The BlueBird Cafe

So since Im about 3 weeks behind blogging, I'm going to be doing a lot of skipping around. Sorry about that!

If you are ever planning a trip to Nashville and love the country music scene, this is a MUST do! The places is called the Bluebird Cafe.

My friend Stacy invited me to join her for a benefit concert there on Jan 6th... at first all she said was that it was going to be Amy Grant and friends. Heck I love Amy Grant so why not???

2 days before, we found out who the friends were that were joining Amy...

Vince Gill
Alison Krauss
Dan Tyminski (from the Union station as well as the singer of I am a Man of Constant Sorrow from O Brother Where Art Thou)
Natalie Hemby (song writer.. she wrote White Liar)
Mindy Smith (up and coming singer/songwriter)


This was the coolest show! They all sat in a circle in the middle of this small cafe and one at a time played songs. Nothing rehearsed.. very casual and laid back. And no talking from the audience like a normal concert. The Bluebird is a place where anybody who is anybody in the industry whether it be singers or song writers come to play.

The pictures kind of suck because it was dark and I just had my blackberry but I was able to catch a few of the people...

The Bluebird CafeVince Gill.. on his right, you can see a little of Amy Grants hair

Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski

Alison Krauss

Not too bad a line up for $35???

Lotusphere 2010

Hi All.. I know Shannon primarily posts stuff, but it IS the Harris FAMILY blog and Shannon keeps nudging me to, so I figure I'll post something.

I left for a week or so mid January to go to Orlando for a tech conference called Lotusphere. It's mostly work related to my job. I do email admin and support for the Bank of New York Mellon and they run on Lotus Domino. So I've done this every year for the past 6 years but for some reason, this year it was hard to do! I missed Shannon and the kids so much it was almost unbearable! But here's some pics from the happenings:

This is all out of order because the blogger interface SUX soo bear with me...

This is the hotel I stayed at called the Dolphin at Walt Disney World resorts

On the third night I went to a party hosted by RIM the makers of blackberry and they had that painter guy that paints with his hands and brushes while spinning the canvas in like 7 mins to music. This one is of a blackberry obviously

Marylin Monroe.. they actually gave this one away in a raffle.

Mr Obama.. said he did his because he wouldn't give up his blackberry
Heath Ledger's Joker, not the greatest pic but the painting was cool.

The theme for Lotusphere was "Lotus Knows" and I found this on my mirror the 2nd day in.. kind of creepy.

At the Opening General Session they always have a celebrity guest speaker, this year was Willy Shatner!

Yes I was really that close.. got up early. Dude's put on some weight.


There was a welcoming party the first night that was pretty cool.. it was game themed. These were roaming pacman ghosts.
Another ghost... they also had some old school arcade games set up and some wii's with wii sports set up.

They had a bonafide Deloreon there too.. not from Back to the Future.. but still kinda cool!


This was my view from the hotel on the 9th floor.

There was also a party hosted at Disney's Hollywood Studios but it really wasn't that great. They only had 5 attractions open and I had already eaten before then. The areosmith rockin roller coaster was pretty cool though.

The rest of the conference was all boring work talk that isn't really worth putting on here, but I did work.. it wasn't all parties I promise. :)

Best date ever!!!!

One thing about my husband and I... I'm the planner and worrier and Jon is very go with the flow and very laid back. So for the past 8.5yrs, I've pretty much had the run of what we do on our dates or when or who is going to watch the kids, etc.... So you can imagine my PURE DELIGHT when he agreed to do everything for our date last Friday night. He was gone for 6days so this was much needed.. for me to get away from the kids and for us to spend time together. It was incredible.. perfect from start to finish!!!



Before our date.... I had no clue what we were going to be doing... all I knew was that in was in downtown Nashville. So we were walking by this horse and buggy and the guy gave us his card and Jon says "lets do it"... surprise no. 1. It was sooo cool!!!!! I love Nashville- it's such a magical place for me being such a big fan of country music so to be able to enjoy it like this with my honey-- heaven!

As we were walking to our next place (dinner), I had to stop and get a picture of Elvis for my friend Sarah P who is a big ol Elvis fan!

Dinner was at a yummy resturant called the Old Spaghetti Factory. Very cool!!! Nice, dim, well decorated- pretty romantic!

And then we saw Coyote Ugly!!!! We had to go in! I absolutely loved that movie and Nashville has the very first Coyote Ugly (and probably the origional barstools... yuck). There was no cover so we went to check it out!!!

Very cool! Very smokey too.. we could only stay for so long. But long enough to check out the girls dancing "Devil Went Down to GA" on the bar! YEHAW!!!

A Nashville favorite.. the famous Wildhorse Saloon. Someday I will go in!!!!!

Then Jon took me for a walk on the bridge in downtown. I hate bridges but this was absolutely perfect and of course I felt safe:) It was pretty empty and the view is absolutely breathtaking of Nashville at night!

I LOVE this town!!!!!!!!!!!

The coolest ending to our date was when we were smooching on the bridge, we heard some popping sounds. SO we turned around and there were fireworks going off over the water. Can you just say WOW?!?!?!?! Magical and just perfect! I was with my best friend and eternal companion and it was seriously one of the best nights of our lives! It's all about the little things my friends!

PS- sorry I'm so behind on posting. I have a lot to catch up on....

Christmas at the Harris home

Since this is our first year in Nashville, we decided to just enjoy a nice quiet simple Christmas at home.

So on Christmas eve night, we read the Christmas story, put out some cookies for Santa and the kids wrote him a note.

No wonder the dude is BIG!

So Santa came that night bringing things they wanted and didn't know they wanted. Rielly got a pillow pet (she was begging for that!) and Reese got the Star Wars trilogy and pretrilogy on dvd. Now we can finally delete them from our dvr. Plus Santa brought them each a wii game and each a board game.

And he ate the cookies and left them a note back saying thankyou and to be good!
Needless to say, they were quite excited that Santa even came. Sometimes naughty kids get a second chance.

Reese for some odd reason, really wanted highlighters.

And something sure made them happy! I think it was those darn zhu zhu pets. (keep them away from hair.. it will hurt!)

Rielly got a baby doll in my attempt to keep her loving girly toys

And my little Star Wars man wouldn't be complete without a full on Storm Troopers get up

And daddy got some good smelling stuff.. I think this is more a gift for mommy!!

Reese decided to buy Rielly a new hippo... she got her last hippo last yr from Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Laurice and it has pretty much been a constant companion and it shows!!! So we thought maybe she could retired him and have some new ones. Nope-- it's now a family of hippos!

And this kid really wanted an alarm clock. A dream come true he said. Oh the days of simple dreams!

My sweet grandma gave Jon a chuch VHS tape- pretty cool except we don't have a tape player. Guess we'll have to find someone who still does.

And mommy got what she reallllly wanted! The COACH perfume!! Seriously.. it smells GOOOOD!!! And it goes with last yrs gift.. remember the infamous Coach bag???

We made the kids clean up a bit of garbage in between gifts. I wish I had invented wrapping paper!

And well.. I went a little overboard with video games. I'm an Amazon addict and they had some pretty rockin deals this yr. Yeah I did partake.

My Storm Trooper!!!!


We hope you all had a great Christmas this yr and a wonderful New Yrs!!!!!