Music City!

Holy cow! Justin and I just got back from the most amazing trip to Nashville, Tennessee for the 13th Annual Crown Council event. We left the boys with Aunt Bev and took Eden with us Wednesday afternoon to the Gaylord Opryland Resort Hotel in Nashville.

The resort itself was incredible! The convention center, shops, restaurants and hotel rooms at the resort were all encompassed about by this enormous greenhouse atrium with nine acres of gardens all under one roof! It was amazing! Our hotel room had a balcony overlooking all kinds of tropical plants, and a glass ceiling overhead made it feel like you were outside, except for the fact that it was snowing outside, and it was 68 degrees on the balcony! It was crazy! I loved it! There were waterfalls, flowers, a river flowing through the hotel offering boat rides, and even ducks! All inside the huge atrium of a resort! It was definitely a cool place to hang out for the weekend.
During the day, Justin and I attended meetings about dental practice management, marketing and technical stuff way over my head. I actually enjoyed the motivational speakers that we listened to. It kind of felt like EFY for dentists. It was fun.


Thursday night, we rode a bus to the Wildhorse Saloon in downtown Nashville for a benefit concert featuring several local artists including people I had never heard of, as well as people whose music I recognized but didn't know their names, and finally some people I did know, including Dierks Bentley. Very cool. Dolly Parton was scheduled to perform, however "due to circumstances beyond her control", she wasn't able to make it. I was pretty darn bummed. However, her band did perform with all of the other artists and they were pretty incredible. What an amazing night! And even more amazing than the show was the fact that we took Eden with us and she slept through the whole thing!! Yep. Pretty impressive considering the fact that the music was loud and crazy and the crowd was even louder and crazier. She's such a good baby!!!

Friday evening was a formal dinner and awards banquet where Justin received a plaque for being a first year "qualified member" of the Crown Council....I'm still not sure what that means, but I'm sure it's very important. He was also nominated as "Best New Dentist of the Year".

The first two days in Nashville were great, but they were definitely no match for Saturday. After the morning & afternoon sessions of meetings, we were invited to attend a private reception with Garth Brooks!!! Garth is the celebrity spokesperson for the Smiles for Life foundation that raises money for children's charities. The dental practices that contributed $10,000 or more to the foundation were invited to meet Garth in person!!! So, luckily, Premier Dental qualified and we got to shake hands with the man himself. We couldn't take our own pictures, because they had a professional photographer snapping photos, but we are looking forward to getting a copy of the photo of Garth with the Premier Dental team and Eden....being held by Garth Brooks!! Very cool.

Following the private reception, we had dinner and then dropped Eden off at La Petite Academy so that we could attend a private Garth Brooks concert at the Grand Ole Opry. Only Crown Council members were invited, which means that there were about 1000 people there and we sat seven rows from the stage!!! It was really cool. The funny thing is, neither Justin or I were huge Garth Brooks fans before meeting him in person and seeing him in concert. After his performance, however, we truly have converted! Holy cow! What a show!!! Garth played on for literally three hours. He just kept going! And he sounded awesome, and he took requests, and he told stories, and was really just hilarious! It was such an entertaining show, and he was just such a really cool guy. He played more than just songs that he had written and recorded. He played a little bit of everything and you could tell that he was really having fun on stage. Yep. I'm definitely a Garth Brooks fan now. Good guy. I like him.

The concert ended at midnight and we were anxious to get home and pick up the boys from Aunt Bev's house. So, we hopped in the truck and drove straight home that night. We got home around 7:00 a.m. What a fun trip!!! I definitely am looking forward to next year's Crown Council event!!!

The Wildhorse Saloon:








The Gaylord Opryland Resort:
























































Awards Banquet:












































The Grand Ole Opry: