Nashvegas

In remembrance of the first anniversary of our move to Texas, I'm chronicling our drive across the country to get here. You can read about the movers from hell here and other adventures here. 
Next stop:  Nashville!

In Nashville we stopped for a while to see our friends, Matthew and Andrea Sullivan.  We have known them since 1996, when we first moved to the Boston area to begin seminary.  We quickly became friends as they showed us the ropes in Boston and at seminary.  

Matthew and Andrea lived off-campus in an adorable little house in Beverly.  They became the kind of friends at whose house we could just drop by and see what they were up to. They introduced us to Cincinnati chili.  They had a baby before we did, so we walked with them through their first years of parenting. After the birth of their second son, they moved to Nashville and have been there ever since.  We have seen them just a few times in the intervening years, and we were so glad that we were able to meet up at the famous Pancake Pantry to see them. 
Three of their four kiddos were there, and it was my first time to meet their youngest. What a joy to have our kids meet each other and to have even a few minutes to catch up and be together.  Wish it had been longer!  I love these people dearly, dearly.

Clay and Walter are showing off the HILARIOUS underpants on display.  Hee hee! Underwear!

Yay for all of us!  We were just missing Aidan who was away at camp, I think.  Wish we could have seen that boy!

I LOVE this lady!  Very thankful for her friendship and wisdom.

After we left the Pancake Pantry, with all of us hanging out the windows and waving goodbye a million times, John said we had to make a stop here.

This is Jack White's record company.  We just had to go see it and feel the AURA.  It was wicked cool.  Jack White is one of the most amazing performers around; I hope we get to see him live someday.

Yeah, it's weird in there.  Weird and AWESOME!!!!!
Here's one of my favorite songs from Jack White's last album:



So there you have one of our last stops on the trip.  I think we spent that night in Little Rock and then rode on to Houston the next day, where we stayed with my brother- and sister-in-law and met our little niece and nephew for the first time.
It was a crazy time, a hard time, a stressful time as we anticipated moving into a new house and trying to make a home in a foreign land.

We were and still are so thankful that our road trip was actually really fun, full of good memories and we enjoyed each other along the way, as well as the friends we were able to see.