Happy 2020!

Good morning and welcome to 2020!! I hope you had time to reflect on 2019 and what you want out of this new year. Like everyone else 2019 was full of ups and downs but compared to 2017 and 2018 I feel like there were more ups than downs for sure.

Last night we rang in the new year a little bit differently and then exactly the same. You might have heard of a tiny little show called Hamilton? Well, the show finally danced and sang its way to Nashville and last night was opening night. The tickets were not cheap but I am appreciative of the way TPAC handled them. You had to go pick your tickets up at the box office or get them on the app. If you got them on the app they were not available until 90 minutes before the show and forwarding was not available. They also had warnings on the website that said that tickets from 3rd parties were likely fakes. I don’t know about you but I am pretty tired of legalized scalpers buying up all of the tickets for everything and marking the prices up.

Anyway, we got downtown about 5:30 partially because we didn’t know if the tickets would show up on the app so we were going to head to Will Call and also because we wanted to find parking and knew that there were a bunch of road closures. Lucky for us the tickets showed up and none of the road closures were near where we wanted to be. Of course all of the meters that are free after six were blocked off for the Music City Eve party in Bicentennial Mall. On our way to TPAC we discovered Caesars Pizzeria (No, not Little Caesars). It was right on our way to the show so we stopped in and picked up a pizza. They seemed to be a bit short staffed but once our order was taken our Italian pizza and cheesy breadsticks made it to our table fairly quickly. I think we would likely eat there again if the opportunity presented itself. They are pretty much open most of the night. After dinner we still had plenty of time to make the short walk to TPAC and take a bunch of pictures along the way.

TPAC was packed last night and it was the first time I have seen them use metal detectors and security at the door. I wonder if that was just a New Year’s Eve precaution or a “this is our biggest show of the season” precaution, or if it is a new protocol. Since you had to go to Will Call or use your app the lobbies, staircases, restrooms and every other space were all packed. It was hot but the crowd did a good job of staying calm and waiting for doors even with sweat trickling down their faces…and by their I mean me. We finally made it in to our seats in the loge and got settled with just a little time before Aaron Burr stepped to the front of the stage and began the show. We were entranced from the first moment of the show to the last.

One of our 2019 adventures was to start homeschooling our son for high school. He is taking a US History Class and the beauty of him getting to see Hamilton is that it counts as a field trip for him. He will be writing a paper about it as well partially because it falls right in line with some of the history he has learned over the last semester in his lessons. It feels like a good end to his first semester of homeschool.

Once the show was over were were able to pick up my daughter’s sweet friend so she could spend the night and another friend and her daughter made their way to our house to watch the Nashville Note drop. These are best friends that have been joining us for several years to ring in the new year. We have a few fireworks leftover from 4th of July but ended up not using them due to the amount of fireworks and (if you believe the neighborhood watch page) gun shots already being set off in the neighborhood. After the ball dropped the kids asked if we could watch a couple of episodes of Friends since it was slated to be removed from Netflix at three am. We made sure to watch “The One with the Cake” in which Chandler and Monica tell Emma it is 2020 and they hope she is enjoying her nap. Um…Friends fans, and friends that have kids turning 18 this year…how are our children the same age as Ross and Rachel’s daughter?

We wrapped up our night about two in the morning. The snacks were put away, friends went home, and we all crashed into our beds with dreams of what this year holds.

We get an extra day in February this year. An extra day to be awesome! We have a Presidential election this year which gives each and every one of us the opportunity to get out from behind our computer screens and talk to our neighbors with cool heads and calm demeanor. I’m not saying don’t be passionate about whoever you support but try to talk to and listen to each other without judgment. My daughter will be old enough to vote this year. I want to be an example of kindness, thoughtfulness, and love for others that she can follow. My son will be of driving age this year. Watch out world! We have a lot of change happening this year and I am excited to see what adventures that will bring! How about you? What kind of adventures do you see for yourself this year?