wknd

We hung out like crazy and had so much fun, I forgot to take any pictures. I'm okay with that.

Birthday Weekend

Almost 3 weeks late, but it was a wonderful weekend filled with s'mores, road trippin', museums, zoo visits, city loving, mixed drinks & fancy hotels.

Here's to my twenty-fourth year!

A New City To Love

I'm sure I had a blast at all my kid-aged birthday parties, but as far as what I can remember as an adult--this birthday takes the cake. The birthday cake. I still need to upload pictures of all our fun, Miles surprised me with tickets to White Christmas on Thursday, threw a little surprise party/bonfire for me on Friday, and whisked me away to St. Louis for the weekend!

Can I confess that I fell in love with St. Louis during the 24 hours that we were there? I've already found dreamy old homes that we can buy (as in, actually afford) and searched for jobs in the area. I do recognize that I get like this after I visit certain places, ahem, Chicago...and I have a whole list of reasons why its different this time. Not that we're packing up any time soon, but I do love dreaming. 

image via

Honky Tonkin'

On Saturday, Miles and I went honky tonkin' for the first time together. I've been a few times over the years, but Miles had never been. Now, to clarify, we only went to one real honky tonk bar...but I'm still going to count it.

Before our big night out, we took a nap. Yep. And really, the nap was only so we could last through a midnight movie showing...and we didn't last. I know, we're a little bit lame, but we tried! (And we're totally okay with being homebodies 95% of the time)

We started out our night at The Flying Saucer, where they were celebrating John Lennon's birthday with a fantastic Beatles cover band. I'm not a huge beer drinker, but it was a lot of fun, and I had the best pretzel of my life. Then we went to Robert's, squeezed through everyone to get to the balcony in the back, and ended up getting the best seats in the house. 

Sometimes you just gotta give in to the fact that you live in Nashville and go listen to some twangy country music. Robert's is probably my favorite honky tonk though...the few times that I've been there, the house band (or whoever is playing...) is actually really fun and great to listen to. We had ourselves a country/surf band to enjoy on Saturday night, and Miles has heard great things about some guy who plays on Thursdays, so I'm sure we'll be find ourselves back on lower Broadway again very soon.

New Hair, New Car & One Incredible Show

This weekend, I chopped all my hair off, we bought a new car, and finally went to see The Shins. I would've been happy with any of those three things on their own, but all together it has left me feeling like David after the Dentist--is this real life?

On Sunday, Miles drove my car and finally understood why I worry it won't start every time I get in it. So we went to look at cars, as we've done casually the past few months. But this time, we found the exact car I wanted, test drove it, went home and talked about it as reasonably and objectively as we could, and went straight back to the dealership to sign the papers. I love it and am so ready to take some road trips in that bad boy. 

Unlike buying a car...we had been planning on and painfully waiting for the day to arrive where we could finally finish the last of Miles' birthday presents. I'm sure I've mentioned how much I love The Shins, and how even though Miles likes them too, that part of his birthday present may have been a little more for myself. At least I'm being honest? So we loaded into our fancy new ride and went to Whiskey Kitchen before the show. We had a very adult dinner of expensive drinks, spinach artichoke dip, and a root beer float. Maybe one of our more fun dates in recent history. Probably because I made a mental note ahead of time to indulge and allow expensive drinks to be purchased. Carefree like I'm made of mon-ayy. 

And then...The Shins. Oh, how I love The Shins. Does it make sense to say that this music has been one of the few constants in my life over the past several years? From Hong Kong, to Birmingham, to Kenya, to Nashville, through moving, and growing, and sadness, and happiness, and falling in love, and getting married, and learning how to be an adult... My go-to sad song is a Shins song. And my go-to happy song is a Shins song. So chyah, I was  pretty excited when everything worked out to finally be able to finally see them live. 

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty (really, really) good weekend.

Opa!

We went to the Nashville Greek Festival over the weekend and had the best time! The weather had just cleared up and it ended up being such a beautiful day. We ate gyros, drank greek beer, cheered for the dancing children, explored the stalls and took a tour of the Greek Orthodox church that hosted the festival. I absolutely loved being surrounded by such a beautifully vibrant culture with such a rich history. You could feel the sense of community between everyone, and I think that is just such a wonderful, magnetic thing to experience. 

We will definitely be going again next year!

New Friend

On Sunday, I met Stephanie for coffee at The Well. We lived doors down from each other during our freshman year in college, I had classes with a lot of her close friends, we are mysteriously already friends on a certain social networking site, but we really only just connected with each other through our blogs. 

Can I just gush for a second? I think my time with this wonderful lady can easily be counted as one of the best  I've had in a very long time. Throughout the conversation I found myself feeling so inspired, and challenged, and affirmed, and encouraged..and I had to keep reminding myself that we had only just met. We talked about the world, our lives, our hopes, our struggles, our cats (yep), and I realized how few the number of times in my life I had felt such an instant connection with someone before. Maybe people experience this all the time, but I feel like a newbie, and it feels so wonderful! I was completely oblivious to how long we had been sitting there, so much so that Boo called just to make sure I was alive, after not responding to several texts (of which I was also oblivious to). I met up with him for dinner afterwards and I had the biggest grin on my face and talked his ear off the whole time about how amazing it was to meet Stephanie.

So, here's to having a new friend, to being so thankful that she is a better planner than I, that we finally met up, and hopefully to many more conversations and fun times to come!

Gentlemen

For Boo's birthday, I bought us tickets to the Bristol Stopover for Gentlemen of the Road. The gift that keeps giving, amiright? So this was our Saturday (and I only got a little sunburnt):

better than expected hotel sleeps/the sign I had to stop Cody from snatching / state line / festivities / loves / lunch / stud / flags / homemade peach ice cream to die for / perfect weather / bucket list moment--Dawes & Marcus Mumford together / not even half the crowd / dreamy / Stars hide your fires / leaving / loving / Bristol

We fell in love with Bristol--it was the most picturesque little town I've ever been to. Miles was a little too entertained by straddling the state line all the way down the street. Everyone was so nice, the weather was amazing, I wish we had gotten to Bristol earlier, or stayed another day. As for the concert part, we honestly went for Dawes, but loved Mumford, too. I remembered that I was more of a show person than a concert/festival person, but I still had so much fun--apart from a little scuffle with a drunk guy. That was weird, and uncomfortable, and I'd love to forget about it. Alls ya need to know is that Miles was sticking up for a poor 15 year old girl who couldn't shake this dude. And he didn't really like it when Miles stepped in between them. No one was hurt, just some shoving, some (me) almost getting kicked in the face, drunk guy getting hauled off, and Miles holding me tight the rest of the night.   I mean, some people..!

But overall, Gentlemen of the Road was so much fun. And we got a little do-over in Nashville the next night when Dawes played at Cannery and we got on the guest list! Gah, I love Dawes. We love Dawes (which is a big deal--we never agree on music). If you ever get a chance to see them, you must go, they will not disappoint. And their some of the nicest guys we've ever randomly met. Which makes everything better, obviously. Niceness is just so nice.