Weekend Trip To Nashville, Tennessee + Life Update

So let's just start off by acknowledging the fact that I've been absent from my blog for way too long, probably the longest I've ever went without posting. My life, starting with the death of my dog, Gizmo, was the start of a giant whirlwind of death, depression, and stress that has overtaken my life over the entire span of what has been 2013. I'm definitely at a fork in the road of life, but things are slowly starting to fall back together and I'm finally starting to put back the pieces of my life.

So I'm sure you all know what happened at the beginning of January regarding my dog passing away and how much of a toll that took on me, emotionally and mentally. It sucked me into a deep sadness that still reigns over every single day. I have accepted things more, but every once in awhile I fall back to square one, feeling more empty than the time before. Sometimes I even forget that she's gone, like one time I caught myself saying, "Oh I can't wait for it to warm up so I can take...." before I remembered that she's gone and I can't take her for walks anymore. Things like that.

Anyway, about three weeks after her death, my boyfriend's grandpa passed away. My boyfriend, Rob, was legally adopted by his grandparents when he was a child, so they were his parents. The night his grandpa passed away, his grandma was completely out of sorts and ended up taking a fall which put her right in the hospital. I won't go into too much detail, but basically within two weeks she ended up passing away as well; Only two days after she had returned home from the hospital under hospice and Rob and I had agreed to take care of her as she needed. So not only was I going through this huge loss that gave me so much heartbreak and depression, my boyfriend, had lost both of his parents and his life had been completely turned inside out. He had to be strong for me, but then I had to be strong for him, even if I wasn't ready to be strong at all. It's so crazy to me how life has changed in only four short months and how with their death, came so many more things to deal with and those issues, such as cleaning and packing up an entire house alongside school and trying to still spend time with my family, takes up all my time. But regardless, I do apologize for being absent for so long. I slowly am getting a better grasp on everything and have been able to manage my time more easily lately, so I am trying to get more posts out. On the bright side, I've been extremely inspired lately with things I want to share with you guys, so I will try and set aside more time for blogging!

So two weeks ago, I finally got to take a break from all the madness that is my life and go on a weekend roadtrip to Nashville, Tennessee. It wasn't by any means meant to be a fun vacation or believe you me, I would have been hightailing my way to the Harry Potter theme park by now. We went to TN for my sister's cheerleading competition. It was Nationals, so it was a pretty big deal. Her team ended up getting 1st place in their division, so it was definitely worth while! Even though it wasn't meant to be a "fun" trip and we didn't get to do any sight seeing besides a walk and visiting shops in downtown Nashville for an hour or so, I still had a good time forgetting about real life for a couple days. Here's some pictures from my trip (mostly from my phone) and again, since we didn't do much, they're mostly random pictures, but regardless, I hope you enjoy!

Can you tell that I was excited for the 8 hour car ride ahead of us? Because I was. 

Random photos from downtown Nashville. Grand Ole Opry Shop and Bridgestone Arena... Please contain your excitement, people..

This amazing book statue was outside of the Nashville Library and I was IN LOVE. I wanted to steal it and take it home!

I knew we were going to have to sit through hours and hours of performances waiting for the award ceremony, therefore comfy clothing was necessary.

Took these bad boys out of our hotel window during sunset. It was beautiful!


Hope you all [somewhat] enjoyed these photos! I am officially back to blogging (for good this time) and have lots of ideas in store for you all.
Also, if any you have any requests of different posts you'd like to see, leave them down below!