Adventures in Decorating, Thrifting, Cooking & Gardening

I‘m still decompressing from the whirlwind Blissdom conference, so instead of getting into all of that yet, I’m going to share pics of the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville.  I’m sure many of you have visited here before, but in case you haven’t, it’s quite the astonishing place.  I first visited the Opryland Hotel back in 2007 when I was in Nashville for a Deeper Still conference, so if you’d like to see even more pics, click on that link.

You almost have to see it to believe it, but hopefully you can get an idea of the magnitude from these pics.  They really do treat their customers so well and we felt pampered and pleased at the time we spent there.

It’s all indoors, but the amount of greenery and plant material inside is just amazing.  I’m sure they must have a host of gardeners taking care of all of this and everything is SO lush and verdant. 

So, just enjoy the tour….

Ponds and fountains are abundant.

And the flowers are so colorful and pretty, you almost think it’s Spring in there.

And you almost forget that you’re inside a microcosm since it feels like your outside, only….you’re NOT.  We were shocked when we stepped outside to leave at the end of the conference to discover it really was 32 degrees outside. 

They even have waterfalls.

And a beautiful gazebo.

One of our lunches one day was at Ristorante Volare and it was like being in an outdoor cafe in the Mediterranean.  Simply heavenly!

These beautiful floral arrangements were on our tables.

And my lunch partners were Sandy, Tracy, Layla, and Melissa.  Love these girls!  This was my first time meeting Tracy from Beneath My Heart and she is just precious, such a sweet lady.  It’s always great to see my sweet friend, Layla again and Melissa and I met up last year at the Eddie Ross shopping trip and again at Blissdom ‘09, so we connected again. 

Another new real life friend is Kate, from Centsational Girl, a bubbly little thing.   So glad she came all the way from California and joined us.  We all had a blast together and again, I’ve said this before, but when you meet up with fellow bloggers, it’s like you have known each other FOREVAHHH.  Truly!

Me and Sandy, Reluctant Entertainer are good friends since meeting last year at Blissdom and it’s always great to spend some time with her.   That’s the Nester over Sandy’s right shoulder.  Sandy is a sweetheart.  If you haven’t visited all these blogs, hop on over and say hello to them. They are all super!

Lunch was just delish, a wonderful pasta dish.

And dessert was amazingly yummy too.  They fed us well at the Opryland.

Me and my 2 roomies had a double room (I got a bed to myself).   And the 3  of us had a blast too. 

The view from our room wasn’t bad either, a pretty courtyard and small pond.

I’ll tell you more about the conference later when I have a chance to think about it all.  Just have to sit down and ponder on what all we heard and learned and I’ll try to pass some of it on, just in case you might wonder what all goes on at one of these blogging conferences.  Actually, the best part is the connections with new and old friends and getting to meet in real life.  Absolutely, the best part.

There’s always a lot of information to digest!

The winner of the beautiful monogrammed spa robe from Miss Lucy’s Monograms is Cheri from Geer Gather.  Congrats, Cheri, you will love this robe! Thanks to all of you for signing up for it.

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