Tennessee and my 30th birthday

Ryan had a business trip in Nashville in August and I decided that us girls would join him since it was the week of my 30th birthday and I didn't want to stay at home alone.  Lucy loves hotels, so we figured it would be fun.  I spent most of the days with the girls exploring new parks and play places, hanging out in the hotel room (we were in a Residence Inn, so we had a kitchen and living room in addition to the bathroom and bedroom), swimming in the hotel pool, and eating free food.  Ryan joined us after work in the evenings.  My actual birthday was the worst day we had there and it was BAD!  Both girls literally spent the entire day screaming and crying and acting like crazy lunatics (missed naps, late to bed, early wake-ups, exhaustion setting in) and I ended up breaking down crying in the hotel room.  It was awful.  Ryan was of course super nice and helped once he got back from work though, but at that point I was so exhausted that we put the girls to bed, grabbed some dinner, and then I fell asleep at like 9pm, which never happens.  So, whoop to being 30! ha!

Here's Claire just relaxing and reading the newspaper and charming people in the hotel lobby while waiting for dad to get back from work.

 We gave in and bought the pink cowgirl boots.  Worth every penny.  She wears them all the time and loves them!

Even Claire likes them

On my birthday.  This was right after my breakdown so the smiles are totally forced. :)

 We had been following the BYU 50 box drop thing and realized that they were leaving the Tennessee box in Nashville that same day we were there.  Shortly before it was dropped, the tweet said it would be just outside of Nashville.  Well, Ryan put 2 and 2 together that the BYU Nashville alumni president was from Franklin and he was probably the one asked to drop it so it could be in Franklin (which is where we were).  There are several major historical sites in Franklin so we figured while we were out and about we might as well swing by one of them.  As we were heading there, the text was sent out and it was right where we were headed, only a few minutes from.  Unfortunately two other families beat us to the punch but the winners even named their youngest son Jimmer, and had been circling the local historical sites for a while before the text was sent out, so I'd say they deserved it more than us. :) But the local alumni gave out stuff to the two runner ups, so we got free t-shirts, free tickets to the tailgate to the game we are going to in Tennessee in November, and some free BYU swag for Lucy (pom-poms and megaphones).  We also got to meet some great young LDS families in the area, all of which are huge BYU fans too, obviously.  It was a really fun night!  This picture below is what was put on the BYU Cougars official twitter site, which totally made me laugh because we realized later that Lucy's fingers were both up her nostrils.  Awesome.  haha.