Nashville Weekend

This past weekend we took a mini baby moon, or really just a quick trip to Nashville to visit some friends and explore the fun city. Ben's room mate from college, Collin is one of our best friends and moved to Nashville after we all graduated from Texas A&M. We were blessed to get to spend some sweet time with him and have him as our tour guide for the weekend. :)

We started our time in Nashville early Friday morning, our quick flight landed at a little after nine. We spent our morning meeting Collin's room mates and walking around downtown. It's funny because it really didn't feel like we did that much walking but that night we noticed my feet swelling for the first time during pregnancy.. yikes! After our morning of walking we decided we needed to try the Nashville classic, hot chicken.

Fried chicken is usually something  I wouldn't really choose to order.. but let me tell you... we LOVED Hattie B's! Ben and Collin both got "hot" chicken and I ordered "mild" which was plenty hot for me. We also got a variety of side dishes and the pimento mac and cheese was truly amazing. Yum! I want to try and make some. :) After lunch we headed to the Green Hills Mall, because somehow I forgot to bring pants on this trip. Yikes! Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal and I could just rewear what I had or something.. but being that I'm rocking a growing belly I knew it would be best for my confidence and overall attitude if we just swung by Pea in the Pod and picked up a pair of my favorite maternity jeans. It actually worked out because my other pair was a size too big (I'll share more about my maternity clothes picks soon!) so I felt better in this size anyway. Overall victory.

After that adventure we stopped at Jeni's Ice Cream. I had heard about it from so many sweet people and was dying to try. Now again, I'm usually inclined to choose any other dessert over ice cream, but Jeni's turned out to be an exception. I fell in love with the atmosphere and the many yummy flavors we sampled. We were over samplers for sure. Oh well! :) I settled on Brambleberry crisp and Lemon Buttermilk Frozen Yogurt. Amazing!!

We then headed to our Airbnb to check in. I'd highly recommend staying there. It was such a smooth process and a great, clean place to stay in a wonderful location (between Belmont and 12th South). Our hosts were so sweet and really set things up wonderfully for us. 

We freshened up and ate a big dinner at Husk. We missed out on being able to get a reservation at Husk's Charleston location when we went on our honeymoon.. and had thought about it since. I'm sad to report that it was kind of a letdown. Between the three of us, we all agreed that our food was just okay. I'd recommend saving your money and going somewhere else. 

The next morning we decided to take advantage of all the food our airbnb hosts had left for us and cooked breakfast at our place. Collin and Ben loved cooking together in college and so it was a sweet flashback and just a great morning of quality time together. 

As you can see we had breakfast sandwiches.. egg, cheese, onion, and avocado on whole wheat bagels. YUM! 

We then headed to the 12th South neighborhood, and I anticipated correctly that it would be my favorite spot of the trip. The boys were very patient as I got my shop on. :) 

We peeked through the windows waiting in anticipation for Draper James to open.. eek! 

We stopped by Five Daughters Bakery for donuts.. let me just say YUM. You must go here. YOU MUST. 

We tried Maple, Chocolate Sea Salt, and Vanilla Sugar. Ben and Collin loved Chocolate Sea Salt and I want to live in a world where I get to eat a maple donut each week that has 0 calories, please. 

We still had about 30 minutes to enjoy the cool morning & wait for the shops to open, so we hopped in the car with our donuts and drove around the neighborhoods with the windows down looking at homes. We would have walked but after my puffy feet I was a little bit over it. :) The houses were so fun to look at so I'd highly recommend this activity. :) 

We popped into the super cute White's Mercantile & then headed to Draper James. DJ is Reese Witherspoon's clothing and home brand.. and I'm mildly obsessed. I was so excited that the boys were joking about telling me they were closed today to see me freak out! 

When we walked in the sweet sales ladies offered us sweet tea and the boys accepted. They drank their tea in the sitting area for a few minutes and then decided to head to get coffee and let me soak it all in. I was in there for a ridiculously long amount of time considering I couldn't try on any clothes, haha! I made friends with a sweet worker named Elizabeth and she told me tons of fun details about the products and the interior designer that designed the store.

I left with a pillow and a ton of interior inspiration. :) There are several pieces from the spring line that I loved and am hoping will go on sale around the time this belly gets a little smaller!

A really wonderful treat of the weekend was my sweet blogging friend Sarah coming up to have lunch with me. She lives in Alabama and I was so grateful that she would take the time to come see me. :) 

We had such a sweet time together & I hope we'll meet again soon.. if not we'll just keep texting about anything and everything for the time being. Haha! :) 

We ate at Bartaco, A++ atmosphere, A+ side dishes, B on the actual taco. :) 

After parting ways with Sarah, Ben, Collin & I stopped by Jeni's again (yikes!) and then headed south out of town to visit my dear friend Meredith and her family. We had such a sweet evening talking and snuggling her sweet babies. 

My Picks for Nashville: 

Stay: 

Airbnb between Belmont & 12th South 

Eat: 

Hattie B's 

Bartaco 

Five Daughters Bakery 

Jenny's Ice Creams 

Shop: 

White's Mercantile 

Draper James