Friday, November 8, 2013

Trip to Gatlinburg-Finale

On Sunday morning Adam did a little devotion out on the porch with the kids. It was a perfect setting to talk about God's creation, so that's what he did. He picked all different types and colors of leaves then had each of the kids pick one to hold. He shared from Romans 1:20 about how God's eternal power and divine nature has been clearly seen. It was a quick little lesson, you know the attention span on this age of kids is like .5 seconds, so it was short and sweet, but its hard to be in such a beautiful setting as that and not be in awe of our amazing Creator God!
IMG_2496
IMG_2493
IMG_2497
IMG_2501

After our big breakfast, we headed out to the Smoky Mountains to do the trail up to Grotto Falls. Let's just say it was a little misleading, it was supposed to be handicap accessible and stroller friendly...it was neither! Thankfully we were prepared with hiking backpacks so we were set to go.

Can you tell I was excited?
IMG_2650

Then we were off...
IMG_2607
Cali to Gatlinburg 952
Cali to Gatlinburg 980
IMG_2510
IMG_2512
IMG_2517
IMG_2522

This does NOT look stroller friendly to me, does it to you?
IMG_2593

The colors of the trees were so vibrant that it literally looked like the trees were glowing...
IMG_2621
IMG_2628
IMG_2647
IMG_2597
IMG_2601
IMG_2588

The boys thought it was "awesome"...and they were acting super silly, it was fun to capture those moments.
IMG_2579
IMG_2574
IMG_2568

Whit and I saw this and thought of Dirty Dancing...but we didn't try our luck at dancing on the log, we just kept trekking up to the fall.
IMG_2581

Toward the end we had some tired little people...thankfully we had lots of hands to hold, shoulders to ride on and back packs to ride in...
of=50,321,480-4
IMG_2599

The reward at the top of Grotto Falls, is, of course, the water fall...it wasn't a gy-normous fall, but it was pretty, and you could walk behind it, which everyone thought was pretty cool.
Grotto Falls
Grotto Falls, Great Smoky Mountains, TN
Cali to Gatlinburg 1033

We took a little siesta for a few minutes, then headed back down the mountain.
Cali to Gatlinburg 1041
of=50,321,480-1

When we got back to the cars we had a little picnic...time with cousins is always fun!
IMG_2618
IMG_2614
IMG_2612

Tennessee was beautiful and the views certainly didn't disappoint!
of=50,321,480-5
Smokey Mountain Shack

I was definitely not ready to pack it up and take it to the house on Monday morning, but mostly that was due to the ten hour road trip that lay ahead of us. We had a great time all being together, we'll definitely have to do it again!
IMG_2681
IMG_2689

1 comment:

Spring Break: The Sweet Spot

I've been running mach 2 with my hair on fire and have not been posting as much as I'd like to on this here blog.  I'm a few wee...