CMA Fest 2013

CMA Fest was a great week and I was so glad that my parents, Lynn and Garret could come out for the week!

Lynn and me at the Fan Fair

The first night of the LP concerts

The second night of LP concerts

Right after getting my pass signed by Charles from Lady Antebellum

Lynn and me meeting Kip Moore!

We made the guys take a picture with the veggie tales characters.

It rained a couple of the days and we didn't have rain coats so we just used free t-shirts we had been given.

The boys just got wet.

We could ring out the water from the shirts!

Brett Eldredge performing at the Riverfront Stage

Dierks Bentley played an acoustic set at the Martin Guitar tent.

Gavin and me meeting Dustin Lynch

Eric Church playing at LP Field

Craig Campbell made us drinks!

At the night concerts!

Gavin took this picture in the fan line during Lady Antebellum's performance at LP Field

I took this picture during Florida Gorgia Line's performance at LP Field.

There were a lot more pictures, but I figured I would just post some highlights! We can't wait for next year!!!

Visiting California: Round One

Gavin and I got back yesterday from a wonderful weekend in California with his family celebrating Andrew (Gavin's brother) and Kathleen's wedding.

One of the first things we did after we landed was grab some In-N-Out and it was possibly the best In-N-Out meal I have ever had! Then we drove up to Grass Valley where the wedding was going to take place. The rehearsal took place Friday night and we had a delicious tri-tip dinner that was prepared by Gavin's parents.

It only seemed right that we went shooting at a marine wedding.

I made some coordinating craft wrapping paper to make some cute packages. I used these stencils from the Martha Stewart collection.

Exchanging Rings

First Dance

A quick kiss after cutting the cake.

Brothers!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us since we have been married.

On the drive down to Gavin's parents' house I had to take a picture of the golden California landscape since it is such a stark contrast to the green hill of Tennessee that we have become used to. We spent a relaxing couple of days at my in-laws house and enjoyed spending time with family.

Before we went to the airport we had to stop at In-N-Out one last time! Oh how I wish they had In-N-Outs here in the South!

We ended up having to sleep in the Chicago Midway airport on our way back to Nashville. The weather was so bad that we had to land in Milwaukee and were there for about 3 hours. By the time we got to Midway the last flight to Nashville had already left. So, we toughed it out and slept on the floor. I think we are going to try to avoid a stop in Midway from now on!

Next on the docket are my parents visiting and we are going to go up to Kentucky to do the Kentucky Bourbon Trail!

Busy Month Ahead

Gavin and I are so excited for the next month that we have coming up! We will be going out to California twice for weddings, seeing both of our parents and Gavin's siblings and going to some amazing concerts. I am going to try to blog soon after all of our activities rather than all at the end! Our busy month starts tomorrow when we fly to California for Gavin's older brother's wedding and we can hardly wait!!

Opportunities to Serve

Gavin and I are really excited about opportunities at church that have come up. We are serving at the welcome desk once a month and after Gavin brings back his bass from California he is going to play with the worship band once a month or so. Part of why we are excited and thankful for these opportunities to serve is because we feel like serving at our church is part of being a member of the church body. Even though we could barley distinguish between guests and members this morning we are looking forward to getting to know members of the church that we normally would not interact with.

Also I am volunteering for the first part of the church's VBS and have signed up to help in the Children's Ministry in the future as well. I am looking forward to helping out at the VBS since I enjoyed volunteering at Calvary's last year.

On the whole, we are so thankful and feel so blessed that we have found a church community that we are able to get plugged into and serve in.

Big City and Farm Living

This last week I have experienced some big city living and then country farm living.

We went to the Nashville Symphony a week ago. It was a thank you from a co-worker who really needed to change shifts. (What a generous thank you, right?!) We had very good seats and the concert hall was stunning. However, I have to admit that I nodded off a couple of times. I never was very good at staying awake through symphony performances - even when I was in band myself. Oh well!

We did get all dressed up to go and that is always fun! After the symphony we went to grab a drink. It felt like such a grown up date!

Yesterday I went with Kelsey (one of the wives from the young marrieds group) to visit a family from the church. They have a homestead and have a huge garden, bunnies, chickens and goats. All of the animals were so cute and we got to hold one of the rabbits and one of the kids (baby goats)! It was awesome to go out and see what they have done with their land. 

It has been such a fun week of new experiences!

2 Weeks!

I wanted to post a quick little blog to let you know I put my 2 weeks in at Hobby Lobby. It is really exciting, but also scary at the same time because I don't know what my next job will be. Gavin and I have a busy month coming up that would have impacted how much I could work. I didn't want to have to work while we have out of state visitors in and I was only able to work a few days here and there. Gavin and I talked it over and decided that rather than try to schedule work around our busy schedule it was just time to move on from Hobby Lobby. I never intended to have the job at Hobby Lobby be a long term situation, but I became very comfortable there.

So I am starting to look for a new job and towards the end of June will be in full job search mode. Any prayers for the job search and trusting God's plan for my employment would be greatly appreciated.

Painting and Wine Tasting

I'm really excited to share a couple of projects I have been working on lately! I am not an artist so I was a little nervous to take on painting, but these projects are ones that even non-artists can do. The first project is one that I am planning on hanging in the kitchen.

I am really happy with how they came out and they were fairly easy. If you have the patience to trace the state outline and then paint in the lines, then you can make these!

This is the second project I have been working on. I had a custom a wall vinyl of Romans 12:12 that I am going to place over the painting once I am happy with it. It isn't quite done yet and is waiting for me to put the finishing touches on. Eventually it is going to hang above our bed.

Yesterday we went out to Arrington Vineyards to taste their wines and have a little picnic. Their grounds were very nice and had many picnic tables for people to use. I have to say though, we were underwhelmed by their wines. Also at the tasting bar it seemed like they were just trying to pour quickly and get the groups done as fast as they could rather than engage the people who are tasting. However, Gavin and my expectations were fairly low going in and they were met. I don't think we would take people who are visiting out there unless they really wanted to go to a winery.

In other news we bought Gavin a guitar!! He is loving having a guitar in the house again and I am loving listening to him play.

Thanks for reading!