Nashville has been on my travel radar for many years . . . really since I was in high school and my dear friend, Adam, moved there for college. I've made many trips to Tennessee, but never really been to Nashville, which I always thought was a shame.
As I wrote about in this post, my niece, Kaylee, graduated from high school at the end of May. We knew we were going to make the trip to Tennessee to see her graduate, and one day I mentioned to Chris that I wished we could just include a short trip to Nashville in with the graduation trip. The problem was that the week of Kaylee's graduation (which was on a Monday evening) was also the kids' last week of school. Our initial plan was to drive to Tennessee on Saturday, attend the graduation on Monday evening, drive home on Tuesday, then have the kids finish out their school year on Wednesday and Thursday.
However, the more Chris and I visited about it, the more we decided that maybe we should just let the kids miss those last few days and take a trip to Nashville. It seemed kind of silly to us to head home for just the last two days of school. I mean, our kids are in first and third grade, so that last week is mostly play time anyhow. A trip to Nashville would certainly provide more education than being at school during that time.
I'm a rule follower by nature, so it took some convincing (from myself!) to decide it was ok to let the kids skip school. Before I go any further, I will say that I have ZERO regrets about it now, though! We had an amazing time in Nashville, and I would let the kids miss the last few days of school to do it again in a heartbeat.
As planned, we drove to Tennessee on Saturday, May 18th. We spent the weekend celebrating Kaylee and her accomplishments before her graduation ceremony on Monday evening. On Tuesday, we got all of our things packed up before going to breakfast with the family. After breakfast, we hit the road for Nashville! It took us just over 2.5 hours to drive from my brother's house to Nashville, so we got there around 11:00am. Our first stop was the Tennessee State Capitol building!
The Tennessee State Capitol building is located in downtown Nashville, on top of a hill. We found a parking garage that was within a mile of the capitol building, loaded up the stroller with snacks, drinks, and kids, and set out to see the sites. The walk was uphill, and Nashville happened to be having a May heatwave while we were there. The temperature was only about 90 degrees, but the humidity was off the chain! No matter, we enjoyed our walk to the capitol building and were relieved to step inside where it was nice and cool.
Brianna, Brooke, Brecklyn, and Brenson
The Tennessee State Capitol building is just beautiful. It has so many details that really help it come to life. We spent well over an hour touring the inside of the facility, and it was a great opportunity to talk to our kids about the basics of government and how it works in our country. Also, we live in a very young state as compared to a state like Tennessee, so we were really able to explore history in a different way than what they're used to back home.
Brianna
Brenson
Brecklyn, Brooke, Brenson, Brianna
I was blown away by the architecture in this room . . . as well as the volumes and volumes of Tennessee state law books!
Gorgeous details!
The structure was massive.
We loved exploring the rooms where laws are made!
Because the structure sits atop a hill, there are amazing views of the city from the balconies. I had taken a photo for a couple and their child on the balcony, so she returned the favor for us. I wish you could see the background better in the photo!
No big deal . . . just hanging out on the balcony of the state capitol building :-)
Once we finished touring the interior of the building, we decided to walk around more outside.
It is truly a beautiful property!
We walked all the way to the bottom of the hill, then decided to hike up a ton of stairs just to get this photo. I'm so happy we did, though, because I love it!
Down the hill and across the street from the capitol building is a really neat park area, complete with fountains in the shape of the state of Tennessee. Chris and I both wanted to take the kids down there, but it was in the opposite direction of where we had parked. Like I already mentioned, it was very hot hiking up and down the hills, and we were running low on water and energy (mostly because we skipped lunch in lieu of snacks). I think the kids would have loved it, but in the end other activities we had planned to do trumped going to that park.
Once we got back to the van and hydrated a bit, we set off toward the Grand 'Ole Opry. Chris and I had decided to take the kids to The Rainforest Cafe for dinner that evening, and we also wanted to visit the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. Those three attractions are all located in the same area . . . we just had to drive across town to get to them. On our drive across Nashville, we passed Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans!
We arrived the the Opry Mills Mall just after 2:30pm. We parked our van, and walked over to the Grand 'Ole Opry from there.
Brecklyn, Brooke, Brenson, Brianna
The kids loved these giant guitars!
I was kind of surprised at the Grand 'Ole Opry. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it! We decided against doing a tour of the inside because it was expensive (as most things tend to be for a family of six), and the kids really weren't that interested.
Our little photobomber is cute :-)
We did go inside and visit the gift shop and purchase a few fun souvenirs. Brenson picked out a guitar pick for Mr. Muns, his guitar teacher. When he gave it to him, Mr. Muns said, "Well, LeRoy, I didn't even think you liked me and now here you are giving me a gift!" It was funny because Bren definitely acts like he doesn't really like him most of the time!
After our Grand 'Ole Opry visit, we walked over to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. I would have never thought to do this, but my friend Adam told me it was worth the visit. I'm so glad he did! The inside of this place is incredible!
I've never seen the inside of a hotel that looked like this before! There is even a canal (complete with boat rides) running right through the building!
So lush!
There are lots of fountains and water displays that the kids enjoyed. Someday, I'd love to stay here!
Brooke, Brecklyn, Brianna, and Brenson
By this time, it was a little after 4:00pm, and the kids were starting to really get hungry (skipping lunch never does us any favors). We left the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and walked back to where we had parked our van. We ended up doing waaaaay more walking than we had anticipated that day, and my feet were telling me about it (because I wore the wrong shoes!). I was thankful that our next stop was Rainforest Cafe where we could sit for a while!
