Whew! Well we are home and basically settled back into our lives. Since last week, Sophie has been teething like crazy, chewing on her hands endlessly and kinda fussy; it seems like all 4 canines and possibly the 2nd year molars are all coming in at once, so whether it's that, or the 2 hour time change in Tennessee, but her sleep schedule was all over the place and we're finally a bit more regular now. But, to pick up where we left off...
The day after Belle Meade, Sophie and I went in the morning to visit some great friends of mine who had just moved out to Nashville this year. Bobby and Kiki and I have known each other since late high school/early college years. Bobby and I were actually youth leaders together for a high school group building houses in Mexico, and he and I had such a fun time, and I remember that was the summer he was planning on proposing to Kiki and he gave me all the details and I was so excited for them. Kiki and I became fast friends and were both bridesmaids in the wedding of our friend Alyssa, and then became a lovely trio with our other friend Danielle. Anyway, their brood moved out here and we got to spend the morning with them. It was so fun to see them thriving in their new home, and their kids were so great with Sophie.
That afternoon after Sophie's nap we went to the Factory at Franklin, a cool factory converted into a sort of shopping mall, and Carnton, a southern mansion whose fields were the battleground for the Battle of Franklin, where their mansion served as a Confederate hospital, and the volume of blood has stained their floors. Wild. Then we had a lovely dinner outside next to the Harpeth River.
The next day we had a bit of an undertaking - me being me, it was tantalizing how close Kentucky was and that I had never been there, so we decided to drive up to Bowling Green. It wasn't necessarily a far drive, just hard to do with a toddler. She did enjoy the horses at the border welcome station though!
We actually found a great dairy farm that had a huge playground (and a corn maze!) that we spent most of our time at. The food was incredible (homemade bread!) and the ice cream even better (fresh milk from on-site jersey cows!) and we had a lot of fun on the playground too.
We passed by Franklin, Kentucky on our way back, which is kinda the closest border town to Tennessee and it looked cute, but Sophie was at her wits end and we weren't about to get her out of the car again, so we did a small car tour. Funny how one of my last states to visit is one of Sophie's first.
She fell asleep so we drove slowly back to Nashville and made it just in time to the Nashville Zoo when she started to wake up. Let me just say: the Nashville Zoo is AMAZING. And we know zoos! Might be my favorite one. They didn't have the craziest selection of animals or anything but my lord it is done well. It is so clean and beautiful, not too hilly, and the whole place feels like you're in Adventure Land at Disneyland. And they have the BEST playground for kids! It's just an amazing playground period, not just a zoo playground.
Their tiger had the most amazing, impressive, huge Sumatran palace building with glass walls at the end so you could be closer to his enclosure (and also view in some comfortable AC) and OMG THE MOST AMAZING BEST PART EVER: The kangaroo enclosure was a free-roaming space of kangaroos!! I've never seen that before and kangaroos are some of my favorites! They could come up to you, you could pet them, etc. I was wearing sandals and one came up and was sniffing my leg and feet and I almost hyperventilated thinking he would bite my toe off - I just always figured they were too aggressive to let roam freely cause you never see it! Debbie and I both agreed that the kangaroo exhibit alone was worth the visit to the zoo (it was very humid, even that late in the day, so we definitely were second guessing our decision).
We also did some time in the Hillsboro neighborhood of Nashville, which might be my favorite! (Not that I'm an expert or have seen them all or even most of them) but it's soooo cute and what millennial doesn't love a wall mural?
Debbie decided to fly home with us, which was great for the help with Sophie and somehow we seriously insanely amazingly lucked out that our "full flight" still left us with an empty middle seat, so wow was that a different experience than us flying out there with Sophie stuck on my lap the whole time. She did much better although we weren't totally immune to her getting restless and fidgety and fussy.
And that was our super amazing time in Tennessee (and Kentucky)!
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