Meet the Shaneyfelts

friendship

Our Trip to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville

Happy Monday, friends! Today I want to recap our short little trip to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. When Dustin and I were dating and in our early years of marriage, we would make the short (1.5/2 hour) drive to the Opryland Hotel in December to walk around the hotel and enjoy all of the Christmas decorations and do dinner and a show. We did that every 2 years. Once Harrison was born and turned 2, we decided to make that day trip an overnight trip!

This year our best friends joined us for the trip and they have a little girl who is a year younger than Harrison and are also expecting a new baby a month after us in 2024!

We left early Sunday morning and made a quick pit stop at Buccee’s for breakfast. Harrison wanted his and Abigail’s picture by the beaver before we left haha! TIP: BOOK YOUR STAY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT TO SAVE A COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER NIGHT)

We had brunch reservations at the character breakfast on Sunday morning at the Opryland. The character breakfast this year was Charlie Brown and Friends, and our kids love Charlie Brown so we thought it would be the cutest!

We basically paid Disney World prices for this brunch, so I had very high expectations. I think we were all really disappointed with the brunch. We bought tickets for the last time available, so it would be more like lunch. Thank goodness we decided to show up about 15 minutes early. The characters were getting ready to leave, so the big kids immediately got their pictures made with them while I was feeding Banks. And they were not replacing any of the food, so once it ran out, we couldn’t get anymore of it. We paid a lot of money for just a little bit of food. I would not recommend doing this again.

I entertained two matching boys while everyone else was waiting in line to check us into our room.

And then Banks crashed for a little bit while we took a quick 45 minute break in our room. Harrison took his shirt off to relax?? I don’t remember that part, but I’m also not surprised ha!

We had tickets for the ICE Polar Express and we were all really excited! I bundled this big boy up, and he was the biggest trooper the entire time we were in the ICE exhibit. It’s kept at 9 degrees, and it’s COLD!!

These tickets were part of our hotel package, and I’d recommend it…..especially if you love the Polar Express! I think two years ago it was The Grinch, and we skipped that because we aren’t Grinch fans. I was so amazed at how intricate the ice was–it was mind blowing!

I made sure the boys had their gloves and toboggans but forgot my own…

Harrison and Dustin went down the Ice slide they had at the end of the exhibit and it was so fun!

Then we all went outside to walk around a bit and check out all of the activities they had going on outside.

Harrison decided he wanted to go down the ice slide they had with inner tubes. He and Dustin did that (it was also $$$) while Janie watched Abigail and Chris go ice skating. I was really feeling some FOMO watching them have fun on the slide, and I’m for sure doing it next time!

Then we grabbed a quick (and much cheaper) dinner at a burger place inside the Delta area. And then we continued to walk around!

We’ve been best friends for over 20 years!

The next morning, our friends had to leave early to get back home for something, so we walked to breakfast and then walked around a little more before we checked out to head home.

Harrison wanted to take our picture and I think it accurately represents how exhausted we both are. Neither child slept and Banks and Harrison were both up at 4:50 AM on Monday morning LOL. That’s vacation with small kids right now–you just have to expect to be exhausted because right now, your vacation is really just for the memories (mainly for you)–things will get easier as they get older.

Overall, we had a good time and we really enjoyed getting to experience it with our friends!!!

King Charles III’s Coronation Party!

Happy Monday, y’all! Today is cause for celebrations because it is my LAST MONDAY OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!! Woohoo!!! I am looking forward to having more time during the day and hopefully my blogging will be more consistent 🙂

Today I’m taking it back to May 6 when King Charles III had his official coronation! The dress code for our party was pajamas and fascinators, and the party started at 5 AM!

I baked a cake for our party late Friday night after the boys went to bed. I didn’t feel like getting my piping bags and tips out since I was super tired and getting up early the next morning, so I used ziploc bags to pipe–not too shabby!

My friend Maribeth in her fancy pjs and Banks in his British ones! We had picture props and had to try them out on Banks.

