The month of May was full of graduations and we made two local trips to help celebrate with loved ones! Our first trip was to Nashville during the first weekend in May. We went up for one of Cole’s good friend’s graduation from Pharmacy School at Belmont. We stayed with our good friends Paul and Mandy at the Doubletree in downtown Nashville. Friday night, we checked out a restaurant in Printer’s Alley, a famous street between 3rd and 4th Avenue that has restaurants and nightclubs. Afterwards, we headed down to Broadway to meet up with the man of the hour, Blake, to help him celebrate. We spent most of the night at the Stage, where they had a local country band playing live music and were amazing. We also spent some time at some of the other local bars (also with live music 🙂 ) and ended the night at the Big Bang Dueling Piano Bar.

The following day we explored the area of the “Gulch”, a trendy neighborhood right on the southern outskirts of downtown and has restaurants and shops. We ate at Cantina Laredo – one of our favorite Mexican restaurants – and then explored the shops around the area including this eclectic store, Two Old Hippies, which was a live music venue and sells all sort of unique knick-knacks. Afterwards, we headed back down to Broadway and spent the rest of the afternoon at Honky Tonk, listening to live music and watching the Kentucky Derby. That evening, we celebrated Blake’s graduation under a beautiful tent with his family and friends.

The next weekend we traveled up to Columbia, South Carolina to watch my brother Richard graduate from the University of South Carolina. Friday night, all of the siblings and Richard’s friends went out for Sushi in the Vista neighborhood. The Vista is this awesome neighborhood that has renovated warehouses and lots of restaurants and bars, so we spent the evening checking out a few of them and ended the night at a bar called The Social, a modern bar which had an amazing outdoor patio.

The following morning, we woke up early and headed to Colonial Life Arena for commencement. Darius Rucker, a fellow South Carolina alumni, was the commencement speaker and did a great job energizing the crowd and graduates to get out there and make a difference. We all went to Richard’s house for his graduation party and went out to a scrumptious dinner at Al’s Upstairs, a restaurant that has the best view of Columbia overlooking downtown. We went back to Richard’s house afterwards, played some drinking games and spent the rest of the night celebrating together.