Catching Up (part 1)

Wow, a lot has happened since getting hired with YoungLife in Jacksonville and actually arriving in Florida! Here are the bullet points:

Some of my favorite people in Nashville, Stu and Taylor, got MARRIED! We all had so much fun celebrating and hanging out with their families (our adopted family) all weekend!

 Matt Wertz visited my classroom and gave us a private concert - it was easily one of my favorite moments of my whole teaching career. (Read more about that here.)

That night, I went with my friend Liz to Drew Holcomb's concert at the Ryman. Any show at the Ryman is incredible, but Drew (+ the Neighbors) knocked it out of the park! One of the best things about going to one of Drew's shows in Nashville is that Ellie almost always makes an appearance!

 The NEXT DAY in Nashville was the Iroquois Steeplechase. I had been wanting to go ever since I moved to town, but it just hadn't happened. This year, my friends Lecia and Natalie were going and I ended up joining them at the last minute. I'm so glad I did! Check that one off the bucket list. :)

Needless to say, that weekend was a FULL one, but so much fun!!

 For Memorial Day weekend, I flew to Washington D.C. so that I could join the bike trip crew for the first time in 3 years. Our very best friends from Texas came this year, along with the Wiggins, the Hughes, and the Johnsons. This was the first time in probably 15 years that all 7 of the Horvath/Peacock kids had been together at once, and we had so much fun laughing and catching up!

This is a recreation of the same pose that we did a couple of different times when the Horvath's came to Goldsboro to visit. I found the pictures in a box while I was home for Easter, and we decided that we had to do it again!

 After the D.C. Bike Trip, I went back to North Carolina for about a week and a half, and got home to Nashville just in time for CMA fest and to see the Preds almost win the Stanley Cup!

CMA fest is so much fun, but it was SO HOT. OMG, I don't know how people go out there and stay all day. I was thankful I could take an Uber downtown for an hour and then go back home to the air-conditioning!

 During the week after CMA Fest, Johnnyswim announced that they were doing a secret show in Nashville that coming Sunday. My friend, Jen, is married to their manager so I texted her and said, "Ok what do I need to do to get a ticket? Stand in line? Go to their website?" She said, "Actually, I'm going to try to get you a wristband, just come hang out with me!" I ended up spending most of that Sunday afternoon doing just that and I had such a great time. Johnnyswim always puts on a great show, but it was fun to get to spend some time with Jen outside of working together at school!

 Some of Mallory's best friends were back in Nashville for the summer with the Sounds (the Triple A team for the Oakland A's) so it was fun getting to go to so many baseball games with Lindsey!

 I am so glad that Haley was able to come visit at the end of June! I love being a tourist in my own town, and having Haley in town was such a fun excuse to do that! It was also a good excuse to do yoga (Haley) and handstands (me) in front of the Parthenon. :)

A couple of days after Haley went back to NC, Mary arrived! Having 2 of my best friends come to visit so close together was so much fun - it felt like I was on vacation too!! On Mary's first day in town, we went down to Broadway for lunch (which, in my opinion, is the way to do it because you avoid the insane crowds at night). We ended up sitting at the bar at Nudie's Honky Tonk for a couple of hours because the band was that good. They played everything and everyone there was having a blast!

Stay tuned for part 2 of the summer coming later.