"I'm a Little Bit Country...."

Oh, wait. No, I'm not. At. All. I could say that, "I'm a little bit rrrock and roll," but do I have the edginess to quote Donnie Osmond? Am I that "rock & roll"? I mean, I don't even have one pair of purple socks.

Either way, last weekend, the Squirmy E family descended upon the home of country music, Nashville, TN (or Nashvegas, as I learn it is "lovingly" called by some) to visit Husband's sister & brother-in-law. What we didn't know when we got there was that we were really entering into one of those "stay free for the weekend IF you come to our no pressure time share presentation" deals.

See, Tia E is pretty keen on having us relocate. To Nashville. Keen enough that she printed out a home-for-sale listing and had it waiting for us on her coffee table, complete with pictures and specs. She referred to it as "your new house", when she handed us the listing. "Our new house" IS lovely, for sure. And disgustingly affordable. In our neck of the woods, that house with all of its glorious separate shower and sunken tub-ness would go for well over a million dollars and that my friends is a big HA HA HA for us. There, we could move into it without a discussion of "well, Ethan will just have to pay his own way through college. Oh, and buy his own groceries from now on, too. And maybe we should start selling our blood."

But. Alas. It is Nashville. And I am a Northerner. We're in a bit of a pickle, Husband and me. I am from the frozen North and he is from the tropical South. He won't move further up into the arctic tundra that is New England, and I am firmly against transplanting to anyplace without clearly defined seasons (although I guess those don't exist anywhere anymore, TYVM global warming). Thus we are stuck in the DC area. It's the south, but not every sentence uttered is finished with, "Bless yer heart" and not everyone is referred to as "Sugar". I can live with that. We still have winter here, but it's only really bad from mid-December to mid-February instead of the November to April season in New England. He can live with that.

So I fear Tia E is going to have to live with the minor disappointment that we won't be living across town from her in a giant house with 4 bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, a huge backyard and a sunken bathtub in which I could carry on a Calgon-laden existence. Wait...can I reconsider? Bless yer heart, Sugar.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time. Ethan again traveled like a rock star (minus the first class seats and hotel room demolition). He loves airplanes and thankfully, his ears think they are on the ground the whole time. We are fast running out of "lap baby" time because this baby wants to be anywhere BUT the lap during most of the flight. I dread having to buy him his own seat and lugging the massive Britax along for the ride, but those days are not too far in our future.

The weekend, which was Mother's Day weekend, was very relaxing. There was much SLEEPING LATE and GOING ON A DATE WITH HUSBAND, which was exciting enough to deserve all caps. There was a fabulous brunch on Sunday with MIMOSAS. There were botanical gardens and crazy OpryLand Hotels to visit. Sadly, I did not see any sign of the Kidman-Urbans, which was quite the disappointment. I did, however, see at least two statues of Elvis and one bar that had a toilet seat planter in it. Again, both ringing endorsements for the whole relocation campaign.

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Excuse me, wooden Elvis, but have you seen Nicole Kidman?

Who doesn't love a giant guitar airbrushed chock full of honky tonk icons?

Yes, that IS a bar. A stained astro-turfed, terlet tank flower-planted bar.

This is why I can't move to the South. I fear the use of both the words, "howdy" AND "y'all"

I suppose I should also include some pictures of mah baby as well, no?

"The pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign. Feel free to wiggle off mommy's lap and peruse the Sky Mall magazine."

Even Ethan is taller than Tia E :-)

Tia E often confuses cameras for telescopes. Not a fan of zoom...

Truly tastier than his face is letting on.

Psssst, Ethan! Don't look now, but there is a giant metal pumpkin behind you!

The King of all things cute...

Again with the Tia E panoramic shot. We are the dots in the middle of the picture, sitting on the rocks. Actually, it's for the best as it hides the fact that I still look about 8 months pregnant.