Celebrating Birthdays in the Music City

Matt and I took a trip to Nashville in early June to celebrate the birthday of my niece, Rachel. While there, we also celebrated with my nephew Ryan and a few other family members who also have birthdays in June.

Friday night, we arrived at BNA (a.k.a. the Nashville airport), and headed to Madison to try and catch the final minutes of Rachel's performance in the Madison Bluegrass Festival. Rachel has become quite the musical virtuoso and played guitar with some other kids in her class. Check it out...a bit of video is below (Rachel plays lead guitar from about 0:50 to 1:20).



We missed the actual performance, but we were able to enjoy a post-festival dinner with the whole gang (Brent, my sister, the kids, and my mom and dad) at Fazoli's. Saturday, Matt and I ate a wonderful home-cooked breakfast courtesy of my mom, then headed to All Fired Up to paint pottery with Rachel, Ryan, and my sister. Photos from breakfast and our pottery adventures are below (I made Rachel a frame for her birthday, and Matt made Ryan a cereal bowl for his).















Rachel with the bracelet we got her in Santorini















Ryan with the pen and pencil set we got him in Rome

























































Having fun at All Fired Up




















Ryan carefully paints his skull and crossbones



















Celebrating Rachel's birthday with Gigi's Cupcakes!















Ryan Blowing Out His Birthday Candle






















Rachel and our present to her, The Crammer

Saturday night, we had one of our traditional celebrations where my family celebrates all the birthdays in that month. It was a fun night of food, outdoor fun, and indoor games.

















Celebrating June Birthdays

The weekend ended on Sunday after a trip to church and lunch afterward with my mom and dad. It was nice to spend some time with them, even if it was too short.

Although it was a typical "whirlwind trip", I was thankful to have the opportunity to celebrate my niece and nephews' birthdays. I haven't gotten that chance in recent years, so I'm glad the tradition is starting back up. The photo below shows Rachel and Ryan with the items they painted (Rachel: dolphin, Ryan: skull and crossbones with a gold tooth) and the items we painted for them as birthday gifts.















Our hard work paid off!

Sorry for the delay in my post...I wanted to get photos from the weekend first. Matt and I will resume more frequent posting now. Take care, and have a great week!