"Music City" in a Day

We took our first roadtrip on Saturday and Nashville (aka: "Music City") was our destination. It's only two hours away and we made the trip in a day. To get into the spirit, we listened to only country music in the car both ways, probably more country music in one day than Danny ever thought he'd listen to before marrying me!

Our first stop was the Nashville Zoo for the kids. It was a good zoo and we especially liked the indoor exhibit that featured all sorts of reptiles and insects. My favorite things in there were the 300+ pound anaconda and the quarter-inch-long dart frogs. Danny favorite thing was the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. Elsewhere, Emily loved brushing the goats, Dallin loved the noisy howler monkeys, and Grandma loved the white tiger cubs.

After lunch at Burger King, we headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame. They had just tons and tons of memorabilia of country music singers dating way back into the 1920's like clothing, instruments, photographs, records, automobiles, etc. We'd never heard of most of the people, but it was all interesting anyway. We mostly enjoyed looking for anything George. We found one of his multi-platinum records, his plaque in the Hall of Fame, and a saddle of his. I also liked Elvis' 24 karat gold piano. When we were through walking through the museum, we stopped to peruse the gift shop so Grandma could buy a magnet.

Our final stop was the Grand Ole Opry. We'd planned on taking the last tour of the day, but it ended up being sold out. So we settled for the free Opry Museum instead. Again, we saw lots of memorabilia of people we'd never heard of, but we ejoyed it nonetheless. By the time we were done with that, we were pooped and ready for dinner. We saw an Applebee's nearby and thought it would be nice to sit a while. We had some good food and made the drive home. It was a great day and it was really fun seeing a new city. Oh, and to keep in the Southern spirit, we watched "Fried Green Tomatoes" (which is set in Alabama) after the kids were in bed. Good times!

We're so glad when Grandma's around - Glad as we can be!

By the time my mom leaves for Mesa, she'll have been here nearly three weeks. For me, they've been three WONDERFUL weeks! I love being with my mom, and I love the fact that she and the kids get constant interaction with each other while she's here. She is so helpful and literally cuts my work load in half. I'll turn around and lunch is totally cleaned up. I leave on an errand only to come home to a vacuumed house. I'll take some clothes out of the dryer and by the time I've put some wet clothes in the dryer, the ones that just got dried are already folded. She's amazing and accomplishes so much in so little time! She babysat last weekend so Danny and I could go on a date and she's tending the kids again tonight so we can go down to the Birmingham Temple. She's truly the best. We've also played games, done little household projects, run errands, and have just talked and talked. It's been so fun. Here are some other highlights.

Strawberries were on sale at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to make an angel food cake to go along with them. The kids loved helping make it.

One Saturday morning we went to Blue Plate Cafe for breakfast. We'd heard they have really good food and we wanted to try it out. I love breakfasts and this place was awesome. My mom and I were most excited to try the grits since we've never really had them. They were tasty! They were accompanied by biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, pancakes, eggs, sausage, and country fried steak. All the food was phenomenal and the prices were super cheap!

For St. Patrick's Day Grandma offered to make sugar cookies with the kids. She cleverly improvised a shamrock cookie cutter (I don't own any cookie cutters. Those of you who know me well know that I rarely bake. There's been so much baking going on these past couple of weeks with my mom here - my kids don't know what is going on!). She even let them frost them on their own.

As if a making batch of sugar cookies wasn't enough for one day, Grandma kindly agreed to whip up her TO-DIE-FOR chocolate chip cookies with Dallin while Emily and I ran to the grocery store. We're still enjoying them and they are the most delicious cookie ever.

This week we decided to drive over to Scottsboro, a little town about an hour away, to shop at the Unclaimed Baggage Center. We spent a good couple of hours there and found a lot of great stuff for dirt cheap.

Yesterday I wanted to show my mom the Bridge Street Mall, a new, beautiful, outdoor mall. The weather was perfect for a nice stroll and we even found a few bargains. It was the perfect way to spend the morning.

"If it ain't fried, it ain't cooked!"

