It rained almost every day for 2 straight months this summer. Our backyard has a large dip that Aaron parks his truck over to change the oil. This “dip” was full of water and mud and this is what came of a rare sunny afternoon:
Moooommmmmaaaaa, the boys are getting me muddy!!!!
We finally convinced the princess that it was okay to get dirty 
)
We made some wonderful memories this summer….
On our way home from Gatlinburg, we stopped in Chattanooga. We saw Rock City and Ruby Falls. What an amazing sight. To see the falls in the underground cave was a spiritual experience for me. It was so awesome to realize how great a Creator we have. This is a picture off of Lover’s Leap at Rock City:
Can you see my family in this picture of Lover’s Leap?
This is Fat Man’s Squeeze:
And this is the High Falls under Lover’s Leap:
This the swinging bridge. I was fearfully trying to hang on to the bridge and take a picture while there were rowdy boys on the other end, jumping on the bridge. I don’t think I want to do that again! Abby and Nate were tired of smiling, my hero (Luke) just goes with the flow (he looks scared huh?), and Aaron looks like he decided to take a nap lol.
This is the last of our vacation pics (bet you’re glad huh? lol)
Well after recuperating from the fire, the children got out of school for the summer and life is always hectic when they are home. We took a week long trip to the Great Smoky Mountains and stayed in a cabin on the mountain (eek!). My daddy got to come and meet us for most of the week, and we had a ball. Made some great memories. You can click on the pictures for a bigger picture.
Here’s the children with Popa:
This was at Dollywood. We got there one evening in time to catch Veggie Tales Live on Stage and then went right into Untamed Illusions (a magic show that included a white tiger, a lion, and tons of sheepdogs). The kids talked about these shows more than any other part of our trip.
We rode the sky tram up the mountain to Ober Gatlinburg one day. I really enjoyed that. We got to view the mountains on the ride up and it was so gorgeous. This at Ober Gatlinburg. Aaron and Abby rode in one Ski Lift and Luke and I rode the car behind them. We were riding further up the mountain so that we could ride the Alpine Slide back down. The Alpine Slide is a plastic “thing” (like a thick sheet!) that slides in a concrete trough down the mountain. You have to sit on the plastic and control it with only a hand brake. Ok people, I was already freaking out on the ski lift. I only let go to take this picture. So you can imagine how they laughed at me put-putting down the mountain on my plastic sheet when they were zooming down and having the time of their lives lol.
And this is in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We rode through the park the day after Daddy left. When we found a spot wide enough to park on and not to steep to climb down, we stopped and let the kids go in the stream. They couldn’t walk out too far because it got deep quickly and was very cold. We almost didn’t get Nate to wade, because he was so scared. Right before we left, he got brave and let Aaron take him out to this rock. Then he decided it was fun and wanted to stay. Of course, Moma didn’t get to go because she had to stay on the bank and yell at the kids to be careful. Also Moma is the mastermind behind all the terrible photography, so that’s why I am in none of the pictures.
Here’s my Abby girl. She is like a fish when she gets around water. I wasn’t worried about her because she is usually cautious.
Luke on the other hand is not so cautious. In fact, he tends to push the envelope when no one is looking. He loved walking and slipping on the rocks and proceeded to fall in the freezing water right on his butt. Needless to say, we had to ride with the windows down because we couldn’t use the a/c all the way back to the cabin (2-3 hr. ride). That’s my cowboy
Here are 2 of my 3 favorite men in the world.
We also saw the Dixie Stampede one night. This was Luke’s favorite thing we did. After the show he went around the arena and petted every horse. And by the way, this is the only picture of me on vacation lol.
We also stopped at Chattanooga on the way home and visited Ruby Falls and Rock City at Lookout Mountain but I’ll save those pictures for another time.
And this is pictures of the boys from their end of the year school program. The boys had a seperate program from Abby since they were in K and pre-K. My cowboy cleans up nice huh?
Whew! I had a lot of catching up to do. Hopefully, I can show some things I have been working on all summer now.
