On our first full day in Nashville, we decided to head to the Cheekwood botanical garden. It is a huge garden estate with lots of beautiful installations. You’ll notice in these pictures that the faces of my nieces and their mom are never shown— that is on purpose. So most of the pictures are of me, Brad, and Tam.
We spent a lot of time at these castle play structures they had for kids! No pictures of the kids though, for privacy reasons. We got pictures of us on the beautiful sidewalks, including one with my mom! I am wearing a purple flower dress. Tam has on a tie-dye blue shirt, and Brad has a sage suit on. Felix has on a purple tie-dye cooling coat on that I later took off because he got too cold.
We spent a long time at the castles, and my dad chased my nieces around a LOT and had tons of fun with them! It was great to see!
We saw a LOVE sculpture so had to get some pictures of it with our new family of three, me, Brad, and Tam.
We headed to the final castle and people were starting to need a break. So while we sat around deciding what to do, Brad got some shots that have the backs of my nieces’ heads in them as they interacted with my dad which was really fun to see! You do get a glimpse of my Aunt Sharon in one of the pictures, too! And a wonderful shot of my mom, my sister, and my sister’s eldest daughter from the back.
We got lunch at the cafe on the grounds, which was pretty good! But my mom was fading fast. So Brad, Tam, and I went to check out an exhibit real quick of fashion garments made out of flowers. It was amazing, and they smelled so good! We sniffed the flowers a lot, and I even sniffed a flower-dog’s butt LOL!
My parents were too tired and needed to nap, so we drove them back to the hotel and all rested for a few hours while everyone else explored the gardens more. Apparently we missed the model trains! Too bad!
My cousin and her girlfriend and another cousin of mine showed up for dinner, which we ate outside at a nice Italian restaurant with a bocce ball court. I had a weird salad with flowers and pickled berries! And some prosecco, which is one of my favorite wines. There are no pictures of our dinner, but we had a great time.
It was a bummer because we wanted to see more of the gardens, but it was good for us to go back to rest at the hotel for all our sakes. It was nice to spend some down time drinking a little of our new moonshine and just hanging out. Felix really needed it!
The next post in this series will showcase our artsy outing and downtown misadventures. A final Nashville blog entry to look forward to!