehe