Pretty Lights and Sore Feet!

Merry "Early" Christmas! The Christmas Season is here and in full force. I really do love this time of year for many reasons. No matter what someone's spiritual mindset, I think most everyone looks towards this time of year with hope and a sense of excitement that supersedes the presents and food. I tell myself every year that i'm not going to get caught up in the gifts and the craziness that the month Of December brings. However earlier in the week, me and tara found ourselves in a desperate gift shortage for everyone. We decided that we needed to make a run to Nashville and try to knock everything out in one large adventure. So Tuesday morning we awoke and headed to Nashvegas about 9am hoping to return with no more shopping to do. Our friend Andrew Peterson ushered us along our way setting the mood with his always popular Behold the Lamb Christmas show. We first stopped in Mt. Juliet and browsed target, books a million and a few others i don't remember. At this point in the day I was pretty upbeat about shopping but my love would soon diminish as the steps and hours added up. After about an hour we headed on to Opry Mills to the food court where we would enjoy some bourbon chicken/fried rice from our friends at Kelly's Cajun grill. Flash forward a few hours and what seemed like a million steps my love had faded and I was slowly turning into the Grinch who stole Christmas. About mid afternoon we met up with The Don and Judy who happened to be in Nashville shopping as well. Judy employed me for about 30 minutes to walk the Don around while she slipped off to do some shopping for the big D. If you know the Don you will find a humorous picture in your head of me and Don walking thru Opry mills. We are not what you would call two major shoppers. After that we realized that we had exhausted our Opry Mills honey hole and headed back to Mt. Juliet to pick up a few things we had seen there. Then it was time for a trip to the Big Olive Garden where we used the 'no wait' no smoking bar seating that was actually nice and kind secluded. After about 5 Dr. peppers and raspberry sweet tea's we were off to the Opryland Hotel to see the lights. Tara had never seen the lights and was quite excited to see them for the first time. Just a little bit of advice to the two people who will prob end up reading this. If your gonna go see the lights, bypass the $16 dollar parking and park in the lot of Opry Mills that adjoins the theater in the mall. You can park and walk thru a little walkway right into the back of the hotel. Once again it was quite beautiful and mind boggling thinking about how many lights there were. It was quite relaxing walking along the river and watching the cool lighted water spout show. The flowers were quite amazing too. It was a fun night from a photography stand point as well. I always enjoy fiddling with different settings and trying to get that perfect shot. I have given you a few samples of the photos that we took in the course of the night. If you want to see the rest check out our flicker page for more Christmas light pictures.
I pray that God continues to bless each of you as we draw closer to Christmas and that we don't get blinded by all the pretty lights and big gifts and lose sight of the Birth Of Our Savior Jesus.