Vacation Day 2

After a nice continental breakfast and a late check out because we were too slow, we ventured on out past Sevierville and Pigeon Forge to check out Gatlinburg.  I have never been here, so it was fun to explore and see more mountains.  We parked and walked around to find some lunch.  We hit the second floor pizza hut.  You can’t see it in this picture, but it says that the wheelchair access is in the back and then you see the giant incline.  Even when we pushed the stroller to the back, we didn’t see where the entrance was.  Kind of amusing. 

After checking out the strip on Gatlinburg we walked back to play some “Hillbilly Golf”.

Here we are taking a little break before our golf game while poor TJ walked back to bring our car closer. It was hot and I had not anticipated all of the walking that day and wore the wrong shoes. Oops!  Blisters on the first real day.

Jaylyn enjoying the barrel seat.

Adley trying it out.

Leighton, just being cute. 

    To play at the Hillbilly Golf course, you have to ride up the mountain a bit on a tram to get to the course.

Going up!

You have to have an outhouse on a hillbilly golf course

Adley with her sweet golf skills.

Jaylyn was always ready to head to the next one.  

Having fun!  What a nice shot of her Tritzi.  :-) 

Here is the difference in the two girls after enjoying a long hot day walking in the hot sun and sweating, I mean playing Hillbilly golf.  (After hitting the soda machine.) – Jaylyn

Adley – She did smile at me after I took her picture.  I thought she was going to sleep with her soda in her lap!  They perked up when they realized we were now able to check in to our cabin!!  Woohoo!

We rented a cabin in the mountains.  It was in Gatlinburg just up the mountain from the Gatlinburg welcome center.  So, it was still close to everything.  It was so cute!     We loved all of the fun cabin decorations.  Adley called it our “Bear House”. 

The Brookside Hideaway

Our driveway down to the cabin.

The little brook down below and behind the cabin.

Front of the cabin.

We didn’t really have a “view” of the mountains because we were right IN the mountain.  We had a view of forest!

This was the view from our front porch.  There was another cabin closeby.

Front porch

Back balcony with the hot tub

Leighton found a little cubby hole to sit in.  

Kitchen – Our bathroom and bedroom were through the door to the right.  The doors on the left is the washer and dryer.

Living Room

Another view

View of the table area. The hot tub was outside that window.

View up to the second floor and upstairs balcony  

Upstairs bathroom    

Upstairs game room

I liked looking out that window right onto the mountain

Girls bedroom upstairs

It was adorable!

View down below

Our bedroom

Leighton could sleep in the closet.  :-)

Our bathroom

Bathroom again

Vacation Day 1

Hooray for vacation.  One thing to mention, I will not be participating if the rest of my family decides to leave in the middle of the night again.  Just sayin’.  :-)  Needless to say, we arrived in Pigeon Forge by afternoon.  We were just going to drive and stop part of the way.  But, we made it all of the way and just stayed in a hotel for the night.  The traffic coming in was pretty slow, so it took us quite a while just to get to a hotel.  Jaylyn kept pointing out each hotel we passed wondering why we were not stopping at THAT one!  Lots of them had fun swimming pools that she insisted on pointing out also.  We ended up with a hotel with an indoor pool and a swing set.  But, we didn’t really get to enjoy either.  The girls just swam in our GIANT jacuzzi tub.  We also hit Cracker Barrel for some supper.  Jaylyn was all ready to souvenir shop here in the restaurant.  She sure likes to spend her money.  :-)

Bible School Fun

Here are some pics from the Bible School Kick off and some of the girls on the performance night.   They had a blast with this year’s theme, “Saddle Ridge Ranch”.  It was a perfect theme for some horse-lovin’ girls. 

They had lots of fun Ranch-style games.  Adley needed a little help from “Nina”.

Even horse rides!  That was the best part, of course.  :-)

Adley enjoyed Ricky the horse, too.

Panning for gold

TJ even had to get into the action – snakes in the boot!

Adley giving it a try

Even a hay ride.  Thanks to cousin Mark for enduring the super hot heat in the sticky hot hay.

Here is the preschoolers rehearsing on stage.  I got to do music again with these guys.  They are always a lot of fun.  Notice Adley in the front row.  This was her first official VBS year.  She loved it.  Notice she is dancing along.

Notice again, singing along.

Then, performance time came and they were all in their cute little “cowboy vests”.  She did not move for any of the three songs!  She said she didn’t sing and dance because of her new brown shirt.  Maybe she didn’t want her new “shirt” messed up.  :-)Jaylyn singing along with all of the big kids (K-6).  She has always loved the performance part.  Hard to believe isn’t it?

Here is a shot of most of the group on stage.  It is getting harder and harder to fit them up there.  If everybody would have been there, we would not have fit.  Or, they would have fit, but you wouldn’t have seen your kids. 

Is it bad that I’m always glad when it’s over?  :-)

Random

Fun with the tunnel!

Hi!

Taking a rest break on mommy’s lap.

Jaylyn is a great helper.  She was my supper helper this night and decided to go all out.  She wrapped the silverware in the napkins like a restaurant, then used a water bottle and maraca as a vase with flowers.  :-)

Adley’s first hair cut!

Well, I finally did it.  Actually I tried to get our friend Angela to do her first hair cut and Adley wouldn’t stop crying and would NOT let her cut it.  Silly girl.  So, she finally changed her mind and let me do it with no whining or screaming.  I just trimmed up the front out of her eyes a bit and trimmed the “tail” off the back.  (This was also back in July.)  With those curls, she really hasn’t needed a trim.  Everybody loves Adley’s curls!

Out of my eyes!

This really didn’t turn out to be a good shot because it still looks like there is a bit of a tail still there.  :-)

Butterfly House

After the 4th of July we headed to the Butterfly House with Malaine.  The girls had fun.  I had not been there before.  I don’t know why it took us so long to go. 

Here we are!

Uh, girls – that giant caterpillar is eating you!

Fun to climb on too! 

This was a disgusting cockroach exploring dome.  Yuck!!  There were way too many roaches crawling around in there.

One of the favorite of the butterflies we saw.  The girls squealed a lot while the butterflies were flying by them.  I carried Adley.  She was a little freaked out and may have possibly kicked a butterfly that came by her.  Eek!  You are not supposed to touch them at all.  

In the garden

Checking out the map

I’m not sure what this look is.  It reminds me of the “Whatchu talkin bout Willis?” look.  :-)

Adley in the garden

Jaylyn
Malaine

Butterfly bench

Silly girls  (They look like they could be sisters, right?)

Leighton on the bench. 

We wanted to go to the carousel, but it was closed that day.  Bummer.  We did enjoy a quick play time at the nice playground there.  I am loving these parks that now have the giant umbrellas and perfectly planted shade trees for the parents.  How genius and kind.  :-)

Fourth of July Fun

We had our usual kind of 4th of July fun.  Daddy tried out his new grill, he did a little fireworks show for us in the backyard, then on the actual 4th we had supper with some family and more fireworks/sparklers and off to see the big ones.

Adley doesn’t really like the loud ones.

Jaylyn ready for daddy’s show!

  Sparklers!

Good show!  But loud!

ooohh – ahhhhh!

Snap pops!

Sparkler fun!

Statue of Liberty???  :-) 

Leighton’s ready for the big ones.  She didn’t really act like they were big deal once they started.  Maybe her loud sisters have something to do with that? (Okay, so they are not loud in public, but at HOME – YES!)