when H came to visit.

with all the things we have going on this summer –– the bridal shower, luca's birthday, the wedding, a new baby –– H still made it a priority to use her time and money to come see me. it's been so fun to see her so frequently, since she's the one i see the most infrequently.

she's visited once before, and i just looked back and noticed we went to some of the same places and i took a lot of the same pictures and it's funny to notice, but you know what? i will probably do it again next time too because i love this city. i can't get over it.

on friday night, we watched the olympics opening ceremony at a friends house. and by that i mean, tab was babysitting one of our favorite little girls (so her parents could go to an olympic party) and we decided to have our own party, with our three-year-old bff.

we had laurel wreath crowns and gold medals and olympic torches and three-year-old friendly olympic games and oreos with olympic ring m&ms on top. the best (funniest) part is that tab and i were more into and excited about it than she was. i'm pretty sure she only participated because we were.

then again, we are VERY into the olympics after years of watching and becoming mildly obsessed and she is ...three.

it worked out for H too, because she woke up so early on friday morning that it was almost still thursday in nashville time. we did something more fun than sitting on my own couch to celebrate the olympics, but not so fun that it required an excess of energy.

on saturday, we went to franklin and shopped the shops before making our way back up to musician's corner in centennial park. nobody we knew was playing that day, but it's free music in the park and that's a thing (one of the many things) connecticut doesn't have.

later, we went back home to figure out how to get the olympics on the tv without cable. thankfully, we worked it out. and then i had a headache so bad that i didn't even really watch and went to bed early instead.

it worked out though, because we got up and did the broadway thing on sunday. the most touristy of all touristy things to do in nashville. don't get me wrong, i don't hate it. but it is a lot of walking and sweating and, well, honky tonks. i think the last time we went, we saw someone literally stumble and fall out of one. that happened later in the day than when we were there this time, but still. it takes a certain kind of energy to walk up and down broadway, is what i mean.

i think this was the first time i've been there since the tv show nashville came out, and got so big. there is a whole store of "nashville" things. but it's basically just a store of all the touristy things in one place, like the bluebird cafe and the grand ole opry and i can't even remember what else. it was sort of confusing, but it all came together when i saw the life-sized cutout of (i don't even know his character's name) next to a table of "team" shirts. team deacon, team avery, team gunnar, etc.

it's actually quite convenient because you can buy things from all the places without having to drive to each of them, and the things are less "my friend went to nashville and all i got was this mug" touristy.

anyway, after that we did the least touristy thing: got popsicles and went to church.

we had a lot of activities packed into the weekend, but we also had quite a bit of chill time. we always tried to make it home by 7pm because, THE OLYMPICS. (and the nice thing about living in central time is that things are on an hour earlier, so i don't have to stay up until midnight to see it all.) (how old am i?)

sorry (not sorry) for the blurry grainy off-center photo, but this is what real life looks like. we sat on the couch and watched the olympics every day.

y'all, i can't even begin to tell you about my love for the olympics, but i've thought about it a lot recently because my roommates are so disinterested, they are almost anti-olympics. they are canadian. which isn't to say anything in particular, but i feel like that's important to note.

like, is it because they don't have a michael phelps or the #finalfive? is it because they prefer winter sports? (i honestly can't remember what their attitude was two years ago during the winter olympics, but it was probably nothing worth noticing.) do they just have no country pride? either way, my roommate was serious about it when she asked what it is that's so exciting about the olympics as she sat there with us on monday night, and i just have no words for that.

anyway, i dropped H off at the airport before work on tuesday and it was probably the easiest goodbye we've had because i'd be seeing her again just five days later.

so many exciting things this summer. so little time to blog.