Friends Are Friends Forever

Last week Jason and I got to be tourists here in Tennessee. We have lived here for six months but we haven’t actually gone to any of the tourist spots. But this time we had an excuse: our friends Rory and Lindsey came for a visit!

Our adventure started on September 7th. The Rodgers were flying into Nashville so we decided to celebrate our 7th anniversary (which was on the 3rd) by going to Nashville a day early and spending some time together exploring. What we didn’t realize is that our friends were actually coming on the 9th, not the 8th. They had an overnight flight and I got a little confused when I talked to Lindsey as to which day they were arriving and we ended up at the airport a day early. Oops…

Once they flew in all the mix up was forgotten as we started exploring Nashville. None of us had ever been there before so we were all excited to see what this famous city had to offer us. We started by going to the Country Music Hall of Fame. There was so much to see and I think we all enjoyed it even more than we thought we would. By the time we finished it was lunch time so we walked around until we found Broadway Street and went to a little cafe to eat. Then we headed farther up the street and went into Gruhn Guitars. Apparently, this is the best guitar store in the country but all we could afford to bring out of there was a few guitar picks that had the store name on them. Good enough for me! By this time we were all getting a little tired (Rory and Lindsey had been up all night flying) so we decided to hit the road. On the way home we stopped at Stone River, a Civil War battlefield. Rory enjoys learning about wars so he was definitely in the right part of the country. Also on the way home we had many laughs over the amount of “See Ruby Falls” and “See Rock City” signs. They really are everywhere. There are also way too many big, huge, fireworks stores. What is it with fireworks and Tennessee?

The next day was Sunday and we all headed to lunch after church with Rich and Heather Smith at Sticky Fingers. This is probably one of our favorite places to eat so we were excited to introduce it to our friends. Rory had trouble remembering the name so every time we talked about it, it was called something else. Names like Sticky Buns and Slippy Joes were common to hear. We had so much fun laughing and eating that we ended up at Rich and Heather’s for a game of Beyond Boulderdash. By the end of the day I think all of our stomachs hurt from laughing and our mouths hurt from smiling!

By the time Tuesday rolled around it felt good to have a relaxing day. Jason had to study and as it turns out so did Rory since he had to teach as soon as he returned home. I talked Rory into doing worship for the Bible study. Big mistake. Now everyone at our study knows that I have no talent! Before it was probably assumed but now, after hearing Rory play, it’s very obvious :) If only there was some way to get Rory to play every week… hmmm, that’s a good thought.

On Wednesday we went to the Chickamauga Battlefield. This place was amazing. It was a lot bigger than any of us expected and it was beautiful. It would be a very good place to come and ride bike instead of driving the car to each of the monuments. The museum section was also interesting and we learned a lot more about the battle than we learned from our travel book.

The next couple of days we spent the day on the water with Clark and Maureen. We had fun wakeboarding at Parksville Lake on Thursday and then on Friday we took the boat on the Tennessee River to the River Inn Restaurant for lunch. We all got a little sunburned and ended up sore from wakeboarding!

We had so much fun with our friends we weren’t ready for them to go. We got to talk a lot, eat a lot, laugh a lot, and play a lot of cards. It was also so much fun to see Lindsey’s cute little pregnant belly and consider baby names. I’m so thankful for our time together and for friends like the Rodgers. The Lord has truly blessed us indeed. Now if we could only get them to move a little closer…