Smoky Mountains

To celebrate John-David and our other friends graduation, we decided to take a trip down to the Smoky Mountains. We rented a cabin and this was the view from the cabin. Unfortunately our camera was having issues so our pictures of the actual cabin didn't turn out. It was pretty cool though. There were 5 families which equaled 10 adults and 11 kids. We didn't do a ton of sleeping.
Just down from the cabin was a chapel that had this beautiful carriage outside. We took pictures of all the girls in the carriage with Jocelyn's Cinderella dress. Jackson told all the girls that it was actually a jail. They didn't like that too much.

While we were there in the Smokies, we went
on a few hikes. It was so pretty and green.

Jackson loved the large abundance of massive
sticks. I don't know if he was using that
for a hiking stick or a spear.

Here are the happy hikers.

This is the path to the top of Old Smoky.It's not hard to figure out why
they call these the Smoky Mountains.

Our happy family on top of Old Smoky

View of some mountains

We took a tour through Gatlinburg on a trolley.
That was definitely the best way to travel through
the city with kids.

Gatlinburg has a haunted mansion. Year round.
Kind of weird if you ask me.

One of the churches in Cade's Cove. It rained the
entire time we were there. We didn't stop too much.

View of Cade's Cove

After Cade's Cove everyone kind of broke up
and went and did their own thing.
We chose to go to a local city festival.
It was pretty authentic. Of course I had to
get a picture of a smoker in there

I thought this was pretty funny.
This band was practicing in cemetery.

This guy was telling stories. I couldn't
understand a word he said. I think
he was speaking English.

My favorite thing about this whole festival
was that a lot of the older people taps on their shoes.
When music was playing they would just start
clogging or tapping to the music . It was very entertaining.

The whole trip was so fun. I was so glad to have
the opportunity to spend 5 days with our friends.

Home Sweet Home

We have been busy busy these last few weeks and it's about time we caught up. I have a fabulous trip to the Smoky mountains to tell about but that will wait for another day. I will start with now and work are way back. We are moving in a few weeks and we just got back from Pa looking. We are renting and because a lot of people rent in the area, things are constantly turning over.
Housing is also expensive if you want to live in an area that is safe which we wanted so there wasn't a lot in our price range but we did find this......

and we couldn't be happier. It's a house that was built
in the 1940's.and he people who own it redid everything
in the house. It's beautiful.

This is the front room. The whole first floor has
wood floors. The living room connects to the
dinning room making a nice L-shaped room.

I love this kitchen. It's small but it's so light and it
has lots of cupboards. I better keep those cupboards
organized or everyone will be able to see our junk.

The first floor has two bedrooms on it and the top floor is
what we call the attic room.It's quite a good sized room with
a little bathroom:)Jackson and Jocelyn are very excited
about having this as their room.Kelsey will join them once
she advances from the crib. After seeing this room
Jackson ran down the stairs exclaiming, "This is the house I
have been dreaming of".We were glad to make his dreams
come true. The house also has a basement with
a utility/storage room and a family room.

This is part of the backyard. The neighborhood is darling. Most of our neighbors have been there for twenty plus years. The city park is about two house down as well as the city outdoor pool. The library is up the other street and the post office is down the street from the pool. Up the street shown in the picture is the school complex. Jackson was so excited about the thoughts of riding his bike to school. What's even better it's about 10 minutes or so from the hospital. A lot of the ones we were looking at were quite away out there. We feel very fortunate to have found this house. We looked at a lot of places that weren't very nice and were more money than this one. I am so sad to leave my house in Columbus but this house is helping me feel excited about he move. It's smaller than our house in Columbus and there is no garage so we will have to adjust to that. Starting in a few weeks this will be our new place to call home.