Megan and Scott spent a week in East Tennessee hiking through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so we packed up the car and headed out to spend the weekend with them! They had an amazing two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite at the Wyndham Smoky Mountains resort, with a full kitchen and plenty of room for us to play "hide-ah-seek" with Blair.
We arrived late Friday evening to eat some pizza, hear about Megan & Scott's 10-mile hike that morning, and watch some baseball. On Saturday, we headed into downtown Gatlinburg for a visit to the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, where Blair spent several adventurous hours looking at fishies, playing in the jungle gym, making her own virtual jellyfish, and seeing "fengweens."
The sharks made her very nervous.
Peekaboo!
Learning about the science of tank filtration!
Being "Two" for a minute.
Making a jellyfish!
"Hi, fishies!"
Going through the penguin exhibit tunnel - so brave!
The picture of Scott that Blair took from inside the tunnel!
"I take you pishure, Scott!"
The resulting photo. Bahahaha.
She didn't want to take a picture with me, OF COURSE.
But she did try to feed me her cookie.
Besties.
After the aquarium, we walked through downtown Gatlinburg, grabbed some lunch, and hit up Ole Smoky Moonshine for a tasting! Scott and I were brave and sampled 13 different types of moonshine (I actually only had 12 because ew to cherries soaked in chocolate moonshine. Just. BLECH.)
We threw back the first shot of 128-proof Blue Flame and I swear to you, the hairs on my neck stood straight up. My top favorites were Peppermint (of course) and Java Mountain, which was like spiked coffee. Sooo delicious!
I had to pose for a photo with a trolley - part of my job is to help Gatlinburg pay for these with state and federal funds!
"Sprinkles!"
We listened to some live music outside the distillery area and Blair got her groove on to the bluegrass. The mountains in the background were getting snowed on as we walked around, and the little white dusted trees were so pretty!
Sunday morning we hit up the infamous Incredible Christmas Place store, which is an inside joke among the McClanahan family because it's Tonya's favorite place to visit when she's in the area. Mike spent many hours being dragged through it in his nearly-30 years on this planet, but it's always so much fun to see the villages, ornaments, and trees. We steered Blair away from Santa though - we're saving that visit for after Thanksgiving!
We had also planned to take a drive through the park and do a few waterfall stops on our way out of town. Except about four million other people had the same idea - it is peak leaf season afterall - and we got about a mile in and turned around. Traffic was horrible. So we drove out to our Aunt Mary's house for an early dinner and some quality family time!
Traffic!
Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the whole group of us. Whoops. Next time!
I'm a hard-working mama to a feisty, giggly toddler and the wife of a baseball-loving public servant. I have a passion for photography and love capturing all of our little moments as a busy family of three. Life with the McClanahans is always an adventure!
"The greatest adventure is what lies ahead; today and tomorrow are yet to be said. The chances, the changes, are all yours to make, the mold of your life is in your hands to break." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
0 comments:
Post a Comment