March 2023 (and Tennessee!)

Melanie has a lot of fun with her Stake YW Presidency friends. Carolyn Gudmundson has published a children's book, and Amy Miner bought a copy for each lady. Here they are lining up, to the horror of Carolyn, to get her autograph on the books. She doesn't like attention :)

Fun Saturday out going on a teasure hunt. The boys were supposed to find a maternity shirt...this was as close as they got...

Saturday treasure hunt day for the reward of watching the movie RISE and eating Pizza together

Verity's basketball team have a super fun little swim part to celebrate their season together

Melanie helped Given get on Jan's roof to shovel off the snow from the ice dam. Brave soul indeed!

This picture is the beginning of our super Spring Break vacation together. Tuesday night we drove to West Jordan and got to gather with Andre, Jayson and Chris, and Mom and Dad Dutson for dinner and games. So fun to be with family again!

Given got to meet up with his very first companion, Elder Brady Wilkes. So fun for them to meet up again - great friends on the mission.

This is Wednesday morning in the tiny little Provo airport, ready to head to Nashville!

This is the terminal path we walk up to get in the plane. Small airport indeed!

On our Allegian plane and ready for the 3 hour trip to Nashville!

In the Nashville airport - getting ready for the country music capital of the nation. Kaleb in love with the guitars!

Awesome vintage Christian church we passed in downtown Nashville as we walked to our restaurant for dinner our first night in Nashville.

It was so fun to meet up with Gma and Gpa Hatch (Elder and Sister Hatch) at Puckett's. This lady was our live-performance singer. She was very good!

Dinner was awesome! We got a lot of barbecue meets and Mac 'n Cheese, of course!

We wanted to celebrate Gpas upcoming birthday, so they gave us a big dish of cobler with 9 spoons!

Everyone enjoyed the meal and the free dessert!

After dinner, looking in at the Puckett's restaurant on the corner

We went on a walk to find "Honky Tonk Highway." This is what's called "Printer's Alley"

Treats store on Broadway (Honky Tonk Highway)

View down the street with the Predators (NHL team) arena in the background.

Thursday morning rental-van trip from our hotel to the Grand Ole Opry

Just outside the Opry. Beautiful day!!

Walking to the Opry with Gma and Gpa

Introductory movie on the Grand Ole Opry tour

Lobby area of the Opry for Kaleb and the ceiling guitars!

In the guest mail room for all the stars who perform here and have mail sent here

The one with all the mail in it is Dolly Parton's

Names of country singers who have been inducted as members of the Grand Ole Opry

Some famous person's dress who performed at the Opry

Inside the family waiting room for performers before they go on stage

Performer dressing room

Inside the family reception area

Waiting to go on the Opry stage!

Backstage with all the cords that hang the lights and sound equipment over the stage

From the stage looking out into the audience seating

Instruments on the stage

That wood floor circle was cut out of the original Opry from downtown Nashville. Stars going all the way back to Elvis Presley performed on that stage that has now been incorporated on the new Opry's stage. Cool bit of history!

In the Opry gift shop

It was super fun to tour the Grand Ole Opry!

Next, we went on a self-guided tour of downtown Nashville. This is a picture of the boys inside the visitor's center

AT&T building in the far background. It's been called "Le Bat" because it looks like Batman

Picture of an upstairs bar with a band playing. These performer bars are all over downtown Nashville!

Gma and Gpa and Verity listeing to a man sing "What a Wonderful World". He sounded just like Nat King Cole!

Printers Alley used to be a street with 11 different publishers on in a row. Now it's lined with bars and dance halls. We were initially taking this picture from the sidewalk, when locals yelled, "Get in the street!" So we did and they took our picture for us.

Wall art is popular in Nashville. Here's a fun picture Melanie found.

Nissan Stadium in the background, where the Titans play (NFL).

Tennessee River in the background

Goo Goo Cluster store where you can watch the clusters being made

On a huge pedestrian bridge to finish our downtown walking tour

Lunch at Centennial Park with a full-scale replica of the Parthenon. It was massive and awesome!

