I love my friends

This last weekend was so great. Deb flew in to town with her adorable little girl Emily for a family reunion here in Nashville with her hubby and I can't tell you how blessed I am that I was able to spend so much time with her. Her husband Erik was driving up from Alabama with his family, so I had Deb all to myself for lunch on Thursday and then when Erik arrived into town, he watched Emily, so Deb and I could go and be girly for the evening together :-) I have so missed shopping with my friends. Just to be able to take a deep breath and be myself was so refreshing. After I got off work, I drove her down Granny White to see some of Nashville's beautiful countryside and then we headed to Green Hills Mall - which is much like Bellevue Square back home. Except, sadly enough, we don't have a MAC store back home and I absolutely love the MAC store out here. After Deb got a makeover at MAC, we shopped for shoes (how those working out for ya deb? ;-) ) and browsed through one of my all time favorite stores...ZGallerie! To end a perfect evening we had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Then on Sunday, Deb and Emily joined Jason and I for the afternoon. We did a mini celebrity tour for her and drove by Alan Jackson's house, "Sweetbriar" in Franklin. We drove her and Emily just about everywhere - through parks, down Music Row, by Vanderbilt & Belmont Universities, Starbucks in West End and of course we had to take them to an early dinner at the Loveless Cafe. I had the best time hanging out with her and her adorable daughter Emily.

As a matter of fact, I enjoyed myself so much, that after I said goodbye to Deb, I got really sad and quite homesick. It took me off guard when I realized just how much I need the friends in my life. I was down all Monday and most of Tuesday until I called Tina last night. After a few tears and comforting words, I got my fix and feel much more rejuvenated to keep pressing on in establishing relationships here in Nashville.

Jason is doing great with his writing. So well in fact that we couldn't keep up with paying for all the demos he needs to make. As a result, Jason got a part time job at a small cafe two days a week, 4 hours a day. It's just enough extra cash to pay for one or two more demos a month.

The hunt continues for a church. I appreciate all those who've been praying for us to find a home church. We have 3 in mind that we'll be checking out in the near future, and they sound hopeful, so keep praying! Having a home church would really help in the relationships department.

In three weeks mom & dad Keith will be coming into town to spend a week with us. I'm so excited to see them and hopefully I'll have Sherry show me how to use the antique sewing machine they bought me for my birthday. I've been dying to learn, but have been too afraid I'll break it. Then once I learn, I want to make a Pottery Barn style quilt.

Finally, I included a picture of that nasty bruise I had on my leg. Isn't it gross? Thankfully its gone, even though still a bit tender - but so much better!

That's all for now. One Tree Hill debuts tonight for Season 4 - yippee!!

This is why dogs bite people...

My friend Christy from work sent these to me - I couldn't resist.

Home Sweet Home

OK! So I'm back in the game! I'm so sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but once we got back from Seattle, I hit the ground running and have been working like crazy without a spare moment for anything!

Seattle was great - the weather was gorgeous. It wasn't exactly the most restful of family vacations, but it was good to see family and friends. I took a few pictures too that turned out really great - well I guess I should say Kati took a few pictures...she's good at that.

On our way back, we had a little drama. I got stopped not once, but TWICE going through security for my makeup. Yeah - lame. Apparantly makeup now consitutes as creams and lotion type material. But does this go for all the other airports in the United States? Oh no! Just Seattle. So thankfully, I had my backpack, cause I had to either check my backpack back at checkin with all my makeup or they were going to confiscate it all. Yeah right. Eventually we made it to the gate and our flight. The flights were great. I was so nervous to fly, just cause our two prior trips were really rough and a lot of turbulance. So this time I was ready, when we left for Seattle, I popped a fun little pill and off we went. I think I slept most of the flight. But jumping back to our return from Seattle, we flew through Atlanta and missed our connection...which was not fun. We got dumped at this cheesy little not-comfort-inn around 11pm and found we were both starving! So we found this little local spot that had their kitchen open till 3am! We had ourselves a huge and awesome dinner - filet mignon, crab legs, mushroom burger..it was so grub. But then again, not the wisest thing to do. With only five hours to sleep, we layed there tormented by horrible indigestion. Not cool.

