Our First Family Vacation

For our first family vacation, we all loaded up and went to Gatlinburg, TN and the Smokey Mountains. The weather was great and it was a fabulous experience for us. Although, taking a 5 month old on a few day vacation is quite a challenge, but worth every minute.

Brantley and Mommy under a beautiful backdrop

Ryan had planned a few hours for me to go shopping. It is funny how shopping now just turns

into buying for Ryan and Brantley( mostly Brantley).

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One of the favorite spots on our trip was the Aquarium.

Brantley was very intrigued by all of the bright colors and movements of the jellies.

They had a number of huge sharks in the underwater tunnel. Check out the multiple rows of teeth!!!

Our little Kangaroo kid

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Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.

We thought that a dinner show would be lots of fun, but we did not know that the Dixie Stampede did not serve silverware. It was all eat with your hands...which proved a bit cumbersome when holding a squirming 5 month old.

Our favorite part was the world-famous pig races...that's right, pig.

Brantley would not sit still during the show and got pretty fussy...finally, we just gave up and laid him down on the floor at the Dixie Stampede, and he was as happy and content as possible. Lesson learned -- when in doubt, put him on the floor.

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The final day of our trip, I thought it would be fun to have a nice, relaxing drive through the Smokey Mountain Nat'l Park. I went on Google Maps and Nat'l Park maps website to find a route that was on the way towards home. I found (what I thought was) the perfect road that ran through the Smokies and brought us out onto a main hwy. Well, let's just say this was what the Nat'l Parks call a "Primitive Road." Which are great for seeing nature and riding a Moped down, but not for blazing through on the way home with five hours of driving still ahead. We laugh now, but it was quite frightening and VERY tense for a little while. It took us nearly an hour to drive eight miles on this glorified walking trail.


As you can see here, we did not cross over creeks...they crossed over us. Luckily, we had just purchased new tires :)