Celebrating in Nashville

After we got home from our 5K, Ryan gave me a birthday card telling me that we needed to start packing. At first I didn't understand that he meant right then, but I quickly found out that we were soon to leave town to go celebrate my birthday.

We got ready and left, but I had no idea where we were going. Ryan had planned a surprise trip to Nashville for me. We drove down there, dropped Wally off with Brandon and Jill and then headed to the Renaissance Hotel, where we spent the next two nights.

During our time there, we went and saw the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is enourmous. They have a beautiful garden atrium inside, which is where we took this picture.

Ryan and I ate at several great restaurants including the Pancake Pantry. We actually ate breakfast there both mornings since it was so good. The Pancake Pantry is this cute little restaurant that is apparently pretty famous because there are always people waiting to get in to eat there. There was a sign inside that said, "Snow, rain or shine, there's always a line." Next to it were pictures of a long line outside the restaurant during all those weather conditions. Crazy! Anyway, I really enjoyed my Sweet Potato Pancakes, and Ryan's favorite were the Raspberry Delight Pancakes. They have so many different pancake creations; it would be fun to try all of them one day.

On our last day there, we went to the park and played Bocce Ball. For those of you who don't know, it's this game where you throw a small yellow ball out, then you have four chances to get your color of balls closest to the yellow ball. It was pretty cute because every time we threw the yellow ball, squirrels would run over to sniff it. Ryan won both games we played. He's so good at EVERYTHING he does! While we were at the park, we found this fun two person swing that we played on for a little bit before leaving. This is us being silly on the swing.

It was obvious Ryan spent a lot of time planning our trip, and he was disappointed when things didn't go according to plan. One night, things kept going wrong, one after another. The restaurant he wanted to take me to was randomly closed. He had also planned to take me country dancing since I love to dance, but when we got there, they told us they were closed for the night for a Harley Davidson party. (There was a Harley Davidson convention going on while we were in Nashville.) It also started raining as soon as we got to the park, but thankfully it didn't last long. It became a joke all the things that went wrong, but it was so fun. I was reminded once again how much I love being Ryan's wife. Life rarely goes according to plan, but with Ryan by my side, we are always able to have a blast and make the best of every situation.