Nashville, Tennessee

Our first "real" family vacation.  The only person not able to attend was my sister's husband who began a new job the week prior and so could not join us.  We have so, so many photos.  It was hard to narrow them down this much to capture the most of our trip.  The weather was perfect, still warm but a small break from the excruciating heat and humidy in Missouri.  We were able to fit in a lot of sightseeing and still had enough down time to play some Yatzee and visit.  And happy early birthday, Momma!

Here are some photos to summarize our trip...

 

 

Downtown Nashville and all the honkey tonks.  We never made it to Margaritaville...

Downtown and some of the business and music side of the city...

The Ryman Auditorium (the old location for the Grand Ole Opry)...

 

 

Hard Rock Cafe (1 of 150 in 53 countries)...

 

 

Putt-putting pretty much consisted of this, surviving the heat, and almost everyone getting a...

 

Hole - in - one!

The Country Music Hall of Fame, a lot of things to see in here.  This doesn't even begin to show everything there is to see...

 

 

And the Grand Ole Opry with James Otto, Little Jimmy Dickens, Mark Wills & Loretta Lynn...

 

 

Oh, and we found over 20 states license plates on the way there and back.  Keane found the most...and the furthest.  Winner gets...a "good job baby!"  It was a great time.  We plan to return sometime; there is a lot to see and do there!

Washers, anyone?

After our 4th of July activities, we decided to make our own set of washer boxes.  Keane looked up washer box dimensions and we got to it...or he got to it I should say.

 

 

Kaden helped work the screwdriver...

 

...while Kylie and I played with chalk.

We, too, put in a screw so that we all had a part in the making of our washer boxes.

We stopped here and there to answer phone calls and such.

We (he) spray painted black and gold.  MU Tigers stickers will be finishing touches, some day.

 

Happy washers!

Salsa & Pickles

We made our first homemade salsa from veggies out of our garden!  It is very tasteful and we are pleased with our first try.  There may be a few changes to perfect our next batch but rock on homemade salsa!

Onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, corn...and seasoning = our homemade salsa!

We attempted to make three batches...one mild for the kids, one medium for us in case we didn't like the third, hot with jalapenos, but in our attempt to turn down the back burner with the hot salsa, we turned down the front burner instead which led to the burning of our hot batch.  Other than that it went quite smoothly.  We are proud salsa makers!

I also made one of my favorites...pickles!  I planted pickling cucumbers and added the needed ingredients and viola...tasty pickles!  Love this gardening thing...