Wednesday wore us out

Yesterday, my mom had a doctors appointment that I took her to.  By the time we got out of the appointment, had lunch, and got back home the day was pretty much wiped out.
This morning started early. We had a full day scheduled with a trip to Nashville to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

The bus trip to Nashville went by pretty quickly.

This view kinda creeped me out.

 We had to wait a few minutes out front for our tour guide.

 This room was neat. It had plaques of all the country music inductees.

 These were only a small percentage of all the gold and platinum albums on the walls.

 The Schermerhorn Symphony Center was a real treat. I would love to hear the symphony play here. 

 We listened to two men show us the difference between a violin and a fiddle.

On the way home, we stopped off at Mt. Juliet for lunch.

 Whew, what a day...We are worn out.





Birthday and a Bathroom Door

Don't let the Title fool ya! Neither one have anything to do with each other. It's just that those are what has been happening here at the Hayes House for the last two days.

Sunday, we (the four of us) took my mom to lunch at Red Lobster because Lobster tail is her favorite dish. Darlene, Gary & Jett joined us for lunch too. After lunch at Red Lobster, we all came back to our house for cupcakes and ice cream. Mom's 72nd birthday is actually today.

Today, the contractor showed up to open up a wall and install a doorway into what will soon be "the master bathroom". It only took one day and a lot of wood to complete. The doorway turned out really nice. The door installation was actually phase 2 of the project. Phase 1 was when we had the hot water heater relocated from that bathroom. Phase 3 is ripping everything else out of that bathroom. Demolition is always the best part, but finding time to do it will be a task.

Oh yeah...I have a blog

Ok, so I realize that I have forgotten all about my blog for almost two weeks. Honestly, I can't begin to remember "the happenings" for the last two weeks. Mother's Day rings a bell. We spent last Sunday at church, then went to my mother-in-laws church service, then to my moms to deliver her yellow rose bush. We spent the afternoon on my moms back deck, since the weather was sooo nice that day. When evening rolled around, we headed back to my mother-in-laws for some grilled burgers and all the fixin's. (YUM)
It was definitely a go - go- go day on Mother's Day. We finally made it back home at 9pm.
This past week has really worn me out too. I would leave the house at 7:15 and get home in time for bed. Tuesday night, it was 9:15pm when I got out of my beauticians shop. The rest of the week was stressful too. Finally, yesterday, I got home early and the kids and I went to Cheddar's for dinner. Stroker said he wasn't hungry, so he stayed home. It felt sort of weird having dinner without him. I can't even remember the last time that happened. We do EVERYTHING together.
Just like our vows stated..."Till death do us part". Speaking of vows, have you seen the little slider to the left of the screen? Our ninth anniversary will be here in a couple of weeks.
Oh yeah...more good news, but first I have to lead up to it. It started a few months back, when I put our wedding CD in the computer to look at some of our photos. I waited,....and waited,...clicked the open button and waited, but nothing happened. The disc said it was empty. I took the disc to Photo Works to see if they could recover the photo's, but they too said the disc was empty. I have no idea how that happened.
So the good news...I called Disney Event Productions this week (because they did my photography and videography for our wedding) and guess what !? They still have our photo's on file. She is shipping me a new disc this week. Just pure luck that they still had them. She said they had cleared a lot of their files, but had not gotten to mine yet.
As for today, we all awoke to the crash and vibration of huge thunder. Seconds after it hit, we heard Brookelynn's footsteps heading to our room. It was around 8am, so we went ahead and got up shortly after.
The rain was pooring this morning. I thought the "Heart of the Cumberland" would surely have to cancel their Super Saturday events from 11-1pm. Just like clockwork, the skies cleared and everybody showed up to set up tents, booths, and bounce houses. The event was a huge success. The director of the program, Nanci Dalton even ran out of balloons for the balloon release at noon due to so many people showing up. The ambulance and fire trucks came for the kids to look at, the radio station came over, the Herald Citizen came and took photos, there were face painters, balloon artists, a petting zoo and lots more. The coolest part, it was right here at our house.  Poplar Grove Church cooked 300 hot dogs and only had thirty left at the end of the day, so it was a successful event. If you are not familiar with Heart of the Cumberland, you can find out more by clicking HERE

Brookelynn's Cello Debut

Tonight was Brookelynn's cello debut. The entire group of violinist and cellist were third and fourth graders. They sounded great ! You can check out their performance HERE. You will have to look closely to find Brooke as she sat right behind a music stand. She did get to come up front and center at the end to hand out appreciation cards to the teachers and faculty.

Finally found him

Just a quick blurb about today so that I don't get behind in blog land.

History was made yesterday, when President Obama made the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed. We sat up until 11 pm last night watching the news. It took the U.S. ten years to get him, but we were persistent.

 The nation spent the day observing his death. 

In other news, I received this photo today of a tornado forming over the local theatre here in town from last Wednesday during all of the storms.

It looks real, but I don't know if I believe it or not.

This evening, Brookelynn had her final cello practice before the big "String Concert" tomorrow. We didn't stay for practice because we want to be astounded by all the young talent tomorrow. You are invited to come enjoy the concert if you like. Just give me a call for more details and specifics.

Royal Wedding and Pinkalicious Party

This weekend has been busy, but fun.

• Friday was the Royal Wedding that the whole world had been buzzing about. It was covered on almost every channel.

• Friday also had a beautiful evening to sit out in the swing, sip iced tea and get rested for Saturday and Sunday. My sister in law came over at 9:30 to pick up a slide for my nephews birthday party on Saturday. She drove her Escalade, but we somehow managed to load that bulky, heavy slide in the back.
• Stroker had to go to work Saturday morning, so when he left for work, Brookelynn crawled in the bed with me. We slept in till 8:30. Stroker lucked up and got to leave work at 10:15. We went to Sparta, Buck Mtn and Baxter on Saturday. At 8:30pm, we picked up the slide from Braden's party. We made plans with my brother to get some shelves built in the trailer to hold extension cords and blowers. Now we just have to set aside time to get it done.
• Sunday morning brought rain and some light storms. We went to Logans for an early lunch.
• Gas prices went up this weekend to $3.89 per gallon. Thank goodness we live in town close to everything.
• This evening, Brookelynn and I attended Libby's 7th Birthday party. The girls all seemed to have a good time. I made some photos and served cake to help out with the party commotion. One thing you can always guarantee when your the host of the party, is that you are going to be too busy to enjoy any of it. So, I try to volunteer and assist where I can. I know it sure helps when people help me out with our parties.

In retrospect, I wish I would have hired a photographer for Devin and Brookelynn's parties over the years. I always planned to take plenty of pictures, but there is always too many other things happening. At her last party, I grabbed the camera and took photos before I had the tables completely set up. I didn't have cups, plates, napkins, or any other decoration or supplies set out. It was the only oppertunity that I had to take photos, not to mention that the food never made it off the counter at her party. We served right from the kitchen.

Never-the-less, Brooke's party was a success.

I even had compliments from several people that my chili tasted really good.

Libby's party was similar to Brookelynn's last party, they sat up our white canopies, borrowed my Cricut cutter machine to make a cute birthday banner, and hung a few pom poms for decoration.  Libby's party was in a cute "Pinkalicious" theme. There were a lot of last minute decorations going up due to the unpredictable rain showers that popped up throughout the morning, but it all came together before "show time". They actually got the food and decorations completely set up...unlike Brookelynn's party when we had to move indoors :(

Jennifer and I must view the same party decoration blog.

She found her ideas for Libby's party HERE