Incognito

Sorry peeps, it's been a while. Not for any good reason other than not feelin' like writing about anything. SO, lucky you, I'm in the Chicago airport for a lovely layover and have some time to kill...what better thing to do than blog? It has, afterall, been 18 days since I last blogged. Wow. That may be my longest running stretch ever! Where to begin...

Well, I'll be honest, my brain is a bit mushy in trying to remember all that I've been up to, so I'll just go over some high points.

Last weekend the temps finally dropped a little bit in Tennessee - at least enough where you could drink hot cacao (I prefer calling it that over cocoa) and not sweat, put on a sweatshirt and not have to turn on the air conditioning and your nose & cheeks actually turned a bit rosy, and not from sunburn. So, we took advantage of the fun fall temps and made a trip to the drive-in. I'd like to think we are pros at it because we had quite the luxury set-up as far as drive-ins go. First, we brought tarps to put under our blankets so they would stay dry, then we pulled the car right up to the tarps so we had a nice little "back-rest" using a stack of pillows. I made some hot cacao and put it in a thermos, brought a variety of snacks and bundled up in my favorite sweatshirt and beanie. The first movie was Eagle Eye and it was soooo good (perfect movie to watch outside). The second movie was Lakeview Terrace, which we weren't too optimistic about and ended up leaving not too far into it. The whole night was a blast, sniffly noses and all.



The next night Stacey & I headed downtown Nashville to hear Ray Lamontagne perform at the Ryman. First off, I'm not a big concert-goer (hence I live in the wrong city), but if there is anyone I love (which there are a lot of artists I certainly appreciate) and they are playing at the Ryman, then I am in. It's an old church-turned-concert-venue that has the best acoustics, great seats (not a very large place), and usually a "dream come true" for most artists that play there. That tends to translate into a long concert with multiple encores because they just want to keep playing. So, all that to say, the concert was amazing, Ray's voice sounds even more incredible in person (which I did not think was possible) and I would definitely do it all over again...so worth every penny.

I was a little overly excited about hearing Ray.

The rest of the week continued on with work as normal, although I took off bright & early Thursday morning for a last minute flight to NW Iowa. My grandparents are not doing well, so the whole family flew out to see them for probably the last time. It's a loooong trip for such a short time, but it was worth it and I'm glad I went. I flew from Nashville to Chicago and then onto Omaha. I met Ryan, Cheri, Nathan and the 3 kiddos at the Omaha airport and we piled in a van for the next 2.5 hours to drive to Cherokee. Basically I left my house at 5:45 that morning and finally made it to my destination by 4:00 that afternoon. Talk about a long day. Yesterday we celebrated what Ryan has lovingly deemed "Uberday". It was Thanksgiving & Christmas combined into one (if we would have found some sparklers we would have thrown some New Year's into it as well). We ate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family and then the kids opened their Christmas presents from my grandparents, aunt & uncle. They may be a bit confused when we celebrate Christmas again in exactly 2 months, but I'm pretty sure they won't mind a bit :). This morning we left the farm at 9:30, stopped at the nursing home to spend a little more time with grandpa before saying goodbye, made it to the airport by 12:30, I took off for Chicago at 2:00 and now I'm waiting until 6:45 for my final flight that will get me into Nashville at 8:00. Not a big fan of layovers...I've been flying "nonstop" for so long now that I've been spoiled and it has contributed to my impatience....so this is probably good for me.

So, that is a pretty good update for now. Tomorrow I've got a big birthday party to go to, Monday night a football shin-dig at a friend's house for the Colts-Titans game (the Titans are undefeated!!!), and friends coming in for the weekend Thursday night...so it's looking to be a fan-tabulous week! Hope you had a great weekend and great things ahead too!