Ok, so enough about our flight home. While we were in Seattle, we crammed in as much as we could to see everyone we loved. Since I have no idea when I'll be back in Seattle again, I wanted to get in as much time as I could with as many loved ones as possible. We flew in late Wednesday night and hung out with the family till pretty late just catching up. Then on Thursday we had a picnic over at mom and dad's - which was a great idea of mom's by the way. Quite a few people showed the love and came ready to BBQ. Everything turned out just as I had wanted to, a lot of one on one catching up with people that I really missed. Afterwards, Tina stayed the night and we talked till 4am!!! (which don't forget is actually 6am Nashville time). Friday was family time - we slept in, walked around Greenlake, went to a movie, hung out around the house...it was very nice to just chill. Then on Saturday Jason, Kris, Kati and I hit the road and headed off to the Ellensburg Rodeo. I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment. The entertainer that has been there for years, who MC's the whole show has retired and some lame-o guy came up real short by trying to be funny. It was so hot out, and we ended up sneaking into the covered grandstands just to keep from passing out. Poor Kris got fried by the sun. My favoriate was the monkeys that rode dogs like horses and rounded up little RAM goats. It was so fun to watch! After the rodeo, we met up with Suzanne and Skyler for dinner in Ellensburg. I have missed Suzanne so much over the last months and again wasn't quite sure when I would be able to meet up with her. It was great to hang out with them and afterward we went out for coffee. To be honest though, I know I was sacrificing some quality sister time. See the rodeo has become a tradition for us Kelly girls, after all its the main reason I came home when I did over Labor Day Weekend. And not only did I have a husband this year, but I also met up with friends....and it was a tough decision for me to make. I wanted to be with the ones that I love as much as I could without making anyone feel left out. I don't know if I succeeded this last trip. That's one thing I struggle with, that I know I need to work on - is feeling like I need to please everyone else and make sure everyone is happy.

Ok - so deep breath...I started to get a bit deep there. All that to say, next year, I'll be going to the rodeo with just my sisters and keeping the day sacred. :-) On Sunday, Jason and I joined the family for church at Kirkland and afterward went out to Claimjumpers for lunch. We don't have Claimjumpers in the South, and we love their food. It was a lot of fun. The whole family was there, plus a few friends and it was so great to hang out with Karen King and Kevin King and the Sandstroms. Once lunch was over, the Sandstroms took us around Lake Washington on their boat! Jason had never been out on the lake before, and it was so fun to sit back and watch the sunset reflecting off the lake. We got some great pictures of the city too.

Monday was Labor Day and I had reserved the day to hang out with Tina & Jay Frees and their kids, Addie, Jeshua and Jaida over at Jay's moms house. She has a gorgeous place across on Kingston in the middle of some woods. It was so quiet and peaceful. Roy & Loree Rowland were also there and we had such a blast hanging out together.

Over the course of my trip, I did get a bit injured. A bike fell on me and caused a somewhat small bruise on the side of my leg by my knee. It hurt but I didn't think a whole lot of it. Well thing is, I flew the next two days....which is really not the best thing for bruises. This sucker swelled up so big that I still have big ol knot on the side of my leg the size of a raquetball. It got all purple and blue and some people at work said I should really get it checked out in case it could be a blood clot. So off I went in search of a doctor. Dr. Steve Hai took one look at it and said, "That's quite a hickey you got there." My instructions have been to take a lot of Ibuprofen, ice continually and knock myself out with narcotics at night. I go back in to Dr. Steve tomorrow and if the swelling still doesn't go down a whole lot more, he said they may need to drain it! SO PRAY!!! I know it seems weird and dumb that I'm talking about a bruise, but this thing got so freakin big from the flying and with all the swelling, its pinching my nerve and causing numbness, which is really annoying. I took a picture of it and might post it when I get around to it sometime.

