road tripping in the usa

  Little known fact.  I'm kind of obsessed with Nashville { even though I've never been there before 2 weeks ago }.  And Tennessee.  Although I guess I should clarify that this fact is NOT so little known to Scott.  Seeing as to how I'm always telling him we really need to find him a job there so we can move.  Hahaha.  He LOVES it when I'm on a Tennessee kick.  :) It only made sense to me that if we had the chance to stop in Nashville on the way back home, then we should TOTALLY do it.  Haha.  So, after a truly nightmarish drive up from Gulf Shores on Friday afternoon, we finally found a hotel that would take us, and settled in for one last night away from home before exploring the city the next day.  As luck would have it, a good friend of mine from high school lives in the city, and we met up late in the morning on Saturday to visit and catch up, and let our kid run around together for a little bit.  And you know what?  ...

  Our trip to the Beach can be broken up into 4 distinct categories -- The Sand, The Surf, The Outings, and The Screen Time.  And even though we were only there for two full days and two half days, we made the most of all four of them... The Sand Jane is officially the biggest beach bum of the bunch!  We could hardly tear her away.  Building castles and hunting for shells were a couple of her favorite past times while in Gulf Shores.   Grace was the sea shell collector extraordinaire.  She happily took Alex under her tutelage.  Cute little Jane tried to build a wall to protect her row of castles.  It didn't work.  :(  Bucket of shells!  Captain America tried his hand at a castle or two.  And finally, Jane's last castle of the trip. The Surf Everyone { except maybe Alex } enjoyed frolicking in the waves.  Unfortunately, the weather was not awesome during our stay, and the waves were a bit choppier than we would have li...