Out of all the things we had planned for our time in Nashville, I think eating at the Rainforest Cafe was what the kids were excited about the most (and maybe the Nashville Zoo). I had shown them all videos on YouTube prior to our trip to prepare them for the noise and animals. I didn't want any meltdowns ruining our dinner! Knowing what to expect had them beyond hyped up about eating there!
Brianna, Brooke, Brecklyn, and Brenson
Because we were eating earlier than most people eat, we didn't have to wait to be seated and the restaurant was fairly empty. Our waitress gave us full permission to let the kids walk around and enjoy all the animals.
Brooke loved the elephants!
Brecklyn's favorite was the fish tank right by our table.
And the tigers :-)
Brianna was fascinated by the hippo!
And Bren thought the cheetahs were the best!
I loved the location of our table, and because the kids were hungry, they ate really well. Win!
The fish tank was just beautiful!
The hotel Chris had reserved for us wasn't actually in Nashville city limits, but it wasn't far at all from Opry Mills Mall. Eating an early dinner worked out perfectly because that left us enough time to swim that evening. This made the kids so very happy, as you can see from their faces in the photo below.
The kids (and Chris) swam for well over an hour, which means everyone was good and tired for bedtime! Sometimes, everyone has a hard time sleeping on the first night in a new place, but not this time. We had worn ourselves smooth out! Our hotel suite had a living area with a pull out couch that the big kids slept on, a kichenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom with two queen sized beds. It was a great space for our family.
The next morning was Wednesday, and we had another full day planned. We weren't in a big hurry to get our day started, so we let the kids sleep until about 8:00am, then enjoyed breakfast at the hotel before setting out for Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. We found Nashville to be such an interesting city, partially because it is a large city but right in the middle of it are seemingly untouched plots of lush, gorgeous land such as The Hermitage and the Nashville Zoo. In fact, the city as a whole was much more lush than I expected, which really made it feel less big cityish than it is.
Andrew Jackson's Hermitage
The Hermitage is the house and land where Andrew Jackson lived after he was President in the early 1800s. The land and house were absolutely lovely.
We were able to tour a small museum and information center, then walk all around the land and through the house (with a guide).
Brianna and Momma in front of the house
Daddy and Bren in front of the house
The majority of the site was self-guided. Chris, Brianna, Brenson, and I all received the little hand-held receivers you see in the photo below. All around the property were signs with numbers on them, and when you entered the number into the receiver, a narrator told you interesting facts about where you were standing. There were special numbers for kids to enter that were geared more toward them.
Brianna, Brenson, Brecklyn, and Brooke
There was a large garden area that we walked through . . . it was just gorgeous and smelled amazing, too!
Brooke
Brecklyn
Brianna
Brenson
Chris and I love this kind of stuff, but I wasn't sure about the kids. Thankfully, they were very interested in all of it! Brenson even listened to both the kid numbers and the adult numbers on his receiver because he couldn't get enough information!
Brooke, Brecklyn, Brianna, and Brenson standing in front of Andrew Jackson's tomb.
It was another hot day in Nashville, but we were at The Hermitage from about 10:30am to 1:00pm, and much of it is shaded. We barely broke a sweat. The photo below was taken in front of a huge magnolia tree. We were making our way toward the exit because the little girls were ready for lunch. As you can see, they were not happy to be stopping for a photo!
We weren't sure how long it would take to tour The Hermitage, so we had set aside most of the day for that. Since it only took us a few hours, we decided to eat a late lunch and then head back to the hotel to rest.
Eating lunch at Chuy's
As soon as we got some food in the little girls, their moods greatly improved. Life was even better when our waitress brought them all a little treat (Brecklyn's face in the photo below is hilarious to me!).
I used to think that resting is the last thing I wanted to do on a vacation. I mean, I can rest at home so why waste my time resting when I'm out of town?!? My thoughts on this have changed a lot, and now I appreciate and value rest time! When the kids have had adequate rest, everyone is happier, so we will often schedule an hour or two of our day for rest.
Once everyone woke up from rest time, we hit up the pool again. These kids couldn't get enough swimming!
Daddy jumped in behind them right as I was taking a photo, haha!
Our plan for the evening was to swim, grab some snacks from the hotel lobby, and watch bible class streamed live from our home church in the hotel room. While we were at the pool, my phone alerted me to severe weather happening back home. Since we'd been gone, it had been raining and storming almost constantly back home, which resulted in some of the worst flooding in our state's history. While we were enjoying the pool and sunshine, our family and friends at home were all hunkered down in their tornado shelters 😢. The weather was so severe that our congregation canceled church services that night.
Once we got back to our room from the pool, I turned on the TV. Many hotel TVs are automatically on The Weather Channel when you first switch them on, and that was the case with our hotel. I was alarmed to see our town on the TV! It's kind of a terrible feeling to be out of town and see the name of your town on the national weather channel.
While I'm on this subject, I want to mention that the severe weather and rain continued for days while we were out of town. This resulted in catastrophic flooding in our state. We kept hearing all kinds of terrible things on the news, and even saw some of it with our own eyes on our way home. We are so very blessed with many people in our lives who care about us, and we had several people drive by our house to check on it while we were gone. I kept getting random texts from people (Joy Lin and Brant, Tia, Russ and Lisa, my parents) who went by to make sure everything was okay for us (without us even asking them to). In many ways, I was thankful to be in Nashville during all the crazy weather, but a part of me was also sad to not be at home helping those who desperately needed it during this time.
I have lots more to share about our Nashville trip, but I'm going to end this here for now. There will be more to come in part 2, so stay tuned!
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