Sunday, April 26, 2015

Spring Break: Georgia

In less than 5 hours of driving post Smokey's, we arrived in glorious Georgia.

We spent all of Friday exploring Stone Mountain with Erika and her adorable kids.
It was 80 degrees.  
Meaning, it was a pretty perfect day.
Some Stone Mountain highlights:

Riding the train.
 Shooting styrofoam and playing pigs in the Ball Barn.
 Dangling along the hard core ropes course.
 FUNNEL CAKE.
Riding the sky tram to the top of the rock.
Southern Style.

After mastering the mountain, we headed to Grant's to tour his super spectacular farm.
 Complete with pigs and chickens!
 And made dandelion wishes.
 And soaked up every last second of sunshine swinging with cousins.
 The Master Farmer, himself.
 The next day we got to watch Grant's 3 little boys, while he and Adrianna were selling at the Farmer's Market.
I had to sneak a few shots.
Especially of precious little Hawthorne.
There's only like 800 more.  
But, the cliff notes will suffice.
 And then Elliot and Tracy and Graham and beautiful brand new Wendy came.  So double baby shots became necessary:
 All of the boys.
During lunch, the Easter Bunny came!!!  The kids all lined up eager to see their spoils. 
 Then came THE HUNT. Of epic proportions.  Allen the Easter Bunny thought it prudent to hide nearly 250 eggs.  
So.  Much.  Chocolate.
 The Cutest Cousins
It was such a pleasure to spend Easter weekend surrounded by these people I call family.
Megan and Amanda were missed to the major.
I'm feeling real ready to get the gang back together.

Sunday morning we woke up, consumed our conference coffee cake, then headed home.
13 hours of driving.
Which, most shockingly and surprisingly of all, was splendid.
Eden was angelic.  Like possessed.  Or, perhaps more accurately, for the first time ever, not possessed.
Regardless, an Easter miracle.
Praises.

And with that, Spring Break came to a close.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Spring Break: Smoky Mountains

The next leg of our journey involved a 6-hour drive to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
 We stayed in a nice little cabin to reacquaint (thank you spell check!!) ourselves with nature in the gorgeous Smoky Mountains.
And take a nightly breather in the cabin's hot tub.
 Feeling irregularly adventurous, we took ourselves on a 2.6 mile hike.
 They were all good little troopers...if riding piggy-back counts....
 The fruit of our labors: Laurel Falls. 
High fives to mother earth.
Then while Eden napped and I did laundry (because clothes still get dirty and people still insist on wearing clean underwear, even on vacation), Allen took the big kids horse back riding.
It was a perfect way to spend a couple days.  Outside surrounded by beauty and sunshine.
Then back to the close confines of the car.