The Fourth in Music City

Meet Derek and Shantal Moody.

They're super cool.

Derek is Jon's cousin and Shantal and I danced together at BYU...

a perfect match really.

When they moved to Chicago last year we've been scheming of ways to get together ever since...

and we came up with meeting up in the middle for fourth of July.

Which means- we all met up in Nashville, Tennessee... Music City and the heart of country music.
(Sorry this post is so long and overloaded with pictures... we just had a LOT of fun!)

We drove 7 hours...

We booked a super cheap, sketcherific hotel in downtown Nashville...
but it turned out not being so bad!
We've definitely had WAY worse.
So we were quite happy.

Saturday morning we headed to Nashville's Farmers Market.

 Mmmm... peaches... the smell was intoxicating.

We went to the "Country Music Hall of Fame" Museum...
but found out it cost to get in.
Lame.

So we ended up browsing the gift shop and finding tacky clothing.

It kind of bothered me how country music claims Elvis
(at least in Nashville)
...was he or was he not the "King" of Rock N' Roll?

We walked around downtown Nashville...

Tried on $300 Cowboy boots...

And had LOTS of rockin' BBQ.

We found the Parthenon in Centennial Park...

and couldn't resist the urge for jumping pics.

Walking around Vanderbilt... we ran into the U2 concert!

Wahoo!

(although... we were a little bit too early for U2-

Florence and the Machine opened for them)

Swingin' in the park...

Sunday we all got dressed for church...

and realized we were red, white and blue.

We're so patriotic.

And since we were on a patriotic kick,

we headed over to Andrew Jackson's old plantation... The Hermitage.

The Jackson Mansion

 Geeked out with our super cool headphones on our audio tour

 It was SOOOOOOOO hot...

 We tried to rest in the shade whenever we could...

 Tomb of General Jackson and his wife, Rachel.

Then it was to the Grand Ole Opry for a backstage tour...

We couldn't convince Jon to go to a "Grand Ole Opry" country concert.

In fact- we were all pretty good about making fun of country music the whole weekend.

 We even sang on the stage and got a standing ovation ;)

 We wanted to live up the Nashville experience,
and wanted to try out some of the places from that TV show- "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives"
Well- turns out that most of the places were DIVES in Nashville.

See the bars in the windows...
Shady.

MONDAY was the fourth!
We started out by going to Nashville's "HOT" chicken festival!

We stood in line...

for two hours...

for some of "Prince's Hot Chicken".

We got about 10 people away,
and they told us they were out of chicken.
Seriously?
We're at a chicken festival and you run out of chicken?
BUT we waited around for another hour...
and they brought more- phew!
Was it worth it?

Heck yes!
Best "hot" chicken I've ever had.
Jon got extra spice on his... and nearly died.

We visited the State Capitol...

AND of course,
we made our way downtown...

To sit with 125,000 other sticky, sweaty people...

to listen to a Darius Rucker concert...

and of course,
to be amazed by Nashville's firework show!

 

And there you have it...

a wonderful fourth of July,

with wonderful company,

in wonderful Music City.

Although there are beautiful countries and people all over the world...

I am proud to be an American.

It's Been A Long Time Coming...

The search for the perfect job...

It's a long road!

I've wanted to be a dance teacher my WHOLE life, but in 9th grade I had my "Career Exploration" teacher tell me that dance teachers didn't make any money... so I couldn't pick that occupation.

Real encouraging, huh?

For several years I was so confused about what I wanted to do...

Dietetics, Elementary School Teacher, Exercise Science-

none of it fit.

That is, until I stumbled upon the "Dance Education" program at BYU.

It was perfect.

I loved every second of it, and was so excited for student teaching and being able to teach in a public education setting.

Enter Jon Brame.

I fell pretty hard, and pretty fast for this boy.

I had two years left of school... he had one.

After his graduation he was planning on leaving and going to grad school...

 and I didn't wanna lose this kid.

SO I changed my major to Dance and graduated with him.
I knocked off a year of school, but that meant

no teaching certificate.

But it was ok- because I had Jon :)

I took a job teaching at a dance studio.

It was a great learning experience- but not quite exactly what I envisioned with my life.

I dreamed of teaching older kids...

Not pre-schoolers.

I love how sweet 2-5 year olds are, 

but I just wanted to be doing something more with my degree.

 So I went back to school this past semester and got my Texas Teaching Certificate.

Lots of Saturday classes, lots of online classes, and lots and LOTS of applying for jobs.

With the budget cuts this year, I lost hope in getting a teaching job.

I was prepared to go back to the studio I previously worked at, 

or work at Burger King ;)

But this past Monday I traveled BACK to Houston to interview with three different schools...

an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school.

I had to cover all ages...
 AND

 I'm so excited to say that I accepted a full time dance teaching position at
North Shore Senior High School!!!!!!!!!!!

 I am now a Mustang-
and proud of it!