Nashville ... our first 2-kid voyage

The end of April, we took the kids to visit their grandparents in Nashville.

This was our first flight with two kids. If you recall, our first flight with Wesley was eventful, to say the least. Luckily, we don't have "bathroom catastrophe 2013" to reminisce about. As a matter of fact, we either we have the best kids or we just got lucky because they were travel naturals: sleeping and/or coloring. Wesley was so excited as the plane took off but once it was airborne he kept asking, "are we there now?" He's right, it is pretty boring chilling out on a plane.

The way we navigated the airport with 2 kids (and parking the car, shuttle to the airport, etc) was...
Me: Carrying Claire in the Ergo baby carrier with the diaper bag on my backpack, and Wesley in the umbrella stroller
Matt: Hauling 2 rolling suitcases and the infant carseat.

The weather in Nashville was chilly and rainy, but still the kids had fun. We went to the Edwin Warner nature park (I.e. the dirt park) where we met an old family friend of Matt's and her kids. This was the highlight of the trip and the most anticipated thing a 2-1/2 year old could ever hope for. The entire week he kept saying, "I'm going to Nashville to the dirt park." And to my grandpa he explained with his trademark hand gestures: "There's dirt and mud."

We saw the Nashville Public Library puppet troup perform a puppet show at Cheekwood botanical garden. The story was Many Moons and the puppets were marionettes -  Wesley &Claire were entranced.

Matt took Wesley to his first baseball game - The Nashville Sounds - and Claire & I took advantage of the only sunny day to walk through Cheekwood's lovely gardens.

We had a few food places we wanted to hit up on this trip but we weren't the only ones ... lines were out the door and with 2 babies, thats not the way to start a meal. In the end, we did enjoy some really good BBQ at Edley's in 12 South neighborhood, sandwiches at Noshville, and a nice lunch at blvd Nashville on Belmont Ave.

Memorial Day Quick Classic Berry Tart

Dorie Greenspan mentions in her book Baking that this tart is found in every patisserie in France. She's probably right although I wouldn't know because I gravitated to anything chocolate or mousse-like when I drooled over a patisserie window.

I say window because I couldn't afford patisserie as a college student. I lived at the boulangerie instead and gorged on chocolate and almond croissants. 

My favorite boulangerie moment is when we left a boîte late one night -- or so early in the morning -- that a boulanger had already arrived at his shop and was busy baking for the day. We knocked on his back window and bought freshly baked croissants and ate them walking through the empty streets back to our apartments. Sweet moment indeed.

Recipe Here.