And then to finish off our trip, we came home from Kingston Sunday night and chilled with mom and dad for a few hours before hitting the sack and flying out Tuesday afternoon. And you know where it went from there with the whole Atlanta thing.

So there's the jist of our trip to Seattle. Enjoy the pictures and I'll be back in a couple days to fill you in on life since we've been back home!!

Sleeping Positions

These pictures are too dang cute not to post. It makes me want another kitten. Yeah right. I would love one and it would be nice for Banks to have a friend, but Jason would freak ;-) Every once in a while, he'll say, "You know we have a live animal in this house with us?" yup. They're buds, but Jason won't admit it. Banks and Jason like to play tag around the house, but without quite tagging each other. He'll chase her, then she'll turn around and chase him...I think the neigbors downstairs love it. At least we don't live above crazy-cat-woman anymore. I do have to brag on Banks for a minute though. She is well on her way of earning her keep around the house. This morning as I was heading to the kitchen and passed through the dining area, I saw a silverfish on the wall. Now for those of us from Seattle, we don't have those back home, but they look like a centipede with long antennae - nasty and fast. So I see this nasty critter and I point at it calling for Banks. She now knows that when I point, there's a bug and she's to look frantically for it. So she's looking all over and still doesn't see it, until I lift her up and set her directly in front of it. Not a second later she pounces on this thing and tore it into 4 pieces!!! Yeah!!! GO BANKS! Man, I love my cat. :-) She's also very good at killing spiders and catching flies. Spiders give her an upset tummy, so she'll squash them and then watch it for a while, but she loves eating the flies she catches -though I'm not such of a fan when it crunches in her mouth. Sick.

Fun Fun Fun

This last week has been crazy!

Wednesday night my law firm Adams & Reese, hosted a party for the National Legistlative Conference at Roberts Bar on Broadway, one of the many honkeytonks downtown. It was an open bar, with a live band (of course) and catered with traditional southern food. Jason was working that night, but I decided to dress up and hit the town. The party didn't start till 9pm! For a company party! Now that's a change going from 7pm company parties at the Westin to 9-11pm parties during the week at the honkey-tonks downtown. We were all in our boots, jeans and haltar-tops, it was so much fun. They even had these ceramic cowboy boot vases' in various colors sitting on the bar holding wildflowers and Adams & Reese blue bandanas. I had a great time.

Thursday night, Jason was off and we found ourselves back downtown. Our friend Cheryl Johnston was performing that night at another local honkey-tonk, the Full Moon Saloon, which is owned by our friend Robert Lee (who just got a recording contract with Broken Bow Records & sings on some of Jason's demo tracks). Cheryl was doing a four hr set, so we first stopped at Roberts Bar (yes, the very place I was at just the night before) and had the best burgers for dinner!! Seriously yummy! Then we walked over to see Cheryl and Danny for a bit as she performed. She sounded great too.

But unfortunately we couldn't stay long, because my friend Brooke from work had hooked us up with free passes to see LeeAnn Rimes performing on the State Capitol steps. So off we went trudging up the hill toward the capitol in 85 degree heat with 100% humidity. It was so hot that night! But wow, was LeeAnn worth it! We were within feet of her singing. There was free food provided (I'm talking BBQ ribs, grits, everything), an open bar and outdoor seating. Had Brooke not been with us, I wouldn't have recognized her husband Dean who kept walking by us literally brushing shoulders with us. She sounded incredible too. It was so much fun!!


By Friday, I was dragging. Being out two nights in a row was already wearing me out! I didn't get to bed before midnight once this last week! So that night I stayed home and finished my book - which was fabulous by the way. My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult is the story of a child whose sole reason for existence is to assure a genetic match for her terminally ill sibling. 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald, was conceived in vitro and has decided to sue her parents to stop them from using her as "spare parts" for her older sister, Kate, who suffers from leukemia. After years of having her body be used to keep Kate alive, Anna now refuses to donate a kidney and strives for her own personal freedom. Anna hires lawyer Campbell Alexander to represent her, even as her own mother, a former civil defense attorney, fights her in court. It was such a good read and I finished it within maybe two weeks. I highly recommend it!

