This last weekend was a doozy I am still trying to recover from.  We were fortunate enough to host our beloved friends from Fort Gordon for the weekend.  Nick, Abby, their sweet boy and Rob's godson, Logan and their two dogs.  We were BUSY.  And I definitely feel like we are all still recovering days later...

They got here Friday morning and right away we headed out for lunch at a local Mexican restaurant.  Which funny enough is the first time Rob and I have had Mexican food here in Clarksville.  This mama was not a Mexican food lover during her pregnancy.  As in, I cried when my MIL said she was going to make tacos for dinner while we were visiting over Christmas.  Yes, hormones are freaking awesome, I KNOW.

ANYWAY. After lunch Abby, Brooke and I left the older kids, dogs and husbands at home to go to Target, the post office and grocery store.  It is so very sad that these days I am VERY excited to leave the house without 1/2 of my entourage and to go somewhere as simple as the post office.  This is my life now folks.  We picked up some grub for Rob to cook and headed home to fire up the grill.  Everyone fell asleep early, as you do when your day starts at 4 am (Nick, Abby and Logan) or because you are old (Rob).

Saturday morning we all got up, ready and out the door in time for lunch.  After grabbing pizza at Pie Five we headed to Kentucky for the Spring into Summer festival Oak Grove was hosting.  It was a mostly free festival that had our kids been older we probably would have stayed at all night.  Instead we spent a few hours browsing the booths, feeding animals, riding ponies, eating deep fried oreos and sweating - a lot.  The men checked into the beer garden section and were perfectly content.  We ended up leaving around 5 as the evening crowd was rolling in for the Rodney Atkins concert and firework show.

After a quick stop at Publix for the necessities - we got back to the house to fire up the grill for round two.  This time the baby pool came out and Logan, Grace and Diesel thoroughly enjoyed the freezing cold water.  Until Grace's teeth were chattering and she called it quits in time to sit down for dinner.  The rest of the evening was spent listening to my husband sing french songs and laughing a lot.


Sunday we decided to go to Nashville for a few hours.  We ate at the most amazing BBQ place called Edley's BBQ.  I'm from Kansas and a bit of a BBQ snob, but I thought the food was actually pretty good.  We followed up lunch with a scorching walk down Broadway.  I figured on a Sunday afternoon the crowd would not be as thick.  But no.  It's memorial day weekend and basically every bachelorette in town was out.  So after a quick walk up and back down we stopped to watch the river flow before hightailing it back to the vehicles to cool some very warm babies off.  90 degrees at the end of May just ain't right.

The men decided to go get food for dinner.  Which quite literally meant they got meat.  Oh and ping pong balls and solo cups.  So after digging through my cabinets and coming up with 2 boxes of macaroni and cheese, a can of green beans and two half full bags of french fries we had a feast to go with our chicken wings and bacon wrapped stuffed chicken breasts (yes my husband can cook the hell out of any type of meat and I am very very very thankful).  That was followed up by some beer pong.  Which was the husbands drinking and Abby and I kicking butts.  Beer pong is definitely different when your one arm is wrapped around a sleeping two month old and you nurse one beer for the entire duration of your beer pong career.


Eventually though all good things come to an end and Monday rolled around.  We decided to go on one last adventure down by the river to Liberty Park Grill right on the Cumberland River.  We sat outside in the shade and enjoyed one last meal together.  On a whim we rounded out our trip with a stop at Coldstone.  A tradition to say the least.


The Army is a great life that helps you cross paths with amazing people.  Nick and Abby will become Brooke's Godparents sometime this year if that tells you just how strong the friendship has become between the four of us.  Nobody knows where the end of the year or the next few years will take us, but no matter the distance... I am certain this family will always be a part of our life.



always,
amanda