Nashville!

Sadly, there was yet another death in our family this past week.  My great aunt, "Aunt Susie", passed away at the age of 90 years old in Nashville, TN.  Aunt Susie was my grandmother's sister and I have very fond memories of yearly visits and huge family gatherings at Aunt Susie's house for Thanksgiving dinner all through my childhood.  To celebrate Aunt Susie's life, Ian, Jude, and I flew to Nashville along with my parents and were able to visit with many of our family members on my mom's side of the family.  Jude has flown on an airplane before, but he was 3 months old the last time he flew.  Needless to say, flying with a 16 month old is quite different than flying with a 3 month old!  At 16 months old, Jude has his own agenda and can be very opinionated about what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do.  I will say that he did really well over the course of the trip and I was honored when a stranger who sat in front of us on our flight to TN came to me after the flight and said "your son is a wonderful baby and obviously comes from a structured environment to have done so good."  As we were exiting the plane, the pilot asked us if we wanted to take a picture of Jude in the cockpit.  Below are some pictures of Jude's flight to Nashville:

"I wonder what this button does?"

Ian had never been to Nashville before, so one thing we did during our stay was our own "tour of Nashville."  Included in this tour was driving by some of the houses that my mother's family had lived in.  We drove past the house that my mom grew up in, my grandma's house, on Clearview Dr. as well as my mother's grandparents' house (my great grandparents).  Here are some pictures from our "tour":

My Grandma's house



My Great Grandparents' house





My parents got married in 1972 at the First Baptist Church in downtown Nashville, TN.  Here is a picture of them standing outside of the church they exchanged their vows in 39 years ago:

While we were in Nashville, we ate at some really good local restaurants.  One of the places we ate was called Dalts and it was a diner.  Here's some pictures of us outside of Dalts:

Before we flew home on Sunday, we felt it would be a good idea to take Jude to Centennial Park, where he was able to play and explore on the playground.  Here are some pictures of Jude at Centennial Park in Nashville:

We definately enjoyed our trip to Nashville, but wish the circumstances had been different.  It was wonderful getting to visit with family who we don't see very often and I know that our Aunt Susie will be missed by everyone.  I will always cherrish the memories of the many Thanksgiving dinners spent at Aunt Susie's house.