Jason came home after work on Friday and we stayed up till 4am!! I must have gotten a second wind, or maybe I was just super excited to watch the recorded season finale of So You Think You Can Dance with Jason, since he hadn't seen it yet. And you guessed it, Benji won!! Yeah! It was such a great show, I may have to watch it again... I know, I'm a nerd.

The weekend was also great. Even though Jason had to work both nights, we spent some much needed quality time sleeping in and relaxing in our home. We lounged in our PJ's and watched Benchwarmers, which was so funny and I made him a big ol breakfast. Then Sunday we went to church with our friend Kelly Skiles at the Vineyard in Nashville. It was a lot smaller than we expected, but still a great time. The guest speaker was the bass player from SonicFlood.

So that's basically it for our crazy week! Love you all!!

Dead Day

Today, Tennessean's pay thier respects to Elvis Presley, by celebrating Dead Day, known by the rest of us just as the anniversary of his death.

And I'm totally serious.
(the first picture of Elvis with the ladies, are some girls I work with. Starting from the far left, Rose is in the suit, she's a lobbyist here. Then next to her is Grace, then Elvis of course and Leslie our Marketing Director and finally Brooke, my cube-neighbor and also a legal assistant.)

In celebration of this day, the law offices where I work hosted an all company breakfast this morning with life size cut-outs of Elvis around the boardroom, Elvis plates, Elvis stickers on the windows, Elvis playing on the tv.... I love Elvis, but this was a bit strange. Apparantly Nashville gets somewhat into it, but in Memphis it gets downright crazy. After we filled our plates with bicuits, bacon, eggs and donuts and of course Elvis' favorite - peanut butter & banana filled sandwhiches...eww, we sat around the conference room chit chatting until one of the attorneys took control of the meeting. Finally, we're going to get down to business. But no. One of the attorneys, Gif, starts to quiz everyone on facts of Elvis' death and call to reference tidbits of information on our fellow co-workers. At one point during the meeting, Gif asks for those who weren't born yet to raise thier hands...dangit. So up mine goes, along with two others. It's been 29 years since the death of Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll. So what was my claim to fame to share with others? That my husbands late great uncle Billy Walker, gave Elvis Presley his first gig in the business. He was the first musician to give Elvis a chance.

One woman I work with, Joy Dorn, was recognized for having a small role in Viva Las Vegas with Elvis Presley. She said she was able to see him and Ann Margaret in person during the shooting of the film.

Grace, who you see in the first picture, went to his house and met his former cook. She was such a huge fan, that she went around to the neighbors behind his house and climbed atop a dog house to peek into his back yard in hopes of catching a glimpse of the King on his horses.

And finally, Rose Cox (also in the picture above) knows a man who is now in goverment that used to be a paramedic back when Elvis died. He happened to be one of the two paramedics that was in the back of that aid car and worked on Elvis until his death. Apparently this man still to this day will not talk about it. Interesting.
(this picture is of the two attorney's I support, Larry Stewart on the left and Paul Krivacka on the right - I love these guys, they are the best bosses)

There's was lots of reminiscing by everyone...where were you when his death was announced 29 years ago? I was but an egg in my mothers womb, a twinkle in my father's eye :-)

So now, in tribute to Elvis, please comment by saying which Elvis movie was your favorite! And don't tell me you haven't seen one of his 33 movies, cause I believe I have seen every single one! My favorites are Harum Scarum and Follow That Dream.

But before I go - one last thing!! Tonight is the finale for...(drumroll please)... So You Think You Can Dance!!!













Both mine and Jason's prediction is that Benji is going to win, that's who we're rooting for!! And if Benji doesn't take it, then our second choice is Heidi.

Go Benji!

The Things You Learn In The South

So I've discovered some things living in the South that are quite different from back home.

