December 2013
Last year my best friend, Laura, mentioned taking the girls (our three oldest daughters) to see the Rockettes In Nashville. Laura had just had a baby so the timing wasn’t right last year but this year we made it a priority! After Haley’s Christmas party at school we hit the road! We decided to go up a day early and stay with some family. Justin and Erin LeGrand live in Nashville and we asked if we could come for a visit. We loved getting to catch up with them and see their newly renovated house. My only regret from this trip is not getting a picture taken with Justin and Erin! A Platten family Christmas tradition is to eat lunch with the LeGrands in St. Louis the day after Christmas…and to take a group picture. I know we won’t be at that lunch, so we should have taken a picture of our own get-together!
We treated ourselves to milkshakes at Steak n’ Shake to kick off the weekend right!
Friday we had most of the day to play until Laura and her girls got to Nashville. We started the day off getting our nails painted, then drove to Opry Mills to eat at Rain Forest Café. That place was awesome- perfect for a mom-daughter date. We shopped, played Legos in the Lego store, took silly pictures, and wore ourselves out!! We decided to go rest for a bit at the hotel until the Holmes’ arrived.
There was an overbooking of our room so they upgraded us to two adjoining rooms! We didn’t mind a bit…the Moms got a room to share and the girls got their own room! After checking in, eating some chocolate (compliments of the hotel because of our “inconvenience”), we jumped on the bed and then rested while watching a movie. We met Laura, Caitlyn, and Emily at the Aquarium restaurant for dinner before going to see the movie, Frozen. The restaurant was awesome, we learned a lot about fish, and were just excited to be together. The girls didn’t stop gabbing or giggling…and neither did their moms!
After the movie- which was AWESOME!!! – we pretended to either be frozen or ice skating all the way to our room. The girls got new matching pajamas…with snowflakes all over…and laid in bed talking the rest of the night. Caitlyn made a book for Haley as a Christmas gift- such a treasure! As Laura and I laid in bed talking and listening to the girls in the other room we agreed this was our college dream come true- that our girls would love each other like family and genuinely enjoy being together.
I took this picture of Haley, age 6, at the Grand Ole Opry. She has aspirations to “own the stage” during the Singing Christmas Tree at church. She even prays for this often. One thing I know about God- He often answers our prayers in ways we could not even dream or imagine. So, just in case her future includes an amazing singing career, I thought I’d do all the talk shows a favor and take this picture of her where one day she may just own this stage!
I had so much fun being care free and focused on Haley. She doesn’t get that undivided attention much and it helped me realize that we need more time together like that and what a fun kid she is! She is growing up. I hope weekends like this will keeps us especially close and keep those communication lines OPEN!
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