Nashville

 For our anniversay this year, Heather and I took a vacation, just the two of us, to Nashville, TN, the home of country music! 

Day 1, we went to the iconic Grand Old Opry for a tour and to check out the history of the music

Giant guitars on the front lawn!

The tour was great, we got to see everything from behind the sceens to the famous stage!

What an iconic venue

After the Grand Ole Opry, we went over to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Cenvention Center, so just walk around their huge indoor atrium and gardens. It was decoracted for Christmas with giant ornaments....

 and 16 celebrity decorated Christmas trees

We found all 16 trees and took a picture in front of each one...but that's alot of pictures, so I just included these two.

And, of course, huge guitars hanging from the ceiling!

We also went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, another amazing tour of how country music became country music

Such a rich history and amazing to see how many artists have impacted music!

We also went and explored The Gulch, a great nieghborhood between Nashville's Music Row and Downtown. Lots of shops, food and plenty to see! Pit stop at Hops & Crafts for a snack and a beer!

Walking around Nashville, you can't help but see all the awesome murals on the sides of buildings!

The dutch girl!

We found the iconic "What Lifts You" butterfly wings!

...and I found some good wings too!

The Ryman!

On our last day, we headed to the 12 South neighborhood to explore, shop and eat!

We stopped at Five Daughters Bakery for some doughnuts...they were pretty solid!

We had a great time exploring Nashville, listening to live music and seeing the city at Christmas time! We would highly recommend it and would totally go again!

Christmas cookies

Another annual tradition at our house is to make Christmas cookies! This year we tried our hand at making the cookie dough from scratch! Add all the ingredients and then mix.

Garrett is all smiles as we get this party started

Rolling out the dough and getting out the cookie cutters

more smiles from this guy

Trigg making cookies

Not everyone enjoys pictures in their jammies...

The whole crew!

Once the cookies were made/baked/cooled, time to decorate

Frosting and some sprinkles

Two thumbs up!

Frosting stations

Those are some good looking cookies

Yum!

The ladies working on frosting

Garrett and his gingerbread man

A wooden shoe Christmas cookie!

We love making Christmas cookies each year as Christmas approaches, we make a big batch and then we also love giving them away to friends and neighbors. It's a great tradition!
 

Lefsa

Every year as Christmas comes around, we head down to Indianola for our annual Lefsa making day. Lefsa is a traditional Norwegian potato bread.

Garrett and Grandpa manning the 500 degree skillet cooking the lefsa

Trigg tries his hand at the wood flipping stick

All smiles as we are making lefsa!

A fun tradition that marks the start of the Christmas season!