Holiday Trip to Nashville and Portland

On my way to visit my family in Portland for the holidays, I stopped by Nashville to work for a day in the office, to see friends and coworkers, and to visit my old car.

In Portland we visited Hood River, saw family, enjoyed the Oregon outdoors, ate at our favorite restaurants and continue all of the usual family Christmas traditions. 

The Volvo! New owner Britton with Patrick and Candice

In the Volvo on the way to lunch

With coworkers at 12th South Taproom, an old favorite

Richard, Mackenzie and I visited Joey in Hood River, Oregon.
Here we're at the Columbia Gorge Hotel for happy hour.

Voodoo Doughnut, the famous Portland bakery.

We picked up a dozen for the next morning to give us energy for cross-country skiing.

Skiing at Trillium Lake on Mt. Hood. Mom, Richard and Lindsay.

Rico and Linds

Scott and Dad coming down the hill

Dad in his hat, vintage 1985?

Trillium Lake with a view of Mt Hood

Candice's Visit to Dublin

View of Dublin Bay and Wicklow Mountains from Dalkey

Our friend Candice visited us from Nashville and we had a lot of fun catching up and showing her around Dublin.  And what a good guest she was-- she arrived in Dublin at 8am last Wednesday bright-eyed and wide awake despite the fact that she was probably completely jet-lagged.  AND, she had done her Ireland homework so she already had some good ideas for side trips, which made our job as tour-guides much easier.  In the five days she was here, we packed in a lot of sight-seeing and fun.

I took the day off for her first day and we did some typical Dublin sight-seeing: St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College, the River Liffey, Dublin Castle, the National Gallery, National Library and the Chester Beatty Library (whew).  The second day I worked while Candice continued with her sight-seeing: Guinness Brewery, National History Museum, a Viking Dublin walking tour, shopping, etc.

On Friday we went to Howth to do the cliff walk.  I have done it so many times but will never get tired of it.  It's beautiful and the end of the hike takes you to a cute town with good food and pub option-- perfect.  Saturday we went to Bru na Boinne which was exciting enough that I'll talk about that in another post.  On Sunday Richard finally got to hang out with us.  He had been busy finishing up a study so was working quite a bit during the week and all day on Saturday.  On Sunday we went south to Dalkey, swimming in Sandycove and to the Dun Laoghaire market.

Candice, we miss you already.

At the Temple Bar listening to Lad Lane

Candice at the Dublin Castle park

At the top of Sheilmartin Hill on the Howth Walk

Lighthouse on the Howth Cliff Walk

Howth

Dalkey

Sandycove Swimming Hole

Richard taking the plunge

Other important Nashville mentionables

One more backpost: thank you to everyone who helped us with garage sales, moving out, and sending-off parties.  We miss you!

Kelsey's work party, posing at the "Musica" statue on Music Row.  (Yes, Richard also has coworkers and friends, but we don't have any photos from those nights.)

Brown's, our favorite dive bar, the night before we left Nashville with Tony, Candice, Brandon, Amy, Sara and Jenn

The weird statue in our front yard along with Sara, Candice and Amy

Our TV that no one bought from our garage sale, or took (for free) from the sidewalk, AND the reason for this blog name.  I can't even count the number of people that came into our apartment and asked, with raised eyebrow, "Is that your TV?"

And another very important shout-out to Britton Wells, coworker and friend, who bought the Volvo.  May the car mean as much to you as it did to me!

Birthday Celebrations

This is a belated post, but I feel it warrants a mention anyways.  The week before we left Nashville my parents came to help us pack and clean (huge: thank you!!).  More importantly, their visit coincided with my mom's birthday, my parent's 34th wedding anniversary, and my dad's 60th.

There were many celebrations, but the most exciting was a trip the night of my dad's 60th on one of the largest showboats in the country, the General Jackson Showboat.  The boat travels on the Cumberland River and goes through downtown Nashville so you get a nice view of the skyline at night.  We partly chose this as the big celebration because my parents like boats and rivers so much, but also for the campy music show that happens on the boat for the last hour of the cruise.  The music show travels chronologically through the history of country music, starting with gospel and ending with Taylor Swift.  None of us are big country music fans, but it was entertaining at least.

The Cumberland River

View of downtown Nashville

Inside the showboat

View under one of the bridges downtown

First Post - We're Moving!

We are moving to Ireland in two weeks and are starting to get packed up, sell most of our belongings and say our goodbyes to Nashville.  Here are some photos of Tennessee.  We will miss you!

On our road trip from CA to TN two years ago

Snow day at our apartment in Nashville 

Glorious Southern food (slab of ribs, baked beans, slaw and a roll)

The Cumberland Plateau

Rural Tennessee

Southern soda pop

Robert's Western World in downtown Nashville

Elvis! (at Sun Records, Memphis)

And good-bye, old friend.  Don't you look pretty standing in the clover?