Family Trip to Nashville

November 18-20, 2007

One of our favorite things in Nashville is breakfast at the Cascade area of the Opryland Hotel. Darla with Elyse, Jordan and Ashleigh.

Having driven to Nashville on Sunday afternoon, we went to the Christmas program at the Grand Ole Opry auditorium. The girls liked the bear dances with this young girl.

The girls are very much into bears, so this sequence of bear dances was right up their alley. I always like the Nutcracker Suite music set to dance.

They had a precision drill of whiteclad "toy soldiers" to Nutcracker music, like last year. It culminates with a firing of the cannon to take down the column of soldiers.

After breakfast on Monday morning, Jeff and I stood around and watched the fountains next to the Cascade restaurant for a while. It's a relaxing place, and the jumping fountains are fascinating.

We walked around the gardens at the Opryland Hotel to see the plants and the Christmas decorations. Brenda sits with the girls at the poinsetta tree in the Delta area.

The decorations for Christmas were well underway, and added to the natural beauty of the gardens around the canal.

There were lots of places to clown around and take touristy pictures. And occasionally a nice portrait like that of Ashleigh below.

There are a lot of spots of great beauty in the gardens of Opryland, and it is a very relaxing place. Scenes like this remind us of why we come back often. They do a great job with the plants, and Ashleigh was very impressed with the healthy bunch of bananas they were growing on one of the their trees.

I was impressed with the number of beautiful orchids that they had attached to the trees, and the generally high level of care for the plants.