Gatlinburg Vacation

We spent last week in the mountains! The Smoky Mountains to be exact and we had beautiful weather. We enjoyed the National Park and downtown Gatlinburg, the pool at our resort and the Ripley’s Aquarium.

We hiked

View Full Album

Clingman’s Dome       Andrew’s Bald      Laurel Waterfall

 

We Swam

View Full Album

We walked Downtown

View Full Album

and visited the candy store :)!!

We were awed by the mountains and the wildlife

View Full Album

We loved the Ripley’s Aquarium

View Full Album

We had a great time, it was wonderful having Gabe with us all day every day for over a week :). I love vacations and am already working on plans for our next one!!

Buffalo Trace State Park

Part 1 of our July trip back home

We went back home at the end of July to visit while Gabe was in Cincinnati for work. We packed in as much Southern Indiana fun as we could while we were there! We started our visit by meeting some of my great friends and sorority sisters (including Fatima from Fur Lined Toilet Seats) and their families at Buffalo Trace State Park. We went swimming at the beach, played at the playground and enjoyed a wonderful pitch in dinner.

  9 of the 12 kiddos

It was impossible to get them all in one picture when there was so much fun to be had!!!

   After the beach we visited the playground, complete with an apple tree. The kids had a great time trying to knock the apples down. The little kiddos having some fun of their own!

The big girls just hanging out :).

Enjoying some Strawberry Shortcake

Keenan absolutely adored Mary, I don’t think he has ever laughed so hard!!

It took a few tries but we managed to get all 12 of them to stay relatively still long enough to get this one :). 

4 of these beautiful children are Fatima’s, 3 of them are Shannon’s, 3 of them are my sister, Melanie’s and 2 of them are mine. We have all been blessed many times  with wonderful children and great sisters and friends!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildlife Prairie Park

We visited another great park! Wildlife Prairie Park is about 45 minutes away and definitely worth the drive! 

The main attraction is the buffalo that roam a huge open field that has several observation decks. This is Trinity enjoying the view from one the decks. There are lots of other animals that are native to this area in natural enclosures (not like exhibits at the zoo), you wander through a path in the woods to discover all of them.  We found this pretty dragonfly and thought it was worthy of a picture!There was also a pioneer homestead complete with animals that the pioneers might have brought with them to settle the area, a garden and  a schoolhouse. This is Keenan, with the pioneer house in the background,  picking me some clover flowers that he loves to give me :).    The donkeys and horse were a big hit in this area of the park!  The donkeys came right up and through the fence to see if we had food for them. It was feeding time and the park employee that feeds them was right behind us on the trail; she let Trinity talk her ear off :) and watch her feed the horse. The other pictures of the buffalos I used the zoom on my camera but this one was really that close! Trinity was very impressed that he was really that big and that close and requested this picture!If you look closely in this one you can see the babies, they are the light brown spots in front of the buffalo on the left. They were very cute in person!Trinity wanted her picture taken with them and since I got Keenan to stand still and smile I took his too.There was  a snake house. Yes, that is a snake skin. My girl isn’t afraid of much! She wanted to touch one of the snakes that a park worker was placing back in it’s tank.

There was also a train station and museum! Keenan was in heaven in the museum :). Trains (and tractors), he just loves them!! The museum was a bit of heaven for all of us…it had air conditioning! It was VERY hot the day we went, the heat index was 95, thank goodness most of the day we were in the shade. And what would a train station be without a train!! Keenan was a little tired by this point, but Trinity and Cameron were all smiles!

We ended our day at the train station playground and then enjoyed a nice cool ride home in the air conditioned car! We will be heading back to Wildlife Prairie Park soon with Gabe in tow :). Some things are worth doing again so that we can enjoy them with him!