Surprise Anniversary Trip!

This past weekend, Matthew surprised me with a little get-away to Nashville to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.  If you know me, you know that I LOVE surprises......but only to a certain extent.  I'm not a big fan of last the "last minute, pack your bags we're leaving in an hour kind of surprises".....but I do love them when I have a bit of notice.  It's just the Type A personality in me and the fact that I'm a planner at heart.  Thankfully, my husband has learned this and therefore gave me a slight heads up, about five days before we headed out.  He didn't tell me any details, but said that we would be spending the weekend away for our anniversary, sans kid and sans dogs!  Our sweet new friends Jeremy and Pam took great care of Kyndall for us and also checked on our fur babies while we were away.

I've been to Nashville about 2,387 times over the past month for appointments at Vanderbilt, but I had yet to actually do any of the FUN stuff that the city has to offer.  I was thrilled when Matthew told me we'd be staying at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel AND that we had tickets to the Grand Ole Opry for Saturday night!!  I've been a HUGE country music fan my whole life, so this was almost  the equivalent of a kid's first trip to Disney World.  

Anniversary flowers and cards

 It was raining the entire weekend, so I didn't get any pictures of the outside of the hotel.  Let me tell you, this place is MASSIVE.  We spent an entire day walking through it and still didn't see the whole thing!  Here are a few pictures I found online of the hotel from outside......

This one was taken two years ago during the historic Nashville flood, but it's the only aerial shot I could find to show just how BIG this place is!

Inside the hotel.......

I thought this was pretty cool!

And whacha know?  Good ole Lake Talquin made the list!!  I practically grew up on this lake because my parents have a house down there and I spent lots of time on that water as a kid and teenager. Pretty cool!  Several other familiar lakes around Tallahassee were also blended---Lake Jackson being one of them.

We found several ice cream shops inside of the hotel---Yum!

Though the Opry is within walking distance of the hotel, we decided to catch the shuttle since it was raining and nasty outside.  The shuttle dropped us off right outside the doors to the Opry where we quickly snapped a few pictures before running inside to stay dry........

It was just as I had imagined!  My favorite part is the "church pew" style seating---LOVE that!

With George Jones passing away just a day prior to our visit, the entire Opry was buzzing with rumors of big stars making a surprise appearance at the show that night.  Turns out, the night before, Brad Paisley stopped by unannounced to pay tribute to George.  We were excited at the prospect of seeing some BIG stars!

Before the show started, this Minnie Pearl look-alike came out and told a few jokes and got us excited about the upcoming show......

Then, at exactly 7:00, the curtain went up and the Opry went on air!  (Remember, it's a radio show!  My Mom even tuned in and listened for a while that night---pretty neat!)

First up were the cloggers, which totally took me back to my days of clogging in Tallahassee with the Mountain Dews!  SO much fun!

We saw some great performances and had a really good time!  The atmosphere inside the Opry is contagious and you can't help but be a little star struck when you think about all of the legends who have stood on that very stage and sang their hearts out.  Unfortunately, none of the big stars showed up that night, but it was still the experience of a lifetime and I'll never forget it!  I really wanted to do a backstage tour following the show, but it was all sold out.  Next time!  =)

We left Nashville around 11:00 the next morning and enjoyed a yummy lunch at "Loretta Lynn's Country Kitchen" in Hurricane Mills, TN.  Yeehaw!