Aidan has been participating in a program with Ted Brown called Live it Out Loud.

Aidan has been paired with a group of very talented young musicians.

They had a live show this past weekend that was a performance for their peers and for the judges.

Aidan's group blew the other 13 bands out of the water!

Or so I am told.

Here are a few pictures from the photographer at the event.

The final performance is on August 10 at the Pantages theater in Tacoma.

Tickets are $15 each.

This weekend they will be performing at Louie G's in Fife.

The bands start playing at 1.

The kids have been working hard writing two originals and they will be performing 1 cover.

If you are local, you should come out and see them.

It will be a pretty awesome show.

The final legs of our great midwest trip

We left Nashville and drove a few hours to Mammoth Cave National park in Kentucky.

I've always said that you won't be disappointed when you stop at a scenic overlook.

I was disappointed.

We arrived about an hour early for our scheduled tour and I was happy to find that I could explore the Kentucky Home store.

They have pretty stuff inside.

We decided that since we were early for our guided tour, that we would make the most of our time and take a self guided tour of one of the parts of the cave that we wouldn't be exploring with our tour.

It's called Mammoth cave because it's so massive.

It lives up to it's name.

Heading out of the cave and back into the heat.

For our tour, they loaded us up on these prison buses and took us to the "new entrance"

There were a lot of stairs going down, but it was well worth it for the views we had.

Not the best pictures on my phone, but cool stuff for sure.

Because of the layer of sandstone on top of the limestone, Mammoth cave doesn't have the formations that caves usually have except in this frozen Niagara section of the cave.

We left the cool 55 degrees of the cave and entered the heat of the day!

We quickly peeled off our jeans and sweatshirts and started our drive to Louisville.

 No trip to Louisville is complete without a stop at Churchill Downs.

We had considered doing a museum tour, but we were thankful that the entry gates were open and we were able to explore the park for free.

The betting room was full of people.

The kids were baffled that we not only took them in to bars on our trip, we also took them into the depths of a gambling room!

While only the betting area seemed to be open, the rest of the park area didn't seem to be closed.

I was the only one in the family willing to explore the infield and track.

Apparently during my exploring, Bella headed off the security guard and bought me a few more minutes on the track.

What seemed to be coming a college tour, we peeked at University of Louisville.

We spent the evening exploring the Louisville slugger museum.

They had a fun Lego exhibit.

The kids got to have batting practice with real game bats

Obviously not a baseball player!

Aidan took some pitches with a game bat in the batters cage

We got to tour the factory, though no cameras were allowed inside.

Everyone got a souvenir bat that made it through security in round one only to be taken in round two.

Just hangin' out with Babe Ruth

Mike's fraternity brother Ryan Oberhausen (Obie) happened to be in town with his wife and two year old son.  It was fun meeting them and getting to catch up.

After leaving Louisville slugger we walked downtown.

It's surprisingly a really cool little city.

Thanks for hanging in there with me on this recap.

Just a few more days of our trip.

We are heading back to my homeland of Indy.

The Great Midwest Trip Day 8-10

We spent our final day in The Great Smokey Mountains exploring Great Smokey Mountain National Park

It was hot, and we wanted to see a waterfall, so we took this gangly group on a hike to Laurel Falls.

Aidan liked playing with Aunt Angie's camera.

Not sure if she came out with any good pictures or not.

The falls were gorgeous and provided a welcome relief from the heat.

It was an easy mile hike up and well worth it when we got there.

Madison was Uncle Mike's buddy for the hike.

She loved crawling and climbing all around the rocks at the falls.

On our hike back down, we saw a black bear.

We were told that it was a mama and there were three cubs in a tree nearby.

We didn't see the cubs, but we did catch sight of the mama.

The family reunion came to an end on Thursday and we prepared ourselves for the return drive to Indy and our many stops ahead.

My sisters and I before I headed out.

The drive from Gatlinburg to Nashville was a long one.

We had to make a potty stop for Owen and this pack of bubble gum was our ticket to use the restrooms.

We had to be paying customers, so Mike picked up this pack of what the kids called "the best gum ever!"

It's hard to see, but this is the Nutro factory.

My blog posts sponsored by Nutro paid for a trip to Mexico for Mike and I, so it's worth a picture!

We arrived in Nashville in the pouring rain and watched a lightening shower as we drove in.

Thankfully, the rain let up and the afternoon temperature jumped 20 degrees in a matter of minutes.

