A WICKED time in Nashville

For our anniversary this year in June, Nate bought me tickets to go see Wicked in Nashville, Tennessee. Ok, I actually got online and bought them myself but he told me I could :) Nashville is about a nine hour drive from Bentonville, so we decided to make a weekend out of it. After months of anticipation, our Nashville weekend finally arrived! We took Friday off from work and spent the majority of the day driving. We drove the back roads which took us a little longer but we wanted to do an experiment to see how good of gas mileage we could get with our new car. We averaged almost 50 mpg!!! We were very excited about that and actually ended up loving the drive because we were exploring the back woods of Arkansas and Tennessee. We saw probably 45 different "flea markets" along the way which generally consisted of two or three tables in someone's yard covered with junk from their homes. Basically, people just have year-round garage sales and paint a sign that says "Flea Market."

After seeing so many flea markets along the way, we found ourselves lucky enough to be in town for Tennessee's largest flea market of the year! What an exciting coincidence! When we found out it was only a couple miles from our hotel, we of course could not pass up the opportunity to attend. We scrapped our original plans for the day and hit the fairgrounds. When else would we have the chance to be a part of one of the Top 10 Flea Markets in the Nation?  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the flea market but let me tell you, this thing was huge! We walked around for a couple hours and didn't even come close to seeing everything. I was very excited about our purchase of 1400 count sheets for $25! We continued our treasure hunting for the day at Antique Archaeology, the store front for one of our favorite shows on the History Channel, American Pickers. We didn't buy anything but we went more to say we'd been there.

Nate was thrilled to touch an actual Picker van!

 Because our temple is about four hours from us, we generally try to include a session at the temple anytime we are on a trip to a city where there is a temple nearby. There is a temple in Franklin which is just outside of Nashville. I remembered my church clothes, temple clothes and recommend. Sounds like I was prepared and good to go right? Wrong! I forgot my dress shoes! I was ready to throw in the towel and cancel our temple trip but Nate was insisted that we were going so I better find something to wear. This is a picture of the result.

I thought the bright purple tennis shoes weren't conspicuous at all........

It's fair to say I was grateful and surprised they let me in the door!

The night of the show, we decided to make it a real date night with dinner and show. We found this little hole in the wall type Italian restaurant that was actually sooooooo good! There was no parking lot so we had to park at the gas station next door, and the restaurant building looked pretty shady but Nate and I agreed that it was the best Italian food either of us had ever had. After dinner came the main event: WICKED! It was my second time seeing it and Nate's first time. We both loved it! I would jump at the chance to go again someday.

Yes I'm wearing my bright purple tennis shoes with this outfit as well. I can always be counted on for classiness!