Then we took a 30 minute drive south to Franklin Tennessee to visit the Ramsey Solutions studio. Fun to watch Dave Ramsey recording his show and touring his very nice facility. He came out on commercial breaks to autograph books and take pictures. One of Given's "bucket-list" experiences.

Leaving Ramsey solutions headquarters. Fun little visit!

Downtown Franklin was super cute. This is a bookstore the girls found

All capped off that night by a sweet visit to the tiny Nashville temple. So fun to do baptisms together with Grandpa Hatch

Horsing around at Gma and Gpa's house in Lawrenceburg that night. Here's Given pulling Verity all around their wood floors in her sleeping bag.

Here's their sleeping arrangement in their front living room. Grandma was so nice to find sleeping bags, pillows, and pads for the kids to sleep on.

Melanie enjoying some time with mom and dad and Verity at their home as Alex and the rest of the kids took a little road trip to Huntsville Alabama...

Signs on the way out of Tennesse and into Alabama

Monster Jam arena in Huntsville

Fun night to be together on a little road trip. Monster trucks were okay, but the best part was the Motocross tricks for intermission!

Had to stop at the waffle house on our way back from the Huntsville Monster Jam! Tried their waffles

We spent some time on Saturday touring the Amish district of Lawrenceburg. There were blocks and blocks of Amish homes and Amish people selling their wares to all passer-bys. We bought a few treats and loved the gorgeous scenery!

Then we went to the Davy Crockett state park. Here's Melanie and Verity soaking in precious sunlight.

Beautiful river in Davy Crockett State Park

This is a lady from Emmett, Idaho, who was in Tennessee visiting her daughter. She was out of her mind excited to learn that Max and Myrna Dutson are Alex's grandparents! We loved going to Church with grandma and grandpa. The people there were so kind and so welcoming. Southern hospitality at its finest, for sure.

Final pictures on our final moments with Elder and Sister Hatch. So good to be with them. We got to have dinner with a young man in their home who had just been baptized - William. Got to meet missionaries in their home (grandpa fed them waffles), we talked, and played some games too.

We wish they could have come with us on the rest of our trip, but we were so glad to have almost four days together with them!

Driving toward Chattanooga, we stopped to explore this massive natural bridge!

Looking across the bridge

Looking at the bridge from the bottom

Looking down from the top of the bridge

Given took these pictures remotely with his watch communicating with his phone down below! So cool!

Into Georgia for the first time ever for all of us!

We stopped for a rest in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and ejoyed this fun pedestrian bridge.

That night we made it to our hotel in downtown Atlanta.

Monday we took another self-guided walking tour through part of downtown Atlanta. This picture was outside the National Civil Rights museum

Verity and the penguin outside of their huge acquarium.

Then we went and experienced the World of Coca-Cola

The vault where the "secret recipe" for Coke is supposedly stored

Melanie and Averly in Coca-Cola bubbles!

Alex and Verity in front of the vault that holds the secret recipe

This couch was used for the contestants on some season of American Idol

Heading in to go see a 3-D movie about Coke's secret recipe

The funnest part of the World of Coca-Cola was just before the end. They have over 100 different flavors of Coke-made beverages to sample. A lot of them were delicious, some of them were quite disgusting (like the China one that tasted like carbonated barbecue-sauce water - nasty!).

Melanie was funny as we were finishing she just wanted some water to wash everything down with. It was carbonated water and she was disgusted by it!

Happy tourists with bellies full of Coca-Cola beverages!

A picture of the downtown Olympic Park from the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games

Massive CNN center

A couch in the CNN center with a fun little backdrop

The Olympic Rings in front of Atlanta's olympic park

In front of Olympic flame cauldrons

Just a picutre Verity liked in front of the children's museum

Nice shot of a nice street in downtown Atlanta

Our walk back to our downtown Atlanta hotel.

Our next stop just outside of Atlanta was at Stone Mountain state park. The central focus is a massive granite stone mountain. We took a one-mile hike to get to the top of the stone mountain.

