Spring Break!!

Spring Break in Tennessee... What a good time. Some of our time off from the old grind included lots of sleep, Little House on the Prairie, cleaning, and driving. And that's just the beginning...

Saturday- Drove North to Marion, Ky (2+ hrs) where we tried to live our dream of getting to know the amish; however, although kind and very talented, they don't seem to want to get to know us (my one attempt at chit chat ended quickly). Then we backtracked to Stake Conference in Paducah, Ky (1 hr). Once back at our hotel, at 9:30pm, Shay discovered that she craved a salad so I got her one at the huddle house down the road at a gas station. 

Sunday- More stake conference and the drive home (2 hrs). We finally got a taste of what stake conference is like with an infant. 

Monday-Thursday- Would you believe that VCR's are antiques now?! We spent two of our days in two of McKenzie's huge antique "malls" looking for a VCR (we need it to digitalize family movies). Out of at least 500 booths we found ONE... and had to return it because it ate our tape... Bummer. 

We bought a plastic wading pool from Rural King (who cares about walmart... we have rural king). Trace loves it.

Friday- The worlds biggest fish fry is just 20 minutes north of us in Paris, TN... we had all you can eat fried fish, hushpuppies, vinegar cole slaw, and beans. The eating was great, and the few pieces of bottom feeder fish that I got were the only traces of mortality that attended the moment. The parade prior to the fish fry consisted of, what seemed like, hundreds of pageant children and rock band youth ministries. Based on the number of queens, princesses, 1st 2nd 3rd and even 4th attendants; everyone seems to be a winner in the Paris area 

Saturday- We spent all day in Franklin; a historic civil war town just 20 miles south of Nashville where the most bloody 15 minutes of American History took place. We went to the temple, visited the Carnton Plantation, did some shopping, and stopped on our way out of town at the best BBQ joint we have been to so far. A festival was going on all day in the down town, but Shay insisted that we wade through the people just far enough to see if it truly was the town that the Hannah Montana movie was filmed in... and it was.

So thats it for our Spring break. We loved getting to visit some places we've been hoping to see while we're here and eating some really great southern food... School starts back up again on Monday. Here we go again!

 Hotel In Paducah KY

AMISH

Travelin

 Hangin At Home

SWIMMIN

 FISH Fry

 Nashville Temple

Franklin TN (Craley Corners)

 BB's BBQ

Missin' our COUNTRY

Chris 'n I have been missin' the COUNTRY like crazy.. 

We live in a small town, but the best we can do around here is our 6-pot garden on our back porch, 

stalking the Amish and watching Little House on the Prairie. We arent worried about ever becoming

citified, but it is our goal not to resemble our neighbors to much and become white trash. 

But if that happens at least we'll be friendly (dont get us wrong, we like our neighbors). 

Cant wait to get back to our roots!

Pic Of The Week

Lil Mess..

1st Break!

 Chris had his 1st much needed break from school, so we headed out to UT. to see his family and do some photo shoots for the Rays!! We had such a good time seeing so many people we love! Katherine was such a good sport to come with us and watch Trace while we took pictures! Also Amy Johnson drove from Logan to see us! She is such a doll! We're already excited for his next break :)

LIFE

Our little binky

We've finally gotten into a pretty steady routine. I go to school 5 days a week, study in the mornings, evenings, and weekends. Shayna spends her days working on photo projects, protecting Trace from himself, and holding down the fort. Trace has turned into a wild man. He is army crawling now (we've been trying to teach him to crawl for a month now...bet it's hard to tell he's our first child). He also acts like binky the cow, hates getting his diaper changed, and babbles a lot. Shayna is enjoying living in Tennessee where the UPS man stops by, if you're out on your porch, just to say hi and you get stopped in walmart 5 times so people both old and young can poke and prod your baby. Trace just stares. I think Shayna is looking forward to the wedding she will be doing in Utah in March. I am loving school now that the boot camp feel has worn off and I've learned to thrive off of the unpredictable. The most exciting recent event was our tornado warning. Our little town was on tornado watch about 2 weeks ago during the night. The locals told us to put our mattress in our bath tub and hide under it if the alarm sounded... we still aren't sure how to do that because our mattress is a king and our bathroom is the size of a twin. They also told us that tornados sound like trains... this is also troubeling because we live right accross from 2 sets of train tracks. Thankfully the train noises that night were ligitimate and not the result of a tornado. We also live a block away from the tornado siren so we will be well informed.

Here's a little video of our little binky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RCPjNrVNIE

PA-School/Boot Camp

Besides the sound of the Tennesseean Freight Train coming through our house at all hours of the night and day.. I really like it here!(they seem to time it perfect, right when Trace falls asleeep.)
I think I underestimated a lil' the work load Chris would be taking on, it makes for a lot of one on one w/ Trace. Good thing I have a lil' buddy! 
Chris goes to bed late and wakes up at about  5 every morning. He takes his cup of warm grits on his 10 min. walk to school. I feel so lucky I get to spend my time @ home with Trace, compared to Chris' 7 tests in a 5 day school week. He is such a hard worker and good sport. I admire his dedication, it will sure bless our lives in the future! 
In the mean time.. Trace and I keep ourselves busy and look forward to when daddy gets home :)

Trace McGregor Nelson- 6 months old

We made a video to show off our very loved Tracer. He is 6 months old now, and is starting to learn some new "tricks". Click on the link to see it.

http://youtu.be/xI1P2W83WH8

McKenzie...Our Town

We've had two weeks now in our new town; McKenzie, Tennessee. Home of long drawn out conversations. Everyone we have met, from Larry the Maytag man to Frank our landlord, has shared much of their life history in the first few minutes of meeting them. Larry even stayed at our home for a good 30 minutes after installing our washer and dryer...what a champ. We pass people on the street that just start talking, invite us to their church, and share some personal things from their life...we feel honored, and most of the time it's not too awkward. McKenzie is one of those towns where most of the stores don't accept credit or debit cards, are closed on Wednesdays, and have retained their old fashioned hospitality. McKenzie has many bragging rights. Like the time Bob Hope came and saved the college from bankruptcy decades ago, and the other time when Wal*Mart left town because the people loved their hardware stores more. The surrounding towns have also won a spot on the map for things like the worlds largest fish fry (Paris TN), the worlds largest possum hunt, and the official Christy TV Show fan festival. What more could we hope for?!

Our Town