King Banksie!

Our fancy set up!

We had Union Jack cake, mini muffins, a dish that Charles personally likes (Madelines and with lemon flavored whipped cream), and tea sandwiches. Not pictured was a breakfast casserole, coffee, and mimosas!

We had a great time watching the coronation, laughing, and googling things along the way. While I’m not a fan of Charles (or Camilla….YUCK!!!!!), I still wanted to watch in order to say that I got to witness history happening. I also really loved watching the royal accounts I follow analyze the fashion worn to the coronation. For example, Charles didn’t allow tiaras worn to the coronation. Instead, he allowed flower headpieces. If you look at what Kate wore, her flower headpiece looks exactly like a crown–even down to the center point of the headpiece fashioned like the point of a tiara…..interesting :). Also, even though Harry, Will, and Kate don’t quite get along anymore, they all wore something of Diana’s to the coronation and I found that HILARIOUS!

Weekend Recap: Our Weekend in Auburn

Happy Monday!  This past weekend Dustin and I went to Auburn to stay with my bestie and her husband now that they live there.  Dustin is an Auburn grad so he was thrilled to go back, and as an Alabama grad, I was just thrilled to see my friend ha!  I also joked on the way home that this weekend was technically our “baby moon” if we had one 😂  I also didn’t take a ton of pictures since I was just enjoying our time together!

 We left Friday right after school and traffic was so crazy in Birmingham that it took us one hour to go 12 miles on 65.  So we got there later than what we had first thought.

They had supper waiting on us–which was wonderful since we were starving!  Chris smoked chicken and we had sautéed zucchini and squash.
 Then the boys did a bourbon tasting.  Dustin had won a bottle of Blanton’s in a fundraiser for another adoptive couple and Chris had lots of bourbon from the tour he and Janie did in KY last year.  Janie and I just hung out haha!  I think we all were in bed at midnight (way past my bedtime!).


Saturday morning we were all up by 8 and had a slow morning handing out.  We all got ready and headed out for lunch to a place Dustin used to go a lot in college–Niffers.
 It’s a hamburger place so I got a ranch burger and ate just half of it.  It was okay in my opinion–not as good as a Mugshots burger!

We drove around campus so I could see what it looked like and so Dustin could see what had changed since he graduated back in 2007.  My one goal this trip was to get a lemonade from Toomer’s Corner since the last weekend I had visited was during a home football game and the line was way too long for lemonade.  The lemonade was good 😊

I was SO excited about dinner that night because we had reservations at Acre–a place I had been wanting to eat at for years!  It’s a farm to table style restaurant and the flavors are amazing!
 We shared the bacon and goat cheese guac as appetizers.


 I had the pork schnitzel and those brussels were my very favorite thing!


 Chris had the special–a coffee rubbed tenderloin.


 Janie had the salmon.


 Dustin had the snapper.


 And then we took pictures while waiting on our car haha!  
We went to Avondale after Acre and then back to their home to play What the Meme? which is very similar to Cards Against Humanity but with memes.  It was hilarious and we stayed up until 1am playing!


Sunday morning we were up to go to Christ Presbyterian, Chris and Janie’s church.  Dustin and I really enjoyed the sermon and getting to meet some of their friends from their church!  It’s a newer church plant that’s meeting in the alumni center on campus.  I was very encouraged by the amount of college students attending their church because so many of the younger crowd are drawn to churches with the lights and smoke and loud music, and instead, these kids were attending a church plant with solid theology.  After, we walked to Taziki’s for lunch and then Dustin and I packed our things to head back home!

 Here we are leaving Auburn!

I finished Becoming and it was so good!  Dustin got it for me for Christmas and I found it very interesting!  She’s also a great writer, so not only were the stories interesting but it was enjoyable to read because of her writing style.  

We stopped by Trader Joe’s in Birmingham on the way home to pick up a few things and then made it home before 6!  I ran to the grocery store, Dustin started laundry, and then I was in bed and asleep by 8:30–exhausted haha!