1. Never ask for a pop. They won't know what you're talking about - here everything is Coke. Even Pepsi is still Coke. Soda is North and Pop is West - but Coke is the South. I learned this when I asked someone in the office for a pop and the whole office bust out laughing.








2. Tennessee must go through a lot of toilet paper - cause you can't find a paper toilet seat cover unless you find a nearby Starbucks (thank you Seattle). It seriously grosses me out that you can never find them in a public restroom of any kind. You should have seen how excited I got when I discovered they were in TJ Max - yessss!!!




3. Move Over Law - did you know that in Tennessee, when you pass a police car on the side of the road, you have to leave one lane between you and the officer's car or you will get a ticket? Years ago, this law was established when an officer was killed by a car as he was giving someone a ticket and ever since, you cannot drive in the lane next to a pulled over police car.





4. No Bingo! - The other day I asked one of the girls at work if she knew of any nearby Bingo halls and she said they're illegal in Tennessee. What.... Apparently, some government officials got caught taking kickbacks off bingo halls and were caught in the act and two of them committed suicide. Thereby outlawing bingo. Gambling has always been illegal, so you can forget about Casinos. Which I think is great, less temptation for people to throw their money away. Just until a few years ago, Tennessee allowed a state lottery.



5. Sonic - Sonic is the place to be for cold drinks and affordable food. It's a late night drive in, that reminds me when A&W used to serve food to us in our cars. But you won't find a Dicks in the South (man I miss those burgers!!) Jason's favorite is the cheese chili dogs and Diet Coke Cherry Limeades, my favorites are the fries, soft serve ice cream and Blue Coconut CreamSlush!



6. Rain - Is NOTHING like rain back home. Seattle is known for how much rain it gets, but in all reality, Nashville gets just as much rainfall a year as we did back home. BUT the difference is...it falls completely different! In Seattle the rain pittles down throughout the whole day...but in Nashville, people will leave the office early if its threatening rain, cause it will pour down to where you will be absolutely drenched in less than 2 minutes, along with crazy lightning and then the flash flood warnings are issued. Where I work downtown, I have to walk from the parking garage to the office and one morning it was raining. I couldn't figure out why everyone else was standing in the foyer of the garage. So thinking I knew rain, I walked outside with my little umbrella and by the time I got to the office, my light gray pants were now black and I was leaving a water trail in the elevators. Nice. I looked like I had jumped in a pool from the waist down and gone to work - I kid you not! If you wait it out 10 minutes, the rain & lightning will stop and the sun will come back out. It's strange. So lesson learned...NEVER get caught without a golf size umbrella in Nashville.

Those are some of my findings in Nasville :-)

Kim

Things You Don't See Everyday

Check out these hilarious pics Sherry sent me!!

Tim & Faith Y'All!

So this last Saturday night, I was able to go to the much anticipated concert of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. It was such a blast! The set up of the stage was incredible - in the picture you see to the left, all that yellow is the stage and Faith Hill is coming up from a hole in the center. And all that stage is made up of small tv screens that show videos, images, colors, all kinds of cool things to make the show that much more amazing. It was also in the very center of the stadium, so there wasn't a bad seat in the house. Jason and I had a great time and I even included a picture of us at the concert to show y'all.

Overall it was a lazy weekend for the both of us. I finished another book by Kristin Hannah, which was really good and then we hung out at home on Friday night watching 3 hours of recorded episodes of my favoriate TV show, So You Think You Can Dance! I've been taping them for Jason while he's at work, because I know how much he would hate missing this show ;-) My prediction is that it will come down to Donyelle and Benji as the last two finalists and Benji will win!

Then after sleeping in on Saturday, we were supposed to go to Jason's rescheduled baseball game, but once again we were rained out. He looked over at me and said, "This is why I hate the rain". Poor guy. Instead to make him feel better we went to Opry Mills Mall and did a little shopping for me...hee hee :-) Ok, maybe it was more for me than him, but we did score some really cool stuff for super cheap and he ended up getting some great deals for himself as well.

