It's Not Mexico, But...

**Long post.... sorry!!!**
Some of you blog readers may have noticed our countdown on the side of the blog that has been up there for a few months about our SVOSH trip was deleted about a week before we were suppose to go. (For those of you who don't know or have forgotten what SVOSH was, it is a group we were involved with at Justin's school. Throughout the year we did presentations, earned $1000 each, did many hours of volunteer work, and many hours of lab work at the school. We were suppose to go to Mexico to do an eye clinic for the underprivileged for 4 days. Then we were going to Cancun to enjoy three days at a resort. We have been looking forward to it for 8 months) Anyway, because of the swine flu it was canceled a few days before we were suppose to leave. Hopefully they will reschedule, but right now it is still up in the air. Because it was so disappointing, we decided that we would take advantage of our break and still do some fun stuff.

It's NOT Mexico, but it's Illinois with Justin's family!

Justin's youngest brother is headed on his mission and was leaving that week for the MTC. Originally we were planning on meeting his parents and brothers half way in St. Louis for a couple of days before our trip and drop off Jackson with them. They were going to take Jackson and fly him to Utah when they dropped Jordan off at the MTC, and my mom was going to pick him up and have him in Idaho for the rest of the week. Well, that didn't work out and Jordan wanted to spend his last weekend at home. So we surprised him (kind of) and showed up to Illinois for the weekend to say bye for 2 years. We had a short visit, but a good time. Here is a bunch of pictures from the park. Jackson was loving being there with his grandparents and his uncles! We all know Elder Jordan Johnson will be a great missionary! Here he is right after being set apart and before leaving for Utah. We will miss him, but wish him the best in Florida!Jackson loves his Uncle "me-me" (as he calls him). It is crazy to think he will almost be 4 years old when he gets back, and he'll have at least one new niece or nephew.

It's NOT Mexico, but it's Nashville!

After getting back from Illinois we decided to do our first ever family vacation with just us. (Normally our vacations consist of going to see some of our family) We headed over to Nashville for a night and a couple of days. It was a lot of fun to just do something with the three of us, and I had never been to Nashville, so it was really cool to see everything. We did quite a bit in just a couple of days and learned some lessons for our first vacation ever.
Lesson #1: We need a GPS. I had looked up a bunch of info on the Internet before going and figured we could just go to the Visitor Center and get some maps. Well we got lost just trying to get to the visitor center and saw some signs to some of the places I had looked up and got very far backtracked. Once we found one of the landmarks we found out the price I had was different than it is now. So, we didn't go and decided to head back to the visitors center. Once FINALLY finding that, we had the wrong address. Lesson #2: Don't trust the info you find on the Internet.

We did find the right place and got a map and found out Lesson #3: Things go much smoother with a map. Here are some of our adventures:
Grand Ole Opry House: After getting our map we drove to Opry land. Everything was closed by then so we just walked around the Opry House and took pictures. The next day we went back for a backstage tour. It was a lot of fun and was really the only thing we spent money on.

Gaylord Opry Hotel: The map on the left shows how HUGE this hotel was. From what I could gather it looked like there were four hotels that all connected and within the middle was this huge garden conservatory. It was so cool, I wish the pictures could give it justice! In the picture with Jackson and I we were throwing pennies into the river below and he thought that was pretty fun! The next morning we got a brochure and did a self guided tour of downtown Nashville. It was fun to walk around and see and read about some of the history. The picture on the bottom left is the State Capital Building. We also got to go into the Tennessee State Museum. After the downtown tour we headed over to Centennial Park and had some McDonald's and let Jackson run around. He loved it there! This park has a exact replica of the Parthenon at Athens. We didn't go in, but we walked around and thought it was pretty cool. Lesson #4: Despite the fact that crying in the car is one of the most annoying things in the world, our little boy did pretty good through all the craziness and running around. Here he is being silly in the hotel, playing in the sink. We were amazed that night because he actually fell right asleep with us in the hotel room and STAYED asleep even as we watched the playoffs. He also slept in till 9 the next morning!

It's NOT Mexico, but my mommy came to visit!
Because my mom already had tickets to bring Jackson back to Memphis after our trip, she decided to come anyway. Once again it was short and we didn't really do much, but I LOVED having her here. Jackson also loved it because he is obsessed with his Grandmas. One of my favorite things having her here was that she helped me plant my little patio garden. She is a huge green thumb and knows so much about plants and flowers it is amazing! I had fun shopping for my flowers and plants. We got cilantro, basil, and two tomato plants.
Jackson also had fun "helping" us plant the garden. In other words, he had fun playing in the dirt. After we were done we had to go down to our neighbors and sweep off all the dirt from their patio and furniture that fell through the cracks. haha
The finished products:I was sad to have my mom leave, but although we didn't end up going to Mexico, we did have a pretty fun couple of weeks.

Justin is officially done with his first year of Optometry School and just began his summer classes for his 2nd year. He got great grades and is doing so well in his schooling and providing for us! We love him!