Gorgeous views of the Atlanta skyline from near the top of the mountain

At the top of the mountain

These are the carvings of 3 confederate generals on the side of stone mountain. Apparently, the carvings are larger than those at Mount Rushmore

Reminiscent of our trip to Alaska, after Stone Mountain, we had to stop at Walmart to get some drumsticks. I mean, it's tradition, right?!

Our final stop that night was to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. We saw MLK's tomb, and this is a picture of the Ebenezer Church where he first preached his civil rights sermons. 

Tuesday morning we headed to the Atlanta Georgia temple to do some more baptism/confirmation work together. Verity was a trooper at each temple and just hung out in the waiting area until we finished the temple work.

FLOWERS!!! We haven't seen this type of scenery for months!

After the temple, we headed toward the Great Smoky Mountains. We decided to take a 20-minute detour to get just inside of South Carolina to mark yet another state on our map! Shortly thereafter, we were in Cherokee, North Carolina and had a nice, windy, picnic lunch just before heading in the mountains.

This is our trail hike in the Great Smoky Mountain National Forest. It was indeed beautiful, but spring had not yet woken up all the trees.

Skipping rocks at the end of our trail hike in the mountains

More stunning view near the top of the Smokies

Sign of the Appalachian trail. The Smokies are part of the Applachian mountain range. Government workers created this train that spanned from Georgia all the way up to Maine! Anyone up for a long walk from here??

Tunnels on our drive down from the top of the Smoky Mountain range

This was our final stop in the Smoky Mountains - Cataract Falls

Dad and Verity having a great time as they climbed up the falls a little

More "couple pics" as Averly often declared all throughout our trip.

THIS IS A CLASSIC!!!!

Real kiss this time? :)

Good-bye to the Smokies!!

On Wednesday, March 22nd, we went to Dollywood, Dolly Parton's amusement park. We found out the night before, after spending $800 on entrance tickets, that it would be raining most of the day! :(

Not many people there at all when we got there, probably because of the rain.

We were there early enough to be the first ones in line for this roller coaster. The rain was a little uncomfortable, but it made the day AWESOME becuase for the first half of the day, we never had to wait in lines for rides!!! Thunderhead ended up being a favorite for many of us. We had no idea how fun that roller coaster would be. It was so awesome!

Averly lamenting that she is still just barely all enough to ride all the Dollywood roller coasters :)

Best day ever indeed, despite the rain!

Another one of our favorite rides was the Fire Coaster. At one point, we stopped, and then it shot us backward!! Totally unexpected and totally fun!

Watching the Dollywood String Quartet. They were SO good!

Beautiful Mill in Dollywood. The park was gorgeous, even though spring had not yet sprung. Very clean, well maintained, and super friendly people all around!

More beauties of Dollywood - the decorations, flowers, and these girls!

The boys venturing onto the HUGE drop ride. They didn't like this one much :)

Headed on to another favorite ride, the Myster Mine. It took us up and down tracks inside, then shot us outside and around and flipped us upside down. So fun!

Waiting again to get on the Fire Coaster ride. We were able to ride all of the roller coasters 4 or 5 times each! Great great day!

The Eagle coaster was crazy ! It strapped us in and then our legs just dangled freely. Lots of loops and flying tracks. 

Given demonstrating that he is ALMOST too tall to ride the Eagle Coaster!

Hayden in the gift shop after the Eagle Coaster

Attending the birds of prey show. It was LAME!

Although the bald eagle spreading its wings was pretty cool.

LUNCH! Super expensive foot-long corn dogs (yummy though!) while we listened to more musicians.

Smoke from the coal-powered Dollywood train. Impressive!

Even had fish in their ponds in the park!

View from Mel's ride on the Dollywood train

The rain had finally let up. Thanksfully, the Mysetery Mine never got crowded so we did it a couple more times.

The day is all done. We absolutely loved our day at Dollywood together! Wet but so happy!

Dollywood is just outside of Pigeon Forge, TN. That city is crazy! There are amusement rides and attractions on both sides of the main street with all kinds of fun things to do. This children's museum is literally build to look like it's upside down?!?

