Tomatoes and Bianca

What do tomatoes and Bianca Salas have in common? Nothing. Except maybe that she's a great cook. And that's how we like it. Random. We went to the East Nashville Tomato Festival where we saw 2 tomatoes, a handful of friends and neighbors, scored some free snow cones and heard a pretty decent song about tomatoes. Catchy.    

Aria did a good job of dumping her entire snow cone IN the diaper bag. As opposed to on the pavement, or anywhere else. It made me laugh. It made her brother aggravated.

I told my friend Annie to look for us, we were the ones in the red wagon. And then laughed some more, everything was red and there were tons of red wagons. Here we are enjoying the tomato tunes.

All that the kids needed to request a return visit to the Tomato Festival again next year...see bouncing, grinning kid above. Personally, it just felt good to be out with people who wanted to be just as random as us...because really...a Tomato Festival? A friend said it best, "What exactly do you do at a Tomato Fest?" The answer? Be random. Or plan ahead and enter the Tomato pitching contest or the Tomato Fest Corn Hole Tournament, I guess.

Meanwhile, a dear friend was randomly touring Nashville and joined us for a wonderful late summer Sunday afternoon at our house. Bianca and Brian have known each other for almost 18 years. To explain their history would take volumes, but in short, they're family. Her brother, Gabe, and Brian go way back, heck, I've played on soccer leagues with her Dad, Frank, and you can't not adore their mother, Blanca. Don't forget Adrian, who I still can't believe is related to Gabe. Oh the stories! Bianca is a super-smart, multi-lingual, globe trotting, do-anything-and-everything gal who just felt like checking out Nashville for her birthday. She brought along her amazing boyfriend, Frederico, from Italy, who is just as much fun as she is. It's cool watching her translate English to Spanish to Italian, so he can understand the Trader Joe's appetizers I served.

They are wonderfully in love, very successful and live on the beach in Miami. Nice! And they just wanted to see more of America. They stayed at the Hutton and couldn't get enough of the Honky Tonks...but found the fashion options more than lacking. That's an understatement!

We've turned them on to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville for October. But really, we just hope they'll come back again soon, as it was so much fun to be in their company. Thank you so much Bianca for sharing some of your birthday with us!