40th Birthday- Last Part: Back to Beale & Memphis Museum of Art

We considered our few days back at home without the kids and dogs as my continued birthday celebration. :) That Friday we headed out around 9am to drive up to Missouri for the weekend to get the kids and dogs. We stopped off in Memphis on the way though for one last bit of sans children fun. *Grin*

The Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis was hosting an Impressionists Revolution traveling exhibit through October 8th and I very very much wanted to see the exhibit while it was this close to us. The Birmingham and Montgomery museum here in Alabama can get in some really cool traveling exhibits at times but not anything like this. We arrived at the museum around 1:30 that afternoon and spent the afternoon enjoying the exhibit and other galleries in the museum.








Museum of arts do not allow you to take pictures of any pieces that are within traveling exhibits so I don't have any pictures of the Impressionists exhibit to show but I can tell you that it was truly incredible!

Their is something undescribable about standing at the foot of a Monet, Sargeant, Cassatt, and so many others. It pulls you into a different world. I could have sat and gotten completely lost in so many of those paintings. Here are a few pictures (not ones I took) of pieces that were in the exhibit that were my particular favorites.


John Singer Sargent, American. 1856-1925. Ramon Subercaseaux in a Gondola, 1880


Moonlight, Mills at Pont Aven by Gaines Ruger Donoho.


A favorite of mine- Theodore Robinson, The Lane.

There were a few artists that we were not that familiar with and a few that were completely new to me. I loved learning about Maximilien Luce. You can view some his works, HERE, if your interested.

I really enjoyed seeing some of Mary Cassatt's paintings along with Monet, Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Degas, Cezanne, Manet, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro. It was a really great afternoon!

The museum DID allow pictures of their permanent collections. The following are a few of my favorite pieces from the Brooks Museum permanent collection.











Here's a few pictures from around the building....















After leaving the museum we headed over to downtown Memphis again to visit Beale street one last time. It's where we had started out one week prior for my birthday trip. We decided to eat dinner down on Beale.




Pyramid in Memphis




We ate dinner at BB Kings Blues Club. It's definitely a place we will return too if we ever eat on Beale again. Good food and they have live blues music while you eat.


I tried their fried dill pickles as an appetizer and loved them! Bryan can't stand pickles so he wouldn't touch them.




This guy was pretty good








We walked around Beale for a while before hopping back into the car and heading on up to Missouri.


Street performers








Singing family in the Elvis Presley courtyard

And after that it was Missouri or bust. Thankfully we made it to Missouri and didn't bust. We got in around midnight at my mother-in-laws house. Sooooo thankful for the time alone with Bryan and the chance to do so many fun things during that week. It was a week to remember for sure!

40th B-day Trip Part 8 ~ Heading home on Monday

On Monday we requested a late check out of 1pm so that we wouldn't have to rush around that morning and get ready to leave. We ordered room service for breakfast one last time. We called the bell boy to get our luggage and valet brought the car around. They kept it parked for us while we walked around the resort a bit more and did a little shopping.


One last picture on the balcony before we left. *Grin*

Here are a few more pictures I took as we were walking around that last day.


Grand lobby of Cascades section






Ceiling in lobby


Delta Island where we did some shopping


Valet parking off of Cascades- where we stayed.



Before leaving Nashville I had one thing I wanted to see. It's something I learned about a few years ago and have been longing to pay a visit to ever since.


Yes, I'm a fan! LOL! I grew up on the show. I have fond memories of watching the show on Friday evenings with great Aunt Lil and Uncle Bruce. It's a small museum run by Cooter himself. It's packed full of memorable for the show and sitting outside is one of the many general lee's that was used in the show. The museum houses a lot of photos from tapings of the shows which was fun to see, especially of the many general lee's being crashed on purpose.






Bryan and Dixie











The museum is FREE so if you too are a good ol' boys fan, check it out the next time your in Nashville. :)

We headed home after that. It was just a 4 hour drive back home for us. We stopped about an hour outside of Birmingham to have dinner at Cracker Barrel. We had to laugh because the food tasted awful and we are pretty sure that it was simply because the night before we had had such an incredible meal at the steakhouse. Funny how a taste of high on the hog living can leave normal tasting awful. LOL!


I just had to take this picture to show the difference between Bryan and I. Note how the air on his side was set for 79 and my side was set for 69. *Grin*

We made it home just in time to see the sunset.



It was soooo strange walking back into the house without the kids and dogs. It was way to quiet. Bright and early Tuesday morning I had my annual physical which had been scheduled for months prior so I had Bryan drop me at the Dr. Office for my appointment that next morning at 9:30 and then he had to go on into the office for the day. I called him when my Dr. Appointment was done (his office is right around the corner from our doctor) and he came and got me and dropped me at the Galleria Mall just down the street. I hung out there and did some browsing for a couple of hours and then he came and met me for lunch at the mall. We ate chinese in the food court. After lunch he dropped me across the street at the theater and I went and saw the movie "The Help". I thought it was a really good movie! I actually have NOT read the book yet. *Gasp*! I know.....seeing the movie before reading the book....bad! But I almost wonder if it will make the book even better once I do read it. Emmy is wanting to see the movie and I think it's one the older kids should see. After the movie was over I walked across the parking lot to Barnes and Nobles and spent the rest of the afternoon their, reading. Bryan came and got me around 5pm and we ran into the grocery store to grab a few snacks for that night and the next couple of days. We knew with the kids gone we wouldn't be cooking like normal. On Wednesday and Thursday I stayed home and worked on some review work, laundry, unpacking, and just relaxing. Around 9am on Friday morning we headed out again to drive on up to Missouri for the weekend to pick up the kids and dogs but not before stopping along the way for one last fun "hooah" for just the two of us. *Wink* You'll have to check back to find out what we did though.

A few more cards from Bryan that he gave me at all different times during my birthday trip.......




This card had audio- the voice of the character cracked me up.




Same as above- had audio and it cracked me up.






40th Birthday gifts from Bryan, his mom and Larry, and my parents.........(thank you soooo much!)









Our souvenir from the trip.....



And that's it for our time in Nashville but, as I mentioned above, their is one more part of our "trip" to share about. Check back in this week for the rest of the story.