A Trip to Birmingham via Nashville

When we realized that Ellie had a random week off of school in February (her school called it a mental health week), we pretty quickly decided that the best way to spend it was going to be in Birmingham visiting Cami, Garrett, and Lucie!   Allegiant Airlines recently opened up a route from Provo to Nashville, which added a 3-hour drive onto the trip, but saved $300/per ticket, so that's what we did!  The Provo Airport is teeny and soooooo much easier to navigate than SLC, so we are fans!  

 

And as a bonus, my brother, Nate, recently moved to the Nashville area, so we decided to spend that first night visiting with him and checking out his beautiful new home.    He lives about an hour outside of Nashville though, so we decided to do an iconic Nashville sightseeing venture before heading out to his place.   

We spent an evening at the Grand Ole Opry!   I had ZERO idea what to expect when we went, but it turned out to be a very fun experience.   The average age of the performers was probably 75, but the quality was high and we very much enjoyed being a part of the longest running radio performance in the USA.  

The next morning we headed to church with Nate, where he received a calling.   It was cool to be there when he was set apart for it as well! 

Nate fed and accommodated us extremely well and we very much enjoyed the time we spent with him!

Nate was leaving for a business trip in the wee hours of the next morning, so we left for Birmingham mid-afternoon to give him a chance to sleep and pack before his trip.  

We got to Birmingham that evening and instantly immersed ourselves in the joy of grandparenting!   

Aunt Ellie was also very much enjoying her role as fun aunt...

Cami just started working night shifts as a NICU nurse and Garrett is still a first year internal medicine resident, so they were pretty busy, which meant our trip was pretty laid back.     That was just fine by us though, since we mostly came to see Cami and Garrett and play with our Lucie girl!  

We went on walks....

Glen became obsessed with the little pond they had on the property of their apartment complex and soon he had a new rod and all the gear he needed to have fun.   He caught a bunch of fish and left the new gear there for Garrett to try out sometime.  

One day we went on the Birmingham City Walk, which is a great trail that takes a trek through the city!   It was pouring rain that day, so thankfully most of the trail runs underneath the highway and we didn't get too wet.  

We happened across a Mardi Gras parade that was en route while we trekked. 

Crowds were minimal due to the rain, which meant Lucie got loads and loads of necklaces to wear and dumdums to eat!   She was a fan!

Another day, we headed to the Vulcan statue.   The Vulcan statue was created for the 1904 World Fair in Saint Louis and is still the largest cast iron statue in the entire world.  It weighs 120,000 lbs. and was moved back to Birmingham (where it was created) after about 30 years in Saint Louis.  It now sits at a park at the top of Red Mountain in downtown Birmingham.   

The views from the Vulcan Park were pretty spectacular and we enjoyed walking around just as much as we enjoyed seeing the statue.  

Another day we went to the Birmingham Botanic Gardens and Zoo.  I won't lie, I almost cried this day because of how pleasant the weather was.   We were wearing short sleeves and we found BLOOMING FLOWERS (something that's a loooooooooooooong way off here in Utah).   

I didn't take many pictures here, mostly because I was enjoying myself so much (and carrying Lucie a lot of the way through).  Lucie was at a DELIGHTFUL age to take to the zoo and she was quite enamored with all the animals and other sites to see!   

We also discovered a brand new taco place, Ladybird Tacos, which was created to be "a little Texas in Alabama."   The owner saw Cami wearing a UT-Austin hat and got very excited!   It's not as good as Torchy's, but they were the best tacos we'd found in Birmingham so far, so we'll definitely visit again when we're in town. 

It's a family tradition that we find non-chain ice cream places whenever we travel, so we were excited to discover Mountain Brook Creamery, which was right around the corner from Ladybird Tacos.  The ice cream was quite good, though not up to Zwahlen's status, which is where Adam worked in Pennsylvania and is our new standard for the ice cream to beat.   

Besides those outings, we spent a lot of time at home just snuggling and playing with Lucie.   

One of the days we were there, both Cami and Garrett were working night shifts at the hospital, so we were on full Lucie duty....a fact that delighted us all!  

Lucie is about 15-months old and is at a very fun stage.  She's learning  new skills constantly and it was so fun to see the wheels turning in her head as she figured something new out.  

Lucie LOVES food and thoroughly enjoyed every meal time...

 
and always wanted some of what we were eating as well, including my smoothies!  

Cami introduced us to this new overnight curler set that she recently discovered.   We liked the results, however the curls didn't last long in the humid weather.  We will try it with mousse at home.  

We did a little photo shoot with Lucie one day with the sweater I got her from Christmas!  

I read her lots and lots of books and Papa (Glen) got her a ball.  Ellie enjoyed playing with her every chance she got and sometimes would fight me to hold her!  

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we are very much missing our cute Alabama family now that we are home.   

Some other notables from the trip: 

*Ellie got a stomach bug at the beginning of the trip and passed it onto me, so two of our days were kind of miserable.   
*Lucie is just learning how to walk and it was fun to to practice with her every day.  She still prefers to crawl, but she's slowly getting better at her balance!  
*Lucie LOVES to read books and I spent hours reading books with her while we were there.  Of course I think she is very young to have that kind of attention span and it makes me very happy to see how much she enjoys it.  #geniusbaby
*Lucie has favorite pages of certain books and it was cute how she'd often skip ahead on her favorite books to get to the page she especially liked.  One of those pages had a kitty cat on it that she was obsessed with and another had a bear sneezing with a big aaaaaaaaachooooooo and it made her laugh every single time.  I read those two pages over and over and over again.
*Lucie called all of us "Daddy" 
*Lucie thinks that all animals say, "Baaaaa"
*Lucie knows several ASL signs and with her verbal vocabulary, limited though it be, she is quite adept at communicating what she wants. 

Pretty much it's safe to say that I am quite enamored with being a grandma and I am eagerly looking forward to the next time we'll see them....whenever that will be! 

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