YEP! Built this museum this way, too!

On Thursday, we left Pigeon Forge and headed to Kentucky. Again, we took about a 45 minute detour to dip just inside of Virginia at the Daniel Boone's visitor center (more like a rest stop). Got Virginia on the map!

Our attempt at taking a picture of the "Welcome to Kentucky" sign.

We first landed in Lexington, KY, to spend a few hours at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Massive Clidesdale horses. So pretty!

This horse is called "Funny Cide". We got to hear the story of how he was born and bought, and then raced and won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes races. He lost just barely in the Belmont race, so close to winning the Triple Crown. 

Yup! Beautiful horse and its baby.

Inside the horse museum

This is the bridge over the Ohio river that divided Kentucky from Indiana. We crossed the bridge to get to our Indiana hotel.

And we made it to one more temple, the Louisville Kentucky temple. Thanks again, Verity, for waiting for us in the waiting room. So awesome to go to three new temples!

Friday morning, we had a little time to spare, so we did some swimming with our late checkout.

After a little visit to Krispy Kreme, we found the old Railroad bridge across the massive Ohio River that has been converted to a long pedestrian bridge.

Dad and Mom fooling around with more of Averly's "COUPLE PICS!"

Great shot, eh?!? Nice photography, Mel!

Just a fun cute house at the bottom of the bridge.

This is an older, much narrower bridge we drove across (becuase it didn't have tolls) to get to the...

KFC Yum Center for March Madness!

More street art in downtown Louisville KY

Waiting, hopefully, for the rain to stop.

First time every going to March Madness games! We got to see two games in the Sweet 16!

First game was San Diego State against Alabama. A SUPER fun game as we watched SDSU upset the number one overall seed, Alabama!

Gorgeous views from the arena looking out on the city and the river.

Verity's selfie in our seats. We were at the very most top seats of the arena, which was great. We could see just fine, and no one was behind us, so we could stand and dance around and have so much fun without bothering anyone.

The second game was Averly's champion pick Creighton, vs. Princeton. Averly was SO excited because Creighton won! That game didn't end until just after 11, then we had to drive 3 hours back to Nashville to catch our plane the next morning. PROBLEM - a literal tornado was ripping through the southern states (Mississippi hit the worst with many casualties), and we were in the massive storm of that Tornado. Windy indeed, but it was absolutely dumping rain. Alex was driving and couldn't even see the lines on the freeway. We drove most of the way at about 45-50 mph on the freeway. The drive ended up taking almost four hours. We didn't get to bed in our hotel until 3:30 am, only to wake up at 6:00 am to get to the airport in time. What a drive, what a storm, what a trip!!

Saturday morning in Nashville, the final leg of the journeyback to the Nashville airport. Verity is happy, just pulling a fun face :)

Final pictures in our awesome rental van

Maybe a great shot to summarize the trip. We were exhausted but happy and grateful. Here's Verity waiting for our plane.

On the plane back to Provo

We landed at the Iverson's home for Saturday and enjoyed time with Grant and Clarissa and the Iversons. Alex and Hayden took a long nap...then many of them went to a BYU volleyball game that night!

Cosmo tight-rope walking the railing to then peel off and do a back flip. Nice!

Sunday we woke up with plans to go to Bountiful for Ty and Alyssa's baby blessing of Luka. By Draper, though, this is what the March 26th roads looked like, and it was this way from Draper to Tremonton!! There were wrecks and slide offs everywhere. We were so so grateful to finally land home.

This is the beautiful picture of Jesus that Verity drew and colored while she waited for us in the Louisville temple. We sent it off to see if the Friend magazine would publish it. You can kind of tell from Verity's eyes that she had started to get sick at the very end of the trip. Averly had been sick with an awful cold for about half of the trip. This sickenss eventually turned into a full-blown awful sickness for her, mom, and dad by the next week. Oh well. Worth it for sure! So grateful for this incredible experience together!

BYU really wants Averly!!