We left the hotel and made it in time for the final 5 o clock tour of the Grand Ole Opry.

The members of the Grand Ole Opry pick up their own fan mail out of these mailboxes.

Owen broke the code into one of them.

Lee Anne Rimes maybe?

Oops.

I'm pretty sure that's a federal offense!

 We got to tour the dressing rooms backstage 

Since none of the rooms have closets, each performer gets a locker to store their items.

An original canvas that didn't get ruined in the flood.

The pews on stage for the band groupies.

A pretty cool view from on stage

Of course we had to take a picture of the drum kit!

The circle on stage that was able to be saved after the flood.

Standing on the circle where many country legends have stood.

After our tour, we met up with my High School friend Natalie.

Her husband Ben came out last year and spent some time on the drums with Aidan.

I've seen him more in the past few years than I have her!

It's been over 15 years since we last saw each other, but thanks to the internet, we have been able to keep in touch.

Natalie and I with our brood of children!

After froyo with Natalie and her family, we walked across the street to the Gaylord Hotel.

Holy cow that place is huge!

We looked into staying here, but they were all booked up with a conference.

And after touring the hotel, we were not too sad that we didn't get reservations.

The hotel was massive!

We needed a map to guide us around and we still got lost.

It felt like a large cruise ship that wasn't moving.

The next morning we started our adventures at the Country Music Hall of Fame museum.

A trip to Tennessee isn't complete without a cowboy hat.

I didn't start listening to country music until Mike introduced me to it on a mix tape he made me in college when we were dating.  But everyone has heard of Roy Rogers!

Can't remember whose car this was, but Owen like that it had guns all over it.

Thanks to the power of the internet, here is some info on it.

Elvis' gold piano.

Bella loved the Taylor Swift display

All of Carrie Underwood's recent wardrobe from her last tour was on display.

The rotunda

We left the CMHF and walked to Broadway.

I wanted desperately to go in to Hatch Show Print.

Hatch Show Print is a Nashville legend that has been creating posters for decades.

They still use a lot of the old equipment in the shop behind the store.

I was tempted to get a pair of boots while in Nashville.

However, the $350 price tag turned me off!

We made a stop in the candy and pop shop to see if it would help turn attitudes around.

As you can see from this picture, the humidity was absurd!

The photo is hazy because the camera got all fogged up, not because of the sun shining in.

Holy hotness!

Aidan had his pick of pops from the wall.

It took him a few minutes to decide!

Off to the heat to try exploring downtown again!

Thankful for a refreshing beverage.

Broadway was lined with shops and bars

Bella was hot, tired and wasn't thrilled that mom and dad were making them pop in to a few local bars to listen to live music.

The bars downtown are open to the under 21 crowd until 6 pm.

After 6 many are still all ages, but most charge a cover and a require a purchase.

We thought free and cheap was a good way to go.

These two ladies followed us on our Nashville adventures.

We let them cut in line in front of us at a Hardee's about an hour outside of town, then saw them on the Grand Ole Opry tour with us, followed by a spotting at the mall when we met up with Natalie, and then were surprised to see them the next day on Broadway.

Mike insisted on a picture!

Nashville would have been a ton more fun if the kids weren't along.

Or if they were in better moods.

Either way, we tried to make the most of it and enjoyed listening to live music and were thankful that it drowned out most of the whining.

At least for a little bit!

Doing our best to ignore the requests to leave the bar. 

We were happily enjoying ourselves!

Not all of the kids hated being there.

Live music is pretty awesome.

Aidan mentioned more than once that he felt like our yuppie family of five from Seattle just didn't fit in in a honkey tonk bar in Nashville.

I beg to differ!

Our walk back from Broadway allowed for a picture out front of the museum.

We cooled off that afternoon with a swim in the pool.

With better attitudes, a full belly and a little rest time, we headed back out to explore the city.

We happened upon the Parthenon.

A full scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens.

Playing with shadows

The place was massive!

And pretty cool to see at night.

No trip to the Midwest is complete without catching lightening bugs.

It is dark, but it was also stinking humid.

Pretty sure that's what the fog is.

While we were out driving, we even toured the Vanderbilt University campus.

I didn't want to spend too much time on campus for fear that the kids would like it and want to return for school there.  That place is pricey!

 And so ends day 10 of our trip.

The next few days we head to Kentucky and Indiana.