A blitz trip and a baby shower

Zach had a long drill from Wednesday to Sunday last week, so my friend Kate and I loaded all the kids up for a 48hr blitz trip to Gatlinburg. Once we quickly ran from the scary hotel Kate booked on hotels.com and checked into the Hilton Garden Inn we were ready for some fun ...

The kids loved the aquarium ..

We were so busy those are about the only pictures I got .. but we rode the tram up the mountain to the ski slopes, went the the "Smokey Mountain Wildlife Encounter" (we learned why its an "encounter" and not a zoo ... basically we looked at empty habitats but the kids didnt care)

We also celebrated Laura's baby to be ...

Mommy points ...

Let's be honest .. it's not easy to take kids ages 4,2, and 1 hiking on a Saturday morning without a daddy(at the base) but somethings we do out of sheer boredom, need for adventure/spontaneity and ... mommy points. Because you get a lot more "oh wow good for you", "how fun", and "I bet they loved it" when you tell people you went to hike a waterfall on a Saturday rather than the normal well we went to the park. Luckily, I had a willing cousin that answered the desperate text of "want to be crazy and take the kids hiking today.. we are daddy-less" with a "pick me up in 30 min!" ... We really had a blast and I can't tell you how good it was for my soul to be out enjoying the Lord's creation with my kids:)