Happy Birthday To Me!!!! Berry College Style.

What a beautiful day!!!! In SO many ways!

It began with James wishing me Happy Birthday right at midnight :) And not long after, we drove by the bar where we know we will be going on James' and Zach's birthday!!! (They have the SAME birthday! Crazy!) And we are playing at the Georgia Fair again in October, and ALL the performers go to the same hotel bar to hang out and wind down after the day. :)

We arrived in Rome, Georgia this morning around 6am. We checked into a hotel, and they let us stay late until 1, which was amazing. I slept so hard for the first time in a long time! It was excellent. And then we got up and headed to Berry College for our show. When we walked into the dressing room, the student had these in there for my birthday!!!


They said they got me a birthday cake, but they were really embarrassed because the cake lady misspelled my name: "Natlie"
(What the kids didn't realize was that I don't really care WHAT was written on the cake. I would have been JUST as happy eating a misspelled birthday cake as a correctly spelled cake! Actually.... it's funnier misspelled!)

The weather was GORGEOUS!!! Along with the campus at Berry. Berry College has the largest Campus in the World - 26,000 beautiful acres. And they have an 8 to 1 deer to student population!! :) I was so excited to get to wear a short sleeve shirt! But as the sun went down... our audience keep migrating backwards to try to STAY in the sun. It was a pretty funny site - we were right next to a big building that was blocking the sun as it went down... and it was REALLY chilly when you were in the shade.



These sweet kiddos grew up in Alaska! So they like "Even Alaska".
Dawson and Kyndall


"Those Awesome Guys" That's what I called this group of guys. They opened for us, but they haven't exactly decided on a band name yet... but they were really good! So they are just "Those Awesome Guys" to me.


And here's the awesome students that put on this event! They REALLY took good care of us, and were just so sweet. They went above and beyond to make sure we had everything we needed. Just the best. We love you guys!


After the show, we loaded up and were gonna go to LongHorn Steakhouse... but there was such a long wait that we decided to just try the Mexican Restaurant across the parking lot. It was another excellent choice!! And they sang to me!!! Brought me free Sopapillas, and put the sombrero on me! David just sent me this picture:


SO YAY!!! Great birthday!!! I haven't even gotten to look at my facebook page, yet. But I have already gotten so many sweet messages, text messages, cards, and even an entire audience sang to me today! The guys pushed me out of the way right before we started the last song... I was really confused why they weren't letting me sing the vocal part... but it was because they told EVERYONE it was my birthday and had the entire audience sing to me. It was pretty awesome.

I am one happy and thankful girl. I feel so loved.
Thank you to EVERYONE for making today such a special one.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

We Rocked The House of God Tonight :)

University of the Cumberlands is so awesome!!! We just played a show in their church on campus and it was so much fun!!! The students were awesome and wow what a gorgeous campus.

We are staying at the Cumberland Inn which has been featured in Southern Living Magazine twice. Needless to say, it is beautiful. Once we checked into the rooms, I got a call from the front desk, and someone from the school had brought flowers to the band!!! Look at how beautiful they are.


I had to go all Macgyver on them... I cut open a water bottle with my knife. That wasn't difficult... but actually cutting the stems of the flowers with my pocket knife was intense :)

Here's some of our awesome new friends from UC





Thanks for having us!!! It was probably the first time I have ever sung "Devil Went Down to Georgia" in a church. It was awesome.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Happy 99th Birthday Granny!

Favorite Granny Quote of the day:

"I'm the oldest person I've ever known!!!"



Granny was in rare form today on her 99th birthday!!! She had everyone laughing all day. James and I were so happy to be there!!! We had to leave tonight, but we got to spend the afternoon with her. My mother-in-law and James' grandparents were here to celebrate, too!!! Along with my whole family, lots of delicious wedding food left-overs, and wedding flowers. Whew! It was quite a party.

She was telling a story about a an old man that gave her a BIIIIIG piece of candy in the hallway one day at The Bridge (where she lives). He really wanted her to eat it right then, but she was on her way to dinner, so she insisted that she would wait until after she ate. Once she ate the candy though, she said it was the best piece of candy she had ever had. (And Granny LOVES her candy) So she wrote him a note and slipped it under his door, thanking him. He's run around and told everyone there that Granny's been passing him notes! It's the talk of the town over there at The Bridge.

Peace. Love. Fiddle. And My Angel.

~natalie

My Purse Is a Mini Suitacase

I would like to attribute the ridiculousness of stuff in my purse to my lifestyle on the road... there's always stuff I wish I had with me, and it's so easy to just throw it all in my purse...

But I do that when I'm NOT on the road...

James was laughing at me because in order to find something earlier, I pulled out the following:

Hairbursh
water bottle
socks (Cute one with purple stripes)
head scarf
ipod
nail polish remover
flowers (for my hair)
6 Hotel receipts
earrings
deposit book
check book
lotion
an assortment of medicine bottles - tylenol, ibuprofen, liquid badage (THANK YOU TAMAMRA!!!! That liquid bandage stuff is amazing and we have all used it!!!)
a camera
my camera uploader doo-thingy
the charger for my camera battery
Tea bags
Honey to go in the tea
And of course, the essential typical stuff:
wallet
business cards
phone

So yeah... As you can probably guess, I am NOT one of those people that always has things in a specific order and place. With certain things, I am REALLY organized. But with most things... not so much.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie