March and early April - pre-big-Japan trip

Our plate was a little light this month as we prepare 

for our big trip to Japan next month!!

 

Fitz and the acoustic Tantrums

Friday, 3/3 - We headed over to the cool old Marathon Motor Car Factory, the home of one of the main shops for TV's American Pickers (photo above), in downtown Nashville tonight to catch one of our favorite new-to-us bands, Fitz and the Tantrums, play a short, but good, acoustic set at Marathon Music Works.  They closed the show of four different music acts.  The first three of which we had zero-interest in, but the price was cheap and it was for a good cause with all the proceeds going to help fund suicide prevention.  Thanks to our friend, Bethany, for tagging along with us, as well as to dinner beforehand at the tasty Slider House.

Sunday, 3/5 -  It continued to be an acoustic weekend as tonight we headed over to East Nashville to catch one of our favorite local singer/songwriters, Will Hoge, at The Basement East in a program called Four in the Floor, an intimate in-the-round performance by four different musicians.  Besides Will, we saw veteran troubadour, David Olney; rising country-singer/songwriter, Jaida Dreyer; and a very impressive performance of the young, raw talent of Tyler Childers (this guy's going somewhere, folks).   This was our first time at this relatively new venue as well and we liked it a lot.  We hope to return ASAP.

See Will Hoge's back, but listen to Will's amazing voice and songwriting talent!

Friday, 3/10 - We headed over to The Belcourt Theatre in Nashville tonight to catch the opening-night showing of Kedi, a documentary about the thousands of street cats in the ancient Turkish city of Istanbul and a focus on a few of them and their human counterparts.  It is a charming film that is well shot and totally entertaining...if you like cats, that is.  Beforehand, we had a quick bite to eat for dinner at McDougal's Chicken across the street from the theater.

3/13 -  Monday Fun-day?  Yep, that's right.  I had the day off and Ashlee played a little hooky from work today and we went into Nashville for a bit of fun on a cold and cloudy Monday.  It started with a delicious brunch at Wild Eggs, one of our favorite places to eat in Louisville now has a new location in downtown Nashville and it was as great as ever.

We walked off some of our meal by street-hiking a couple blocks up to the beautiful Nashville Downtown Library to check out the photography exhibit, "Hidden in Plain Sight", a retrospective of famous (and infamous) buildings around Nashville that played an important role in the history of this city, but most of which sit unassuming to most passersby.

From the library we walked a few more blocks to 5th and Church to check out one of the subjects of the "Hiding in Plain Sight" - the First Presbyterian Church which happens to be open on Mondays for self-tours and we were able to check out its amazing stain glass windows and Egyptian-style interior design.  

Next stop was the Antique Archaeology store which was open today over in Marathon Village which we had been to a few days earlier this month.  We also checked out the new (and very nice) Jack Daniels General Store also in the complex.

Thursday, 3/16 - Check out our newly redone wood floors!  And our new spring wreath! Thanks to Ashlee for spending most of her bonus from work this year to get our nappy dining room and living room wood floors redone.  They look amazing!

Sunday, 3/19 - We saw a show by the legendary Steve Martin (with the talented Steep Canyon Rangers) and the hilarious Martin Short at the Grand Ole Opry tonight with our friends, Nate and Ginny.    The show was wonderful and we wish it could have went on longer.  So many laughs, so much good music, and special guests like Jerry Douglas and his dobro, made this a great event.  Thanks to Ashlee for procuring the great seats we had as well!

Monday, 3/20 - It was a day off from work today for me, but that doesn't mean I wasn't working. With Ashlee's help, we got our new fire-pit put together and arranged using wood seats from our old maple tree.   The 80-degree weather made it seem like we were too late to use it, but we figure even with this being the first day of spring, we will still get a few chilly nights before long to fire it up.

Friday, 3/24 - Well, that didn't take long!  It was cool and dry enough to fire up the new fire pit tonight along with a couple bottles of wine and some tasty s'mores.

Saturday, 4/1 - With only two home-games left in the regular season, we actually attended our first (and only) Preds game at Bridgestone Arena together today.  The timing just hasn't worked out for us to get to any other games this season and we were honestly a bit burned-out from last year when we had partial-season tickets and going to the games became a bit of a grind.  We both agree going to fewer games makes the times that we do go much more special.  We got great seats up behind the Preds bench and it was a masterful 3-0 win over the Minnesota Wild for the good guys.  We won a lot of stuff including free Big Macs with a late second period goal.  Then, our Section 116 was selected to win scratch-off lottery tickets from which we promptly won three bucks.  And, finally, we secured free doughnuts with the impressive shut-out by our  awesome goal-tender, Pekka Rinne.  Before the game, we stopped by Czann's Brewing for a couple of pints and scored some very valuable free parking there for the game as well, and we also ran into our buddy, Nate.  Cheers!

Sunday, 4/2 - You're darn right we got our free Big Macs and Dunkin Doughnuts today!  Thanks, Preds!!

Saturday, April 8 - It was a beautiful day for a walk from our house to Speedy Burrito for a tasty lunch and then to catch the last 6 innings of the Cumberland University Phoenix baseball team taking on the Georgia Gwinnett Grizzlies.  We got $5 seats right behind home plate and while the Phoenix fell 9-6 in this game of big innings for both teams. they did take the weekend series 2 games to 1.