Nashville Girls' Trip

So, where to begin? For the England girls' trip this time, they spent a weekend in Nashville, TN. Now, Nashville is known for its country music, which isn't Emily's favorite, but turns out everyone else still somehow likes it enough that they wanted to go to Nashville to experience it first-hand. Emily was mostly looking forward to enjoying the food scene. She said she kind of felt like the step-sister in Ever After who said, "I'm only here for the food."

A couple of days leading up to the trip, Hadley, Cambri, and Harlow all got sick and started throwing up. It wasn't pretty, but us adults seemed fine. The night before the trip, we toyed around with the idea of Emily just staying home, but my hope was she could ship out before getting infected with whatever this bug was. 

I was wrong.

* * *

FRIDAY, 24 MARCH

We dropped Emily off at the airport early Friday morning. My original plan was to take the girls to get breakfast on our way home, but they weren't feeling it. They actually all fell asleep on our drive back to the house, so I hit up Taco Bell for some grilled sausage, egg, and cheese burritos.

Emily sent me a text shortly after she landed to say that she thought she was getting what the girls had. From the time Emily left Seattle and landed in Nashville, Cambri had thrown up twice and Harlow had some gnarly diarrhea. Hadley was mostly just feeling really tired at this point. Other than the throwing up, Cambri seemed fine, she just couldn't keep anything down. So far the girls were refusing to take medicine or Pepto Bismol, but I managed to convince Cambri to finally take some. But it was mostly me being unsuccessful at trying to get them to take some Pepto Bismol, and that it would help their tummies feel better.

Anyway, Emily and the girls went out to dinner and Emily couldn't hardly eat her catfish sandwich because she didn't feel well. It was also the only thing she ate all day besides two bagels.

In the parking lot after leaving the restaurant, it happened. Emily tried to discretely throw up, but just absolutely unloaded everything she had eaten that day. As much as she was hoping nobody noticed, it was pretty much impossible at that point. When they got home she went to bed, hoping to feel better in the morning. 

Back at home, the girls and I were having a nice chill day aside from them throwing up and having diarrhea and me cleaning up the throw up and diarrhea. Other than that, they all really seemed fine. I was really worried I would be up all night with the girls, but they all slept great, which was a welcomed surprise.

* * *

SATURDAY, 26 MARCH

Emily woke up really hungry, obviously, and was still feeling nauseous, but overall was feeling better.

The girls were also feeling better, and we still needed some carpet cleaner, so we headed to Walmart Saturday morning. The girls were basically back to normal now, just Harlow still with the massive blowouts on a scale I hadn't seen from any of the girls before. While at Walmart, I started feeling clammy and a little nauseous. I knew my time was about to come. We got our supplies and stickers for the girls to decorate their new water bottles and headed home.

It was while I was helping them put stickers on their water bottles that it hit me. I upchucked pretty good. A little bit later when Emily was video chatting with the girls, I had to go do it again. It was super painful, probably the most violent throwing up I've ever experienced. Sorry, TMI. 

Over in Nashville, the girls got to their site-seeing in the downtown area. The noise on the main street was a little too much for Gma Rae to handle, so they ended up going on some backroads and into more sketchy areas.

They stopped off at Ole Red's for lunch, where Emily got some peach habanero chicken wings that weren't as spicy as advertised.

They then stopped off at some auditorium that is apparently famous for something. 

They then headed to a chocolate factory that Whitni really wanted to see. Emily said it was mostly just bitter dark chocolates.

There wasn't only dark chocolates, though. Here's some fine white chocolate right here:

Apparently when you visit a chocolate factory you take a lot of pictures.

Cambri wanted me to ask Emily for a picture of baby Lakai. 

"Aw, so cute." -Cambri.

Harlow has a tendency to fall asleep wherever she is, and we've learned if we don't get to her in time, that it's best to just leave her. She was sitting up against the corner of the couch just below where I was sitting. A little bit later I noticed I couldn't see her anymore, so got up to go see where she was. Then saw that she had fallen asleep while sitting up, and had then tipped over.

* * * 

SUNDAY, 26 MARCH

The girls were feeling better, but I was nowhere close to it. I continued to throw up throughout Sunday morning. As I'm throwing up in the kitchen sink, Cambri was pulling on my arm to try to get me to put shoes on her Barbie. Zero concern or acknowledgment of what I was going through. Hadley then came over and said, "Daddy, you should take some Pepto Bismol, it will help your tummy feel better."

Harlow had spit up some, but overall had remained her happy self. Still with the crazy diarrhea, though.

For weeks prior to the trip, Emily had been lamenting about how she wanted to try Nashville hot chicken, but didn't think anyone else would want to, so she never mentioned it to the other girls on the trip. So, imagine her excitement when Whitni said they should go get some Nashville hot chicken, and even wanted to go to the same place Emily had researched. Gma Rae ordered the plainest chicken she could get, and also apparently said eating spicy food was the same as drinking alcohol. Emily and Lindsea were the only ones that finished their hot chicken.

Back at home, everyone was done throwing up at this point, but I was still pretty light-headed and was feeling pretty nauseous, but Cambri insisted that we go for a walk. For some reason that is unknown to us, she has started requesting that we take her picture next to every fire hydrant we come across. 

I don't know.

One of the main things Emily was looking forward to was being able to eat at a celebrity chef's restaurant. So for dinner Sunday night, they all went to Maneet Chauhan's Ale and Masala House.

We've watched Maneet on Guy's Grocery Games and Tournament of Champions, which she won in its second year and got this cool belt. Guy always calls her the Spice Queen, so Emily was looking forward to seeing if that title held up.

Emily got the saag and said it was good. She was surprised how bland it was, though, and that if she wanted spiciness, she had to add it herself. Everyone else was like me, and got the Tikka Masala or butter chicken. I told Emily we weren't introduced to Indian food until later in life, so aren't quite as adventurous with it yet.

Our last night without mom was spent outside by our little fire pit making little s'mores out of Teddy Grahams and chocolate chips. We filled the little fire pit with wood pellets and it put out quite the flame. Not really ideal for s'mores, but we didn't care.

 

The girls had a lot of fun with it, though.

On their last night in Nashville, the girls gifted out some of their favorite things. Emily gave out adult coloring books this time. Gma Rae gave out these hologram-esc statue blocks of the Christus statue. Not even a week prior, I had mentioned to Emily that I wanted to get a Christus statue for our living room, and she said they always reminded her of old people houses. She said this was pretty cool, and would go great on our floating shelves.

They then stayed up until 2am talking, and Emily had to be up by 5am to get to the airport. 

Monday morning I dropped Hadley off at school and headed down in time to get Emily from the airport. It was nice to have her home, because I was absolutely exhausted. So yeah, it was a pretty wild weekend.