When referring to food, this, in all seriousness, is a popular saying down here in the South (but, of course, you have to say it with a thick Southern drawl). We experienced this first hand last Saturday night when we went out to eat at Greenbrier, a very down-home, local, ma and pop restaurant. Our city guide/realtor recommended it to us when we were here on our house-hunting trip a few weeks ago. Well, we felt we needed a reward after working so hard to get our house in order after we arrived and food is the best way to reward us. So we headed to Greenbriar not sure what to expect. It's a small-town-looking restaurant kind of in the middle of some farms across the street from a tiny gas station and a little church.

The meals we ate consisted of several deep fried foods; eight - count them - eight, to be exact. For you really healthy people, this place would be your worst nightmare. They started us off with the complimentary appetizer: all-you-can-eat hushpuppies (Emily couldn't remember the name and called them "puff dogs"). Dallin really liked them, as did the rest of us with the exception of Emily. We were told they're the best around these parts. For our main dishes we got the kids chicken fingers and fries. Mom ordered BBQ pork on a bun with onion rings (dang good ones, I might add). Danny and I decided to be brave with our orders and go very Southern. He got the whole catfish meal with fries, "whole" meaning he got it all but head and guts. I got the seafood sampler: catfish filet, crab cake, shrimp, oysters, and fries. Keep in mind that everything was deep fried except Mom's meat. In fact, when Dallin took a drink of water after chowing on some hushpuppies, I could see an oil slick appear on the surface of the water! Anyway, the food was pretty good, if you can handle that much deep fried stuff. The catfish was good, not too fishy. The oysters were totally NASTY - both taste and texture were almost too much for me and I have no desire to ever try those again. The crabcake was okay, in my opinion, but Danny and Mom thought they were worse than the oysters. Mom's pork was exceptional. To top it off, the nice owner gave us some 25-cent ice cream cones on the house. Despite what I thought was fairly likely to happen, we didn't die of deep-fried-food-induced heart failure in our sleep that night, but naturally we felt really heavy all evening and the smell of the oil stayed on our hands till the next day. We had a good time, though, trying out Greenbrier and having a night out like the locals.

Sweet Home Alabama

Well, y'all, we finally made it! We are now residents of Alabama. Here's how our move went (I was a big slacker and never got my camera out and thus have no pictures to go along with this post).

We unemotionally got our house packed up and left Sahuarita on February 20th. We drove up to my mom's house in Mesa. A few days later Danny went to California on a business trip. He got home on a Thursday night and the next morning began the 25-hour road trip to Alabama in our van. He arrived on a Sunday and began work the next day. All of our belongings arrived at our new house on Tuesday, the 3rd. All the while, the kids and I stayed at my mom's, caught up with my siblings, shopped, hung out with my in-laws, and pretty much just savored the last moments spent in Arizona for the last time for who knows how long. A quick comment on springtime in Arizona: it's my favorite time of year and all the fragrant orange blossoms began blooming while we were there. I loved it and was so glad I got to experience that before leaving.

My wonderful mom agreed to fly out with the kids and me, so on the 4th we made the journey for ourselves. The kids are always great travelers and awed all the people around us with their good behavior. After nearly missing our connecting flight in Charlotte due to leaving Phoenix late (we're talking running to the gate), we got here with no other problems. Because my mom is the best person in the world, she also agreed to stay a while and help get us settled. She has truly been a tender mercy these last few days as we unpacked box after box, found places for all our stuff, cleaned, grocery shopped, etc. We literally worked non-stop all day Thursday and all day Friday. She is a stellar worker and just kept going when I got tired or my attention needed to be on my kiddos. We also made great progress thanks to my brother-in-law, Ben, who came down from Memphis on spring break. He played with the kids for hours one morning, and my mom and I got a ton of work done. When yesterday rolled around, all we had left was our bedroom. My mom again stepped up to the plate and took the kids on outings all morning so Danny and I could get it all organized. To reward all our hard work, we went out to a local restaurant with some good Southern eats (pictures will be posted soon).

Our first Sunday went well. We have a sweet 9 o'clock church time, the ward members were exceptionally friendly, and we all even got an afternoon nap in. We feel good about finally being here and getting settled. We're really excited for what the next eight months hold for us here and think it'll be a very good experience.