Nashville Birthday Weekend

June13th-17th

Kev and I spent 4 fun nights in  Nashville to celebrate my 29th birthday several weekends ago.
Boy did we have fun!
Y'all know I am such a country gal at heart and I can't even begin to get on my soapbox about my love for country music. If we were forced to move to a city of our choice --- I would pick Nashville in a heartbeat. I love it there and so does Kev. It's an easy 3.5 hour road trip from Lex and something we see happening more frequently in our future weekends.
Here is a look at how we spent our time in Music City........

I packed, no lie, 4 pairs of cowboys boots in my suitcase. I mean one for each day right? Right!



We woke up early thursday morning and headed south. Insert shameless selfie of my traveling outfit.
I got this dress on sale at Loft a few weeks ago. I like to think of it as a birthday gift from Baily and Uggie Sue. It traveled so well with no wrinkles. Such good material!

We got into nashville just in time for an early lunch and went straight to the famous Loveless Cafe. If y'all are going to Nashville any time soon, we highly recommend this hot spot. Go early and avoid the weekend crowd if you can. We only had to wait about 15 min for a table.

We sipped sweet tea and moonshine, who cares if it was before noon.
Their homemade jams are the bomb.com.
We even snagged a couple at the gift shop to bring back to our house and give some to our parents.
Lunch was deeeeeelish!
Kev had an enormous breakfast omelet, while i choose fried chicken with all the country sides.



After our food coma, we walked our the property and picked up some souvenirs. This place is just as country as cornbread....and i loved every second.

At the gift store we picked up a couple of goodies for our pantry.

Kev and i also like to collect coffee mugs when we travel, i picked up two adorable ones - one for our house and one for my momma and daddy's house.

After our great experience at Loveless cafe, we headed to our hotel.
We stayed at the historic Union Station Hotel on Broadway.
It was super nice!
The hotel was an actual railway station in 1900 and now restored as a hotel.

We got settled into our hotel and I was a little obsessed with our 18 foot high ceilings. The room felt enormous.



We then freshened up and headed down to Broadway for some casual daytime honkey tonkying 

Ahhh, I love this city!



We spent time on thursday afternoon crooning with the bands at Honkey Tonk Central and Rippy's upstairs patio.



We had dinner that night at Etch. An upscale Americano restaurant that was so delish.
There's quite a funny story to go with that one.
Let's just say we had quite a few sippy sips of our drinks that afternoon. I knew if we went back to the hotel to change, it would be game over as we probably would have fallen asleep in 2.3 seconds.
 Girlfran gots to eat.
I convinced Kev he was not under dressed at all in his cargo shirts, tshirt and tennies to go to this restaurant. In my head at the time he really wasn't. We walked off the beaten path of Broadway to find this restaurant, and boy did we stick out like sore thumbs. Whoops. We just casually ate at the adjacent bar and all was good. The food was incredible!

It was a semi buzz kill, as we had to get our act together, but we made a good memory out of it.
We laughed the rest of the night at our bar tender who was so pompous and basically shunning us for enjoying honky tonkying and our tickets to the Grand ole Opry for Saturday.
How touristy of us - she thought. She also told us we should skip wine tasting at Bell Meade Plantation and just head out to Napa for wine tasting. Ok lady - let me just get in my private jet and fly out there tomorrow. We preferred the young twenty something bar tender who told us that she walks around the honky tonks with a pitcher of beer in her hand, cause it's cheaper than ordering 6 bottlenecks. Now that's my kinda gal :-)
We  stumbled found our way back to the hotel and life was good.

Friday morning we woke up early and headed to Midtown to Pancake Pantry.


Just before 10am, the line was thirty people long out the door.
These people are crazy about their pancakes.

It was so worth the wait. Absolutely one of the best breakfasts, next to momma's, that i have had.  I had french toast and Kev had an amazing belgium waffle. Yummy!!!
After breakfast, we did some shopping at some local boutiques right in Midtown - Posh and Pangea were my faves. Well I shopped, Kev found a bookstore/ I swear the man has a nose for them.

After breakfast, we headed back to broadway for our afternoon honky tonk fix at The Stage, Tootsie's and Legends.

And then you know I had to go shopping for boots.

and Kev got him a new cowboy hat - he's my sessky man!

Friday afternoon called for naptime.
And after naptim we got ready for a late dinner.

We headed back to midtown for dinner at Midtown Cafe. People in Nashville eat dinner early and Kev and I do not. I swear I think there was one other couple in the whole restaurant. That was ok with us. Our server ended up being a Lexinton native, which was neat.
We stopped by Legend's on our way home to hear the evening bad and called it a night.

But not before having silly fun on the elevator

Then there was Saturday - aka my birthday.
I woke up not feeling well, not feeling well at all. It wasn't so much a hangover, it was the dreaded stomach bag.
I spent the hours of 7am to 2pm nonstop in the bathroom. And to save you the nasty details, let's just it wasn't pretty seeing my sprint back and forth from the bedroom to the toilet. AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL.
I did come back from the bathroom, with the sweetest birthday card from my hubby on my pillow. He's a sweetie!

We had big plans to go to Midtown for the day to listen to some of the bands at Red Door, Winner's, Loser's, etc, but it did not happen. Instead, Kev went and stocked up on imodium, saltines and gatorade. I would have killed for some zofran.

I was determined to pull it together, it was my birthday for pete's sake.
I felt awful for ruining our plans. We had tickets that night to see Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless and Vince Gill at the Grand Ole Opry. And this girl was not missing it!
I tried to shower, but could not stop throwing up. Gross, I know.
It took me probably 2.5 hours to get ready, cause I had to stop and take breaks. I was sooooo dehydrated.
I managed to throw myself together and we headed to the Opry that evening.

Happy 29th birthday to me!
I think I cleaned up nice, especially under the circumstances. Y'all have no idea how awful I felt.
Once we go to the Opry, I had to sit down ever 50 feet on a bench as we made our way in.
Kev was so patient with me.

I snuck in my saltines and sucked down sprite all night to try and settle my stomach.
And yes, I got to sing my heart out to Loretta Lynn's coal miner daughter.
It was a bucket list moment for me seeing her live at the Opry. In that moment, I had never felt better. Needless to say, we went home and Kev put me to bed with my gatorade, tylenol and imodium.

The Opry was my favorite thing we did. It was almost magical to us being the country music fans that we are. It was our first time there, and I see us being frequent visitors. It was a really fun experience, regardless if I was sick as a dog.

All in all - Nashville was a blast! I am so glad we choose to spend my birthday there - just the two of us. It was a much needed weekend away from lexington. Had so much fun with my guy!
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 Thank you Kev for the perfect birthday weekend getaway. There is nobody I would rather spend it with you than you. I love you with my whole heart!

Thanks to Katie, Nancy J, Katie and Natasha for your awesome Nashville recommendations. They did not disappoint!