Smoky Mountain Getaway/Summer Fun List 10

Warning: LONG post ahead (much longer than my usuals :)  )

We have been vacationing in the great smoky mountains for the last week and have had such an awesome time. Disney is of course our first pick for a vacation, but when we gotta do close to home, P Forge and G-burg are just a hop, skip, and a jump away. We've done a lot of fun things this week. We rented a cabin in the woods between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, and boy was it in the boonies! Our first night here was rainy and we ended up just getting some groceries to cook for breakfasts, some dinner, shopped a little at the knife works, tool store, and Tanger outlets, then hung out at the cabin. 

 

 

Our cabin: A Beary Tale

 

Day 2: we went to splash country for the day and had a blast there.

  

 

 

 

After splash country, we came back to the cabin and got cleaned up and headed to Knoxville. We hit up Trader Joe's, the Asian market, and found an awesome Korean restaurant named Kaya. 

After dinner, we headed back to Pigeon Forge and checked out a new area called "The Island". I felt exactly like I was in Myrtle Beach. There's a Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville coming soon and a Jimmy Buffett hotel opening there. There's live music nightly (which while we were there consisted of HORRIBLE karaoke) Oh and this lovely Ferris wheel which is $15.99 a person to ride. Yikes! We didn't waste our money on it. At least it makes a pretty picture

 

Then we headed on back to the cabin to relax.

 

 

Day 3: Thursday we got up and got ready and headed out to shop for a little bit, then went to the movies to watch Planes. Landon has done GREAT at the movies for his first two that we've taken him to. So proud of him. We got there pretty early, but the movie was rather full for a Thursday at 2 during the day.

 

 

We found out that you can get these awesome theater booster seats for kids as well. Much easier than our last trip to the theater! The seat actually stayed down and didn't try to close our totster up in it!



 

And of course it didn't hurt that the star of the movie sat with us as well. :)

 

After the movie, we decided to drive to a picnic area in the Smokies to have a late lunch.

 

 

Summer Fun List 10

 

After our picnic, we headed back to the cabin and dropped off some things, then headed right back out again to go to Landon's very first baseball game. I've decided to remove "Zoo" on our summer fun list and replace with "Baseball Game." Landon said he didn't care about going to the zoo, but would much rather go to a baseball game instead. Since I don't see us returning to Knoxville in the next 3 weeks, we won't be going to the zoo this summer. Eric and I used to go to the Smokies games A LOT. We used to buy the Saturday series of game tickets and we went to every Saturday game they had. It's so much fun. They are the AA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.  These pictures get me a little teary eyed and it was another full circle moment at the game. I remember the last game we went to in 2010 (pre-adoption application) saying to Eric, wouldn't it be so sweet if we had our own little boy in his little Smokies hat here with us watching the game? Well, little did we know, 3 years later, that dream would come true....

 

Daddy's boy

 

Ready for the game to start!

 

We were on the 2nd row, center, right beside the Smokies dugout. Perfect seats!

 

We've missed this. Hope we can start going more often again next year....

 

After the game, we headed back to the cabin, where Landon crashed and went to bed. Eric and I did laundry, and started packing up. We got mostly everything ready that night so that we wouldn't have to be up so early on Friday to check out by 10. After we checked out, we headed to my grandparents camper, which is where we spent Friday night. 

 

On Saturday, we met up with some friends at Dollywood. We got there at opening and left 3 hours before closing, so we made a day of it. The kids had a blast, but were all exhausted by the end of our day. Landon was out before we got out of the parking lot. They rode lots of rides and got wet plenty of times. It was a good day. :)

 

 

This was the beginning of the day........

 

Best buds

 

 

Landon chose to ride with the ladies.....

 

 

Guy wanted to ride in the boy bumble bee. He even made sure that it had blue antennae and took a look underneath the bee to be sure as well. ;)

 

Eric with all 4 kiddos on the Shooting Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

and much to Eric's dismay, they got the pink car....LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got Landon changed into some dry clothes and buckled in....

 

And before we even got out of the parking lot.....

 

He slept a good 2 hour nap.