true boy tales: The trip!!

Friday, August 7, 2009

The trip!!

Okay- this may be a long post but I wanted to include all of my favorite pics for those of you not on facebook (which most of you are, so kinda pointless!).

We left last Friday night around 10:30 after our husbands were done with their softball game. It was a long night in the car with a few hours of sleep and we got there around 1pm or so the next day. The cabin we stayed in was perfect and had great sleeping arrangements for all of us. Our first real day there, we went to an indoor waterpark pretty close by. It was a lot of fun because they had 2 large areas for little kids that Bennett and Colby could play in, plus a lazy river. Of course they wouldn't let the 8 months pregnant lady go down the huge waterslides but I definitely tried!!

Day 2: a short hike to a gorgeous little spot by a river. Lots of exploring for the little ones. They had a blast. Later that day we went to a cool place called Ober Gatlinberg. Its a ski resort in the winter and they have an alpine slide and all kinds of other water slides and kiddie rides in the summer. Again...no preggos on the slides. Big bummer. But Katie and I got a pretty good view of everything so it was pretty fun to watch them having so much fun. Bennett loved the ball pit at the playground.

Jon said Bennett laughed the whole way down this slide:

On the way up to the Alpine slide:

The whole gang:

Day 3: the Knoxville Zoo. This was a gorgeous zoo and they let all 7 of us in with our family's zoo pass (normally we just get two extra adults in for free). We realized the total cost of all of our admission for the day would have cost more than our entire pass cost!

Day 4: a long uphill hill hike up to a waterfall and a hike down in pouring rain. Not the ideal activity for my pregnant self but a memory nonetheless! The first three days of the trip were so much fun and the kids did so great that one mediocre day was tolerable. We decided to drive through the night again on the way home but stopped from about 2:30 - 7:30am at a motel. We got home around 2pm the next day (Thurs.).

The turtle the big boys brought home for the little boys...he made it all the way back to Iowa.

In the hot tub on the deck of our cabin:

All smiles before the ride home. Ha!

My parents are staying at our house right now (a temporary spot for them until their temporary condo is ready to rent until their house is built!) which I was very thankful to come home to-- good cooking and extra entertainment for Bennett!

2 comments:

i'm B.August 8, 2009 at 7:28 PM
the ball pit picture! that was the one i loved. and the one where he's climbing on the tree by himself.
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Elisa ClarkAugust 9, 2009 at 7:56 AM
I love the ball pit picture too! What a fun trip!
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for the book lovers {my recent favorites}:

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan: An incredibly haunting medical memoir. There's a lot of medical info to read through but I didn't find those parts boring and difficult to wade through. I thought she shared just enough. But if you like a book that's easy to read, this isn't it. I couldn't get this one out of my mind for a very long time. An unforgettable true story.
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes and What Alice Forgot by Lianne Moriarty: I'm just going to lump these two together because they're in the same category. I'm calling them deep chick lit. A perfect summer book to get lost in. Read them. Both. I promise you from the bottom of my heart that you will LOVE them. (I liked them both way better than Where'd You Go, Bernadette.)
These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner: Most of my favorite books have a main character with a whole lotta grit. I wasn't quite sure about this one when I first started it but, oh, did it sweep me in and not let me go til the last page. I also love a book that makes me "emote out loud" as I like to think of it. This one had me smiling all the way through and crying my eyes out at the end. It follows a young girl through her life in the Arizona Territories in the late 1800's. A must read for anyone who likes Historical Fiction.
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill. I LOVED this book. Its a very well researched historical fiction novel about a young girl kidnapped from her village in Africa and sold into slavery. It follows her through her whole life and the unbelievable heartache and trauma she lives through. I've been telling people I liked it as much as Unbroken but the main character is so much more endearing and has so much spunk.
Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison. I have a thing for modern day memoirs of utterly heartbreaking stories (Like Breaking Night and Blackbird). This is a Foster mother's first-hand account of the children she took in over the years and the unbelievable trauma they went through before they came to her.
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. I loved this lighthearted yet emotional story of a strong woman making the best of a hard life in the Southwest, beginning in the 1930's. I love her writing style--just cuts to the point of every story without too much "fluff" and yet tells it in a way that you can picture everything in vivid detail. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, is one of my all-time favorites, and this true-life novel about her grandmother didn't disappoint.
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Modern day fiction about a girl raised in Foster homes and her struggles throughout life. She learns about the Victorian Era language of flowers and that becomes a huge part of her life. I finished it in two days. An easy read but very emotional and moving.
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. The true story of a man's experience after Hurricane Katrina when he decided not to evacuate in order to look after several properties he owned. Quite an unbelievable story and so hard to believe this happened in the US only a few years ago.