After shopping, we rushed home to look hot for the concert. And we looked good too. See our pic? Aren't we cute? Yes, I know, I need a tan. And to complete the evening, there's nothing like a little Sonic to end a perfect day. But word of advice, don't get the Brownie Blast ice cream thing - not so good.

Sunday we slept in late and watched Derailed together before Jason headed off to work. That movie is so intense!

One last pic for you from the concert - if you look closely, this is when Tim & Faith made thier first appearance together that night, Tim on end of the stage and Faith on the other. They both came up out of the floor as well. It was awesome.

That's all for now!

To begin with, I've posted some of these amazing chalk drawings for y'all to see. My mom-in-law sent them to me and I thought they were pretty amazing.

So another week has come and gone. We've spent the last week with Scott and Kelley McGlasson, Jason's sister and brother-in-law and were sad to see them leave yesterday. It was a busy week, but definately a good time. Jason showed them around a lot of Nashville while I was at work and then I was able to join them for an outdoor movie in the park (Remember the Titans) and breakfast at The Loveless Cafe. We were supposed to see Jason play in his first baseball game this season, but on Friday we had a pretty big storm sweep through the city, which rained out the field for Saturday. I was so bummed for him and he was pretty upset too, but it did end up getting rescheduled for this coming Saturday, so we'll go to his game before we head to the Tim & Faith concert!!! yippeee!!! (Can you tell I'm excited!?) So instead of the game, we took Scott & Kelley to the Nashville Flea Market. I had been wanting to go since our friends the Giconia's had told us all about how they found fabulous furniture deals there. It was overall a fun time, and not too hot out either. There was so much junk, but some really good finds too!! We found ourselves a large bookcase for $95 and in our favorite mahogany color. Thankfully we have a large apartment, cause we are aquiring quite a furniture collection!

We also went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 with them. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed by the second one. Jason and I have been counting down the days to see the movie for almost a year! And we really didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. Before they took off Monday, I met up with them for lunch at Cracker Barrel - a must for visiting the South. And we had another Celebrity sighting! As we were walking out the door, this guy was holding the door and when we got outside, Jason says. "That was Jimmy Wayne." He sings that song, "I Love You This Much". I didn't recognize him, cause I'm not all that familiar with his music or his face. But I've included a picture for you, so you know what he looked like.

Then from what Jason told me, when Scott & Kelley flew to Denver from Nashville on Monday, they were on the same flight as LoneStar. Which is the same band that had one of Jason's songs on hold for 7 months.

Monday night I was able to hear the first of 4 new songs of Jason's. It's going to be another of your favorites and he wrote it with Chuck Wicks (our friend who got a recording deal with RCA) and Mark Beeson. I can't wait to hear the other three, they're in the process of being mixed right now, but we'll have them for sure by the time we get to Seattle.

I am sorry to report that I was a total dork and didn't take any pictures this week. I know, such a loser thing to do. But I know Scott had his camera, so maybe I'll snag some pics from him to post for y'all. It was so nice to have them here, we really enjoyed the company and a chance to spend time with family. Now I'm just counting down the days till I can see my family back home as well. I've been missing them a lot the last few days.

Last night, I stepped a bit out of my comfort zone and met up with Farrah & Eric to see Cheryl Johnston perform at the French Quarter Cafe in East Nashville. Jason was scheduled to work, so I went solo, but I still had a great time and saw a few other people from Jason's softball team as well. Cheryl put on quite a show. I tried to get some pictures of her rockin out on stage, but it was too dark in the room for my camera. Tuesday nights are "band night" at the French Quarter, so I think if Jason gets a Tuesday night off, we'll have to go back, cause it was really fun to see people perform and it was more styles than just country. If Kris comes to town again, its definately someplace I'll take her to, cause I think she would really like it.

That's all for now, I'll try to get better at getting some pics of Jason and I up on the blog, along with writing more frequently - especially since I'm always being made aware how much more my little sister Kati writes more than I do :-)

Love you all!