A Much Needed Break!

Last week Josh had his first day off sense we have been out here.  (He always has Sunday off but works Monday through Saturday the rest of the week.)  We decided to take full advantage of the two day weekend and we went to Nashville.  Lucky for us it happened to be Country Music Fest.  We bought some last minute tickets that happened to be pretty good seats and found our way to the L.P. field in Nashville with help from our GPS.  The concert was star filled with performances from Jack Inram, Heidi Newfield, Montgomery Gentry, Miranda Lambert, John Rich, Taylor Swift, Sugar Land, and Kenny Chesney.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  The funny thing about concerts are they can make or break an artist for you.  Seeing some of the artist live are completely different from just listening to them on the radio.  We ended up loving all of the artist more as we left except for one, Taylor Swift.  Now don't get me wrong I love Taylor's music but it is a good thing that I don't have to watch her flip her hair fifty million times while she sings her songs.  I think she has been taking too many lessons from Miley Cyrus.  Apart from Taylor, who is more suited for a teenaged crowd, we loved all the other performers.  The concert was really long and after being there for over five hours we decided we had enjoyed ourselves enough and left early to avoid driving home with all the drunk people.  We spent the night at one of our friends homes and left for Memphis the next day after stopping at some of Josh's favorite places in Nashville.   It was my first time visiting Nashville and I loved it. 

   

We ended the weekend by going to a Memphis RedBirds game with a bunch of friends.  My favorite part of baseball games is always during the seventh inning stretch were the crowd sings "Take Me Out to The Ball Game".  I always sing it at the top of my lungs and I was really embarrassed when I saw Josh out of the corner of my eye video taping me.  It was a great weekend and it was fun for Josh to do something other than work.

My First Tornado Adventure

 Yesterday a EF2 tornado caused damage in Desoto County.  That is where I live now.  Josh called me yesterday afternoon and told me that a tornado touched down a few miles away from where we live.  I immediately turned on my computer and looked up weather.  I put in my zip code and sure enough I was in a severe thunder storm with severe tornado warnings.  I guess all I really needed to do was look out my window and see massive amount of rain pouring  down with the trees almost sideways because of the wind.  I spent the next two hours cautiously away from my windows and without power.  I found a cosy spot to hang out and read a book while I watched the storm pass.  The storm gradually eased up but that didn't mean our power came back on.  The worst of the damage in Desoto County is that 50,000 people are without power.  Last night almost our whole apartment complex left in search of a place to eat.  (All of our utilities are electric.)  Luckily our power came back on this afternoon.  The total damages we have are our meal from last night $25.00, a few spoiled items in our fridge estimating around $20.00, a restless nights sleep because of no A/C, and my first tornado adventure Priceless.

 

The Memphis Botanic Gardens

 

Yesterday I went to the Memphis Botanic Gardens.  I went with a bunch of the wives and kids of the husbands that are working for Pinnacle out here.  We had a great time.  To our good fortune ever Wednesday the Botanic Gardens houses a farmers market.  It was fun looking at all the different booths.  They even had peaches for sale.  Can you believe it.  Peaches in June???  It was a fun day.  

The Dixon Gallery and Gardens

 

Yesterday I went to the Dixon Gallery and Gardens.  They had a good collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings and I throughly enjoyed walking the halls taking in the masterpieces.  The gardens were just as magnificent as the paintings.  I don't know what I liked more...the Gallery or the Gardens???  They were both beautiful.  I was only able to take pictures of the gardens because they wouldn't let us take pictures in the gallery.   

The Pink Palace

The Pink Palace is a historical museum ranging from archeology to chemistry and is based around the history of memphis.  The Pink Palace was a house built out of Georgian Pink Granite for the founder of The Piggly Wiggly, Clarence Saunders.  Clarence Saunders built the house for his personal residence in 1923 but lost the home because financial troubles.  It became a museum in 1930.

Apparently this Polar Bear is really Popular.  

These dresses where worn by the queens at the Cotton Carnival.

This is a picture of a typical kitchen.  I just thought is was really cute.

This is a picture of the ceiling in one of the rooms.  I thought it was really pretty but the picture doesn't do it justice.  

National Donut Day

National Donut Day is the first Friday in June of every year.  If you did not know about this glorious day you sorely missed out.  Krispy  Kreme was giving away free donuts all day.  I first went into the Krispy Kreme to claim my free donut and I must confess I also went through the drive through to claim another one.  The first one was just so good I really wanted another one.  

A little bit of history about National Donut Day...  It was created in honor of the Salvation Army Women who served donuts to the soldiers during WWI.  The salvation army set up huts close to training camps in France.  The donuts became an instant hit with the soldiers. On one of the busiest days Margaret Sheldon wrote "Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts, 700 cups of coffee."