Garth Brooks

For our anniversary I got Jarom tickets to go see Garth Brooks in concert! Something he told me years ago that he'd LOVE to go see but didn't think he'd ever get to since Garth was retired. I was so happy to find that for him!

So I don't know where my mind was when I bought tickets, but I knew that the trip would take at least 9 hours and that I couldn't leave Livy with anyone since she is exclusively nursed and eats every 3 hours. And I didn't want Addie to be upset that we were going somewhere without her for that long, so I bought tickets for everyone, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal. Yep, we brought two kids to a concert! Haha! We've taken Addie tons of places and on more trips than I can count, even when she was small so I figured it wouldn't be that much different with two. We have taken Addie to Vipers arena football games since she was TINY so we figured that a country concert wouldn't be any crazier (and we were right). I bought protective ear muffs for the girls and really they acted like angels during the entire concert and even slept through 90% of it, I just didn't anticipate what a hassle it is to take two kids on a trip!

We thought we'd make a day of it, so we headed North around lunch, grabbed some Chick-fil-a for lunch (a family favorite) and arrived in Nashville about two hours later. The plans were to walk through Opryland hotel because they put on such a display of Christmas lights, eat a nice dinner, then go to the concert and head home. Jarom wasn't able to get time off work for us to stay overnight so we were just making the best of it.

So we get on the exit for the hotel and traffic was AWFUL! We weren't moving at all. For-ev-er. Livy is screaming her head off by this point and traffic wouldn't move and we were blocked in, no way to turn around or pull off! After her screaming for about 20 minutes (poor baby was starved) and we hadn't even moved a car link, I finally stuck the nose of my car into the traffic that WAS moving somewhat and forced my way into the moving lane. I was able to pull over to an empty parking lot of some wax museum that was closed due to the floods in Nashville earlier last year. I saved my little booger from her screaming and fed her in the car while Jarom helped Addie get some pent up energy out by racing her in the parking lot.

We are a little happier now and so we try to get back to go into the hotel. Traffic was terrible and we spent another 30 minutes in traffic just sitting in line to pull into the parking lot (blocked in again) and we finally get parked. We walk half a mile to the darn hotel in the frigid cold and get inside to find that there are barely ANY lights up and that the atrium isn't stroller friendly with TONS of stairs. REALLY??? The only saving grace was that the hotel had something called "Ice" and "Snow" outside so we went back outside, walked another half mile to find out that the "Ice" was an ice sculpture museum (No thanks) and that the "snow" was a parking lot full of fake snow that you had to pay $15 per person to play in. Addie went nuts wanting to play in the snow, and luckily since she was under 4 they only charged Jarom to play and I managed to talk them out of charging me since I'd be sitting on the side with Livy safely away from blowing snow! Addie and Jarom had fun playing in the snow, but they weren't properly dressed for outdoors and soon became VERY cold! There wasn't anywhere to get warm, just an open barn where you could buy hot chocolate so I tried to warm up with hot chocolate to no avail.

Jarom showing Addie how to make snow angelsLuckily after about 3o minutes, they were done playing. Addie was frozen solid and in tears due to her hands being so cold since cotton gloves just don't cut it, so we bought some more hot chocolate and went back to the car. By this time we are all hungry and miserable and we realized that there isn't enough time for dinner before the concert so we just headed to the concert. Once there Jarom bought popcorn and hotdogs for us. Addie quickly proceeded to spilling the giant (must be gold plated it was so expensive) popcorn down the back of the sweet man in front of us who said he had 4 of his own, thank heavens. Sigh. Everyone around us couldn't get over how cute the girls were with their little pink muffs and one guy even asked if he could take a picture of Livy to show his wife when he got home. Just minutes after the concert started both girls fell asleep and stayed asleep until a few minutes before it ended! I guess the protective ear muffs worked wonderfully. Garth put on an amazing show and Trisha Yearwood performed too! Garth played all of our favorites and we really did enjoy the concert. After several encore songs though, it was getting late so we skipped out early and headed back to the car hoping to grab some more food before heading home since a handful of popcorn and a hot dog doesn't fill you up! We tried 3 exits to find that everywhere was closed except Waffle House and finally settled on that. We got our bellies full finally and headed home, arriving home a little after 1 AM exhausted! The girls did great on the way home and we all crashed in bed.

While we still had fun, and the girls were pretty good the whole time, I don't think we'll ever attempt to take our kiddos to a concert again! Not that we go to concerts regularly anyways! I guess you live and learn!