Tennessee Exploring

Ragnar is so great and is letting me work from home for the summer, so I can be out here with Jeremy. Because of that, Jeremy and I usually go explore every night because I just want to get out of the house. It's been really fun, and we've seen a lot of cool places. One of the first places that we went was to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

We've found some fantastic barbecue restaurants here (go figure), but I must say that the bread and potatoes (my favorite) are much better in Utah/Idaho. They have a Nashville temple in Franklin which is about 20 minutes away. It's a very small temple, and built in the parking lot of a Stake Center. We've went downtown twice to explore. It's a pretty cool night life, and has some awesome restaurants!

Also, we live incredibly close to Long Hunter State Park. It has awesome views of Percy Priest Lake and of fireflies. We both love water and could stare at it for hours! There are tons of deer in the park because it's been a State Park for 40+ years, so deer have just migrated there.

Last week, Jeremy and I went up to Chattanooga, TN to hang out with my best friend Tam. She's living there for 6 weeks for an internship, which is perfect! It was about 2 hours away and was such a pretty drive! We went and had lunch and ice cream, then hung out around the lake. That night, we went to the River Bend concert to watch Martina McBride. Tam was super sweet and gave us tickets to use that her work gave her. 

Pregnancy Update

I'm officially 25 weeks and 3 days pregnant. I feel my baby move all the time now. She usually moves when I eat lunch. On Sunday, we actually saw my belly move when she kicked! It was so cool! I saw part of it move, and then told Jeremy to watch (because when she kicks once, she kicks like 10 times), so he was able to see it too. Ever since then, I can't stop staring at my tummy when she starts kicking. It's starting to feel so real!! I can't wait until she gets here!

I signed up for a hypnobirthing and breastfeeding class, as my doctor recommended them. They won't start until we get back to Salt Lake City.

This is me at 22 weeks.

This is me at 23 weeks.

This is me at 25 weeks.

I'm feeling extra large and my feet swell ALL the time, but mainly because Nashville is incredibly hot and humid. I have to sit down A LOT, and this guy said I looked like I was going to pop any day now. I really didn't want to tell him that I'm not even in the third trimester, but I am convinced that she's going to be one big baby. I'm so hungry ALL THE TIME and can't ever get enough to eat. We live on the third floor, and the worst part of my day is walking up the stairs (my life is pretty easy.)

Well, We Moved.

We now live in Cane Ridge, TN (near Nashville). We moved in the beginning of May and took two days to get here. The first day, we drove for about 13 hours and didn't get too far because of the weather in Wyoming. It was snowing, raining, windy, hailing, icy and there were wrecks everywhere. There was a surprising amount of construction everywhere, and we ended up stopping in Kearney, NE. We started calling hotels to get a room in Kearney, and the first one said they were booked up... the second one was booked up... the third, and the fourth and the fifth were all completely booked! We were so confused, because who stays in Kearneey, NE? Turns out, we found a hotel with one room left, and we got it! The receptionist said that the college graduation was the following day, so most of the hotels were booked.

The next day we drove through Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky and finally made it to Tennessee! There was some rain, but it wasn't nearly as bad. We hit 5:00 traffic in St. Louis, which slowed us down a bit, but we finally made it to our apartment complex around 11:00PM. We then found out that we were on the third floor, which almost killed me. Jeremy was so sweet and moved ALL of our stuff from the car to the apartment. I unpacked everything within 45 minutes and then I was so surprised at how much we DIDN'T bring considering how packed my sonata was.

 I believe this sunset was in Kentucky.

 The drive actually went by rather quickly. On the second day, my hand and arm started hurting a lot and felt like there wasn't enough blood flow. We ended up stopping more often (every 2 hours or so) to just walk around because of it.

I'm so happy that we finally made it here! It's so beautiful, warm and sunny! I love the humidity and am so excited for our adventures this summer!