Nashville Vacation

After Easter, our family took a little vacation to Nashville, TN to visit David's brother Ray who lives there.  His mom joined us for the week and his dad was able to come at the very end of the trip as well.  We had a pretty relaxed vacation.  I found an Airbnb condo to stay in that was very close to Ray's apartment.  This was the first time I had used Airbnb and was really happy with how well it went.  I liked having a little more space than a hotel room with two bedrooms and a kitchen but the price was really reasonable for Nashville.  The weather wasn't great - it rained almost every day we were there.  So we spent a lot of time laying around, taking naps in the afternoons, and hanging out with family.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was visiting the Nashville Zoo.  They have done a great job of having meandering paths through the zoo with lots of trees and shade.  The exhibits seemed almost more incorporated into a natural environment instead of just going from one cage to the next to look at animals.  The highlight of the zoo for Eliana was seeing the clouded leopard.

William got to pet a kangaroo!  They were way softer than I expected. 

We also got to pet tortoises.  These ones were just the babies.  Full grown ones can weigh up to 250lbs.  We also found out they like to eat kale and lettuce.  Now Eliana asks all the time if we can have a pet tortoise and she says she will feed it kale.

William and Grandma

The whole crew minus Eliana and myself.  We did have one day of sunshine!

Cuties in their matching hats.

The next day we went for a little hike at Percy Warner Park that was just a 20 min drive from where we were staying.  It drizzled a little while we were hiking, but luckily the park had a great nature center that we visited while it was pouring rain.  Eliana, who is not always very excited about having to walk places, was surprisingly the group leader on the hikes.  She really enjoyed leading the way and pointing things out like when steps were up ahead.  William also did surprisingly well and only needed to be carried for a short time.  Laney spent most of the hike in the Ergo either eating or sleeping.

My hiking partners.  If you are wondering what that apron thing is hanging on me, it is the Ergo carrier buckled around my waist but not in use yet.

On Saturday Eliana, Ray, and I went to the Adventure Science Center while the little kids napped and David watch a soccer game (I think) on TV.  While it was not quite as fun as the Children's Museum in Indianapolis or COSI here in Columbus, there were some fun things to do.  Eliana especially loved the small dinosaur exhibit.

T-Rex skull

Dinosaur explorer

All went well until we left and were on our way to church.  Eliana suddenly declared that she could not find her new stuffed animal Black Spot the clouded leopard (from our trip to the zoo).  She had basically not put her leopard down since she got it at the zoo and was in tears that it had been lost.  She had tucked it inside her rain coat as we were leaving the museum, and it must have fallen out while we were running to the car in the pouring rain.  Ray quickly turned the car around and returned to the museum, but we could not find it.  I felt so bad watching the little tears roll down Eliana's face.  We devised a rescue plan - I reported the lost leopard to the museum with the hope that it would be returned.  A few days after our return to Columbus, the leopard was amazingly found (*on Amazon.com) and mailed to our house! The museum (wink, wink) had even cleaned the stuffed animal and repaired the small hole in the seam on one of the leopard's legs.  Eliana was overjoyed!  Black Spot has continued to be her favorite toy these days. 

On our last day in Nashville, Ray and his parents prepared us an amazing brunch before our return drive.  We enjoyed the morning together, watching videos of clouded leopards and playing in Ray's apartment.  The drive home was quite long and Laney cried for much of it, but overall, we had a really nice time.  It was a great family trip.