While Ash isn't about hair bows and high heels. . . she does love to look pretty. . . doesn't every girl? She was so very happy not to have to ear clip on earrings anymore. I just love that girl's excitement for life!
In Pigeon Forge we decided to see a show one night. The Jon Dee hypnotist show had great reviews. . . . and since we all love to laugh. . . we decided to give it a go. . .
Isn't that hilarious?
And, if you are apart of our family, vacation always resolves around eating good food!!!
The girls loved the candy store. . .
My pictures all out of order. . . This is at the Jon Dee hypnotist show.
Don't worry, none of us volunteered to get hypnotized.
One of the funniest things about our mini-vacation was our hotel. We use priceline a good bit and really find some nice hotels really cheap. However, we knew we were in trouble when we drove up to our hotel. . . The Vacation Lodge, I think is what it was called. You know it is bad when the remote control is held together by duct tape :) Alec had to sleep on a pallet on the floor. We took the sleeping bag. However, it was full of Jon's stink and sweat from when he was working on a house. Poor Alec. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw this. . .
He is our germaphobe in the family. Every inch of his body was covered in clothing.
Check out his sleeping mask!!! I was laughing so hard I was afraid I would wake everyone else up.
We decided to go and do a little hiking. Faith was so sweet to lend me her hiking bible. We are all about some accessories, so we all got a hiking stick. Alec had some leftover birthday money and go him a camelback.
Here we are inside the little church at Cades Cove.
Beautiful Smokey Mountains
We decided to hike Abrams Falls.
Poor Ash was so upset. Her camera fell in the river. Thankfully it still worked.
Alec was hilarious. He had his new camelback, but drank all of the water at the beginning of the hike. Not only did have have to go and use nature's restroom, but he also didn't have anymore water left. This was July and it was HOT! We loved hiking and are so thankful our friends Faith and Steve recommended it.
As you can tell, Ash had a blister on her foot and hiked the last part of the trail with her shoe off.
As we were leaving Cades Cove, we did get to see a bear. Hanna was scared and so I stayed in the car with her. Jon and Alec and Ash went to get a view, but not too close a view. They snapped this picture. However, there was this lady who started trying to get reallly close to the bear. Jon said he and the kids decided to leave. They didn't want anything to happen based on her stupidity.
That night. . . we ate somewhere. . .don't remember where now, but I do remember it being good.
Jon wanted to get his feet wet in the river. This was outside the restaurant.
Ash followed her Daddy's lead.
This is a cute picture. . . I can't remember why they were posing this way, but Alec's face is A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!!!
The next morning we were up and at 'em to head home and on the way go white water rafting. I've been wanting to do this for so long. Our old church used to go every year, but I was either pregnant or nursing, so we never went. It was actually very chilly the morning we left.
Beautiful Smoky Mountains.
Unfortunately, I dont' have any pictures of us white water rafting. The things I remember though:
This was actually a mill used during the Civil War.
Alec is so funny posing!
We all had such a great time and made lots of wonderful memories!