Girls Rockin' Weekend 2014 - Part 1

Ok, so I am only two months behind ... Oops! I will start with Girls Weekend:

At the end of March, all of us girls (our usual bunch) met up in Nashville for a fun extended weekend. It turned out to be the perfect destination! We had originally planned on New York City so we could see Wicked. But then we were thinking about how expensive NYC is, and kind of busy and dirty ... So we came up with a plan to see Wicked on tour. Carrie and I love Penn Station East Coast Subs (our old Ohio obsession), so we said let's look for a city that has Penn Station and Wicked in the spring. Nashville was the city! Chesney grew up there, and she said she would love it!

We all arrived on Wednesday afternoon. Once we got our rental car, we headed to Penn Station for dinner. Of course. Then we drove over to our rental. We found the cutest little cottage to stay at. It really was so cute! And way affordable.

The weather was actually pretty crummy
most of the time we were there, rainy and
windy, so we didn't spend much time outside
of the cottage. But then on the last day when
it was beautiful, Carrie took a minute to
enjoy the hammock. :)





So, here is a little tour of the cottage ... Walking in either from the front door or the back:

This room turned out to be the LADYBUG room. It was so weird!

The first night we were all sitting in there, and we noticed a few ladybugs.

Then more, and more. They were on the ceiling and walls. Cute, but not!

 

 Cutest little eating area!

Carrie took the room by the back door, and I took the room connected to Jennifer and Chesneys' room. We decided

by testing out the beds. ;-)

Jennifer and Chesneys' room was so bright and cheery!

              Fun place to hang out.

On our first day in Nashville, we went to see Wicked (after sleeping in way late and eating lunch).

We had the most amazing seats EVER!

And the show was AWESOME. It was my 3rd time seeing it, and this was my favorite performance by far.

So, that was Thursday. On Friday we couldn't sleep in because we needed to get to the temple before our afternoon spa appointment. You might think going to the temple on a girls weekend is kind of strange, but we really like it!

I couldn't find my temple recommend that morning even though it was in my bag. LOL. So they had to look up my info. AND when Chesney said, "Don't forget your temple clothes!" I thought she meant the clothes that you wear to the temple, not the clothes you bring to wear inside the temple (nothing funny, just a white dress). And they don't rent clothes at that temple! But they do have a few to borrow for lame people like me. Thank goodness.

After the temple, we rushed over to the spa for our lovely pedicures and facials. Then we had a late lunch.

That night we toured the conservatory at the Opryland Resort and Convention Center. It was so beautiful! So much to see:

I'd like to stay in one of those rooms and have this view.

LOL - We made Carrie pose like the lady.

That was a lotta walking!

We were ready for a late dinner by that point, so we went to this fun place across the street that had a live band.

YUM Y'ALL!!!

MOST of us enjoyed the music ...

See? Nashville is fun!

Girls Rockin' Weekend 2014 - Part 2

Ok ... Thursday was Wicked day; and Friday was temple, spa and conservatory day. On Saturday I think we slept in again. It was funny because we would wake up by time zones. I would wake up first from the Eastern time zone, and then Chesney from Texas, and then our two AZ girls Jennifer and Carrie were last.

We went to Penn Station for like the 3rd or 4th time. It was always fun to see how they would spell our names. hahaha. We thought the one friendly (and kind of off) guy was flirting with Carrie (or KERRY), but then when we went back he was all friendly to ME! He even remembered my name and what I ordered! Yikes.

After lunch we went over to tour the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's home. This was by far the coldest day. It was something like 45 degrees and windy. I think it got up to 80 degrees when we left! Why does that always happen to us?

Andrew Jackson was kind of a turd (if you ask me). We listened to the audio tour as we walked along, and you can see by Carrie's expression how impressed she was by Andrew Jackson...

They had the front entrance blocked off, so we couldn't get close enough to see it. :(

This is around the back where the tour started. We really liked the inside!

(I got that jacket for a good deal at the Eddie Bauer 

outlet the first night we got there. I love it!)

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside. I think I sneaked this one. hehehe

The garden seemed nice, but we were SO COLD. I used my headphones as earmuffs. :)

This is where Andrew Jackson and some relatives were buried.

We drove by the Parthenon later, on our way into the city. It's an EXACT replica.

We went back at night. Even more spectacular!


On Saturday night we went to the Wild Horse Saloon to do line dancing. So funny!

The Wild Horse Saloon in itself is pretty funny!

 But line dancing was a HOOT.

Chesney's got the moves!!!

It was a fun night. And it was fun just to walk around
downtown Nashville with all the country music and stuff going on.

We rounded off the night with some 

YUMMY Baskin Robbins ice cream. :)

And that brings us to Sunday ... Our last day! So sad. This was such a fun girls weekend. I really didn't want it to end.

We got up early so that we could do a Segway tour of Nashville at 9am. Oh my gosh, it was a BLAST. (oh, yeah, we watched austenland one night and chesney was cracking us all up with austenland lines all over the place.)

We had to learn how to ride them first. 

I thought it would be scary, but it was actually very easy!

We wore our matching GAP sweatshirts that we bought the first night. :)

The Segway tour was the perfect thing to do on a Sunday morning
when the city was practically empty. It was a long tour, and we saw so much!

I used this picture for my Girls Rockin' Weekend 2014 soundtrack.

side note: it was so dang cold that we had to go to target the night before and scrounge up

some gloves off the clearance rack. chesney was the only smart one who had her own!

And another good one. Everyone was supposed to strike a pose. Jennifer's needs work. hahaha

Our tour giude was great. I think that makes a huge difference.

Nashville has a "mall" like Washington DC with monuments and statues.
There was this long timeline we rode through. Cool.

I texted this picture of the UBS building to Mike - "Hey! We could live here!"

 Lunchtime ... SO GOOD.

Our last stop was the Belle Mead Plantation. Chesney read a historical fiction book
based on this place, and really wanted to see it. We did too! But all of the tours for
the inside of the house were sold out. Waaaaa! So we walked around the grounds. BORING.

I was glad we walked around though because I later read the book and loved being able
to picture the surroundings. It's called To Whisper Her Name. You should read it!

This was a cute little play house for the children.

 The ladies sitting here would NOT move. Weirdos.

 I can't tell you what these buildings were. I think we all were pretty bored.

After the plantation, we had a little bit of time and went back into 

the city to do some candy shopping. Haha. Why not?

This was the most ridiculous thing we saw. These people were all pedaling
around the city while drinking and shouting stupid things. Unbelievable.

But the candy shop was awesome. :)

After that we had to go home. Boo hoo hoo. :( I ended up having quiet the adventure with delayed flights and spent the night in Washington DC after waiting in a stupid one-hour long line for nothing. I was so glad to be finally be home the next day!

SO, once again, Girls Weekend was a success. We talked about doing it twice a year. SERIOUSLY. Or maybe changing it to the fall because we have had to do it too early in the spring to get nice weather. If we did it in October maybe, we could have some really nice weather! We'll see.

I'll have to research Penn Station locations ...