Nashville!

This past weekend Nate and I headed to Nashville to visit my sister Erin....and Nashville is always a fun place to go anyway!

Saturday morning we met a friend of ours from high school, Heather, for breakfast. Nate opted to drink coffee and read the paper across the street at a coffee shop so we could all catch up...I have no idea why he wouldn't want to listen to 3 girls talk all morning! After that we met Mark and rode our bikes all over Nashville. It was such a gorgeous day and Nashville is pretty biker friendly so it was a great way to see the city.

Saturday night we went to a concert at the Ryman. Nate and I have always loved bluegrass music since we went to college in TN so this was something we've always wanted to do. Although the concert wasn't bluegrass, it was still great and we got to see the "birthplace" of bluegrass......

.....as documented by this picture.

Here's Nate by the Bill Monroe display...one of the best bluegrass pickers ever!

And what night in Nashville would be complete without a few stops to hear even more live music? This was taken from the back of the bar but Erin and Mark are somewhere up in the crowd dancing! That's one of the best things about Nashville is that if you are in the mood for live music you can find it about anywhere.

So this week was also my first week back to school...so far I have 3 awesome classes of kids. I do love my job but it is always hard to change your schedule when you've been off work for so long! I was spoiled this summer I guess. So far I am in the midst of grading over 100 papers that I collected on the first day of school...why, oh why did I assign a summer literary essay for my AP students and why did I make the summer reading tests essay format????? This is the only part I sometimes get discouraged with....GRADING! I'm trying to see it as the way my students communicate what they've learned! Right? Well either way, we're trying to get back in the swing of things. Nate starts his classes next Monday too....so sad that summer is coming to an end!