Nashville Murals

With lots of family visiting this fall, we spent some time exploring the murals in Nashville.  There are new murals being painted all the time on walls throughout the city and we saw just a fraction of them.  I'm not going to even try to find the names of all the murals for this post, but I've sorted them by neighborhood.

The Gulch:

Pie Town:

Hillsboro Village:

Adventure Science Center:

12 South:

Germantown:

East Nashville:

New Year's Resolutions

Below were the boys' New Year's resolutions.  So far, I think Rylan is doing the best (though not perfect).

Carter: Listen (hear Mom and Dad the first time)

Rylan: Stop burping so much

Gray: Stop farting so much

Trunk or Treat

Like the year before, we went to the Trunk or Treat at Franklin First United Methodist Church this fall.  Brian had to work but we replaced him with Reed and Lofton :)  Jen and Burke had to take Mae and Evie to other commitments so we took the other two with us.

There are tons of fun games and cars to trick or treat at.  The limbo was fun, especially for Reed!

There was also a firetruck to visit and a few inflatables.  This whack a mole game was hilarious with the little ones competing!

We had lots of fun.  The kids exchanged candy for things they all liked on the way home and everyone ended up with a ton of great treats to warm up for Halloween in a few days!

Vandy Women's Soccer

I signed the boys up for the Vanderbilt Kids Club this year.  It was pretty cheap - $20 per kid.  With that, they got t-shirts, drawstring bags, and a few other goodies.  They also get free tickets to several games (football, basketball, and baseball).  And, the chance to participate in games.  So far, Carter got to be a ball boy for women's soccer games!

The first game he did was back on August 11th.  The game started at 7pm and the next day was the first full day of school so I took Carter and left the other kids home with Brian.

Carter got a nice bright shirt to wear!

And he ended up with the mid-field position which was the best spot (he got to retrieve the most balls :) ).

Carter seemed to have fun and it was fun to get to spend some time alone with him before and after the game.

Carter was asked to do another game on August 25th.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't as nice this time (it rained HARD for most of the game).  Brian ended up taking him this time and the other boys and I watched a bit of it on TV.

Even though Carter was soaked and a bit cold, I think he still had fun.

Uno

When we started playing disc golf at Crockett last summer, we met a cat named Uno.  He followed us around twice as we played for several holes.  His tag said he was friendly, loves kids, and lives near the park where he returns at night.

One day we even found an abandoned collar for another cat named Dos.

We hadn't seen Uno in several months until last week when we saw him in the parking lot at the Crockett Indoor Arena.  The boys and I were irrationally excited :)

While Rylan was practicing, Carter and Gray went outside with my phone to play with Uno and take some pictures.  Gray REALLY wants a cat :)

I think Uno liked the warm light on the ground!

Rylan's Fall Baseball Team

I was lazy this past fall and didn't take team and individual photos for all our sports teams.  Honestly, it's a lot of work and I didn't have it in me.

I did get this one photo of the team after the last game of the season.  These boys know how to get dirty!!!

Back Row (L to R): Hunter, Mac, Connor, Bates

Front Row (L to R): Rylan, Matthew, Jonathan, Haigen, Jack, Eli, Jude, Liam

Group Photo

This is back from summer.  I attempted to get a group photo of my kids and Jen's kids before we saw The Lion King.  Fail!

Halloween

Ever since seeing it on Fortnite, Gray loves to sing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" (and do the dance).  I haven't been able to get him to wear a costume since his first Halloween when he was almost one so when he actually requested a costume this year, I was very excited.  He picked a banana.  And Carter decided to join him!  Rylan was finally something other than a ninja - some evil random dark guy is so much better :)

As usual, we went trick or treating with Jen's family in their neighborhood.  Evie was a bag of flaming hot Cheetos, Reed wore Carter's costume from last year, I don't remember what Mae was (something like a dead Little Red Riding Hood???), and Lofton was Wonder Woman.

That night was freezing!!!  It was hovering right around freezing and so windy.  But the kids toughed it out and did over an hour of trick or treating.  They ended up with the usual crazy amount of candy.

Outer Banks - Day 1

All the kids had off the entire week of Thanksgiving.  Like we did in 2012, we decided to visit the Outer Banks for a few days earlier in the week.

We drove to Raleigh on Sunday, spent the night with Brian's parents, and then drove to Manteo on Roanoke Island the next morning.  Monday was gorgeous! Our first stop was the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse.

Then we grabbed some lunch at a local deli called the Hungry Pelican before searching for a multi-cache geocache over back by the lighthouse.  The waterfront was peaceful and a great place to walk around.

Next we headed over to Fort Raleigh NHS.  This is the site of the Lost Colony, the first English settlement in the present-day United States.  We spent some time in the visitor center and walking around the site.

The boys also completed the Junior Ranger Program to earn their first badge of our trip. 

After awhile we headed east and north up the coast to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.  Again, we spent some time in the visitor center and then walked around outside.  And the boys also did the Junior Ranger program here to get another badge.

There were no clouds at all that day and the setting sun was beautiful.

We walked up the hill to the actual memorial.

As it was staring to get dark, we headed to our hotel (a TownePlace Suites in Kill Devil Hills that had opened a few months earlier).  After getting all our stuff into our room, we headed back out to dinner at Jack Brown's.  It's a small chain that Brian has actually been to in Nashville but their burgers were amazing!!!

The hotel had a great indoor pool and the kids got in a swim before we headed to bed.