Jessica's parents decided to take a trip to Nashville to visit Jessica's twin brother. They also brought Audra along, so that Jessica's brother and his long-time girlfriend could see her. Since I work a schedule that allows every other Friday off (and I was off this past Friday making this past weekend a 4-day weekend for me) and Nashville is a relatively short drive away from me, I drove up there to see all of them.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29
The long drive for Audra would be a test of how things would go when she makes the long move to Florida. On the way there, she did very well with no meltdowns.
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| Audra's first time out-of-state! |
I rolled in around 5:00 pm and started setting things up. Audra and my in-laws came in around 8:00 pm. Audra instantly made her uncle's place her own. She loved going up and down the stairs in his place, which is great to know. We had chicken tenders from
McDougal's for dinner. Afterwards, Audra got a bath, played a bit with Lego with her uncle, and went to bed.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 30
On Saturday afternoon, we went to the
Day Out with Thomas (
the Tank Engine) event at the
Tennessee Central Railway Museum. Lots of people were there, and train rides on Thomas occurred once every hour.
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| Audra and her uncle while waiting to board the train. |
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| Watching a video of herself before the train moved. |
Audra has gotten very good at waving bye-bye to all sorts of transportation modes (airplanes, cars, and now trains).
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| Bidding farewell as the train leaves on the next hourly ride. |
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| Continuing to bid farewell... |
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| Waving it in as the train returns from its trip. |
As part of the Day Out with Thomas event, there were magic shows and an animal petting farm among other things. While at the petting farm, rain swept through and some light flooding occurred.
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| Love that fresh-squeezed lemonade. |
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| Downpour. Lemonade stand operation has been suspended. |
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| Hmm...probably should not go out into that rain... |
Afterwards, Audra's uncle and his girlfriend suggested we go to
Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream. I had the
Backyard Mint and the
Sweet Cream Biscuits & Peach Jam on a sugar cone, and they were delicious! Audra was a huge fan of everyone's various flavors of ice cream.
And a little bit of fun after enjoying our ice cream.
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| Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Audra. |
Dinner was at
Edley's BBQ where we had hoped to watch the Baylor-Texas football game, but Longhorn Network isn't on DirecTV. The food more than made up for it, though.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31
On late Sunday afternoon, we went to the
Adventure Science Center where we paid half-price for arriving after 3:30 pm (they close at 5:00 pm). There were lots of things to play with!
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| Even big kids get to have fun here. |
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| Launching spaceships! |
For dinner, Audra's grandpa wanted chicken-fried steak, so Audra's uncle and his girlfriend suggested
Loveless Cafe. It's a quaint little area with a cafe, food store, gift shop, and various other boutique stores. There's also a private event center and lots of outdoor areas to hang out during the typical 1 to 1-1/2-hour wait for a party of six.
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| "Choo-choo!" goes the tank engine on uncle's head. |
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
On Labor Day, the in-laws and I took off around 7:30 am, since they had a long drive ahead of them. I left early to make some stops on the way back to Florida, which will be the subject of my next post. Audra did just as well on the ride home as she did on the way to Nashville, so it looks like she'll be going to Florida by car!
I had a wonderful long, 4-day weekend with my daughter and in-laws. I can't wait to see Audra again in 3 weeks (21 days to closing!).
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