Tennessee, June 2011

An unexpected trip to Tennessee, thanks to my mama buying Grace & I plane tickets, turned into a lovely reunion of many beautiful things. 

Grace and I traveled all day on June 7th.  

My first flight with Grace without Loren.

It went surprisingly smooth.  

We were just exhausted...up at 4am, drove from 5am-7am to Seattle, sat at the airport from 7am-9am (where I was searched, like really searched from head to toe along with all our luggage due to a mini milk I packed in a carry on which sounded off some very serious alarms-Oops), then took a 4 hour flight to Atlanta where our DVD player was stolen during our 2 hour layover, which was proceeded but a 1.5 hour flight and finally a 1 hour drive to my mamas house.  This kiddo and I were beyond exhausted.  Then you add in a 3 hour time difference.....Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

BUT-it was worth it because we got to do all of this..............

Day 1: A day of rest followed by dinner at Aunt Sandy and Uncle Marks and a show: 

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.

Aunt Sandy & Uncle Marks beautiful home

Feeding ducks at the stream near their home

Gracie's first professional musical
(Not sure why she's making that silly face but I love it)

My girls first real crush: Joseph!
He kept smiling at her during the show
and she was hooked.  

And, the incredible Mark Inbody-who was also in the show!

Day 2: Grace and Grandma baked cookies.  Then, Mom and I went to see The Miracle while Arlene and Grace hung out  at mom's house for a few hours.  They feed the horses, watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Toy Story 3 and braved it through a big thunder storm.

Grace had no fear when it came to being around Babe and Brown.
Thank you Arlene for allowing Grace to help you with all the animals.
It really built up her confidence. 

Brown had a little crush on Grace

My mom's gorgeous property and front yard view.

Day 3: MY FAVORITE DAY: Splash Country.

Thank you Aunt Sandy for getting us all in for free and for taking photos!!!!

And, thank you Aunt Rosie, George, Jes and Liz for driving through out the night from Indiana to Tennessee so you could spend the weekend with us.

This day was so special for me, for many reasons. One because I got to reconnect with my family whom I haven't seen in four years (The Bailums).  And, my memory bank was flooded with images of when Jesi and Liz were babies and I was with them when they went to their first water park.  It was kind of surreal. And, to see my family surrounding my girl, loving on her, helping her be brave, going down water slides with her and cheering her on made my heart fill with great gladness.   I genuinely loved this day.  It is a day I will never forget.

Trying to motivate Grace to get a bit more wet.
Brrrrr.....the water was freezing-they do not heat up the water 

We all did it!  And, laughed the entire time.

Notice everyone on their tip toes.  It's a family thing.
See, we are all short so everyone tries to appear taller than the person
next to them in photos by going up at the last possible second.
Aunt Sandy started this numerous years ago.

Wave Pool

I love this girl.  

Showing Grace how fun going down a water slide is.  

And, it worked!

1st Water Slide! 

I was so proud of Grace.
She did a lot of things for the first time today.
She had a blast in the water and didn't want to leave, even after 6 hours of water/sun.  


Today was a very very very good day.




Day 4: Douglas Lake for a picnic with the entire family. Then we all ventured back to my moms for a spaghetti dinner and smores.

I can't believe Jesi & Liz are all grown up now.
And, now I  have a "baby" and they are old
enough to help take care of her.
Where did the time go??

Sisters (we missed you Aunt Angie)

A little baseball fun.
Excuse my lack of form and skill.

Grub Time

My favorite moment at the picnic....cloud watching.

That's Babe, the horse.  

Bubbles on the desk during a thunder storm.
They played for over an hour out there.
These are the special times I want my girl to aways remember.
It reminds me of growing up while being surrounded by my wonderful family.

Uncontrollable laughter-the BEST

This photo should equal the definition for JOY

SPOONS!  I had not played this since early high school years (more than 13 years ago).
My stomach hurt from laughing so hard.

And, to end the day: SMORES

Big huge marshmallows.
Mom-they were a hit!

Her 1st Smore

Smores, followed by Uno.
Then bed and an incredible thunder and lightening storm that lasted until 3am.






Day 5: BBQ at Mom's. 
Our last day with the Bailums....sniff, sniff. :(

Making hamburger cookies

So cute and creative

I can't believe the girls are about the same age I was when they were born.
I am not getting old, am I?

Uncle Mark and Grace doing Stank Face.
My favorite photo of the week.

I Love My Family

Day 6:  We went shopping at my mom's store (Family Book Outlet) and then we went to the mountains to see fireflies.

The Great Smoky Mountains.
Mom reserved a camp site-we ate dinner there (thank you Subway) before
heading into the woods to see the fireflies. 

On our drive to the camp site we saw a black bear on the side of the road.
My first bear siting.  Yay.

Exploring the camp ground 

Aunt Sandy joined us-they decided to
throw rocks into the stream.

Cameras (lights/flashes) were not allowed in the woods where the fireflies were so I have no photos of that.

It was amazing though.  It was the end of the season (2 week stretch) so there weren't hundreds of thousands like we were hoping for but it was still incredible.  They were vibrant and synchronized.  Grace was in awe.  It took her a few minutes to not be terrified of the complete darkness (mind you we were in the middle of the smokey mountains with zero light except the moon-I would have been scared too) but once she relaxed, got in Aunt Sandy's arms, she was just fine.  

A good night indeed.  

Day 7: Ober Gatlinburg

So, I'm a big weeny.
The ride up to the top made my tummy feel like we were on a roller coaster.
Doesn't help that I am afraid of heights.  

When we got there there were rides for the kids/families.
Black Bears, Otters, Raccoons, Skunks, etc.
It was a perfect place to bring my munchkin.
She loved every second of it.

Yeehaw

My fun mama.
Mind you-we both get sick on these rides and
this place has a rule that if they aren't 6 an adult has to go with.
Yep-we both had to take turns.....getting sick.  

I even conquered a fear.
I went up the ski lift with Grace, all the way to the top of the mountain.
Honestly, I was frightened.  Grace however was a stinking rock star.  She was not afraid at all.  She kept me calm and kept telling me that I would be ok and that she was proud of me for being brave.  It was a wonderfully humbling lesson. 

At the tippy top of the mountain. 

At the top a Bluegrass Band was playing.
They called Grace up on stage and put a cowgirl hat on her.

After spending a few minutes at the top of the mountain we had to come back down the mountain.  It was way worse than going up. I had to keep taking deep breathes and had to trust that we would not fall to our deaths (gulp).  And, sure enough we made it down just fine.  It was a thrilling adventure.   




Day 8
Pirate Day
Arlene made Grace a Pirate Ship for our visit. 
We played with it on and off through out the week but this day we really really really played pirates-all of us.  It was one of my favorite moments of the entire week.

Can you spot the two cheesy cute pirates???

She was fierce.

Swords, buried treasure, a ship, sharks, plank walking and Arggging were
all apart of our play time.  

Grace snatched the treasure while
Arlene attacked me with her swords to keep me from it.
I feared for my life.....no really, I did!

We are scary, yes?!

My 3 favorite pirates

It had been a long, busy, fun, adventurous week. 
It was our last night at my mamas-time to get our snuggles on. 

Every night we were at my mom's Grace slept like a champ.  10-11 hours every night with out a night waking or much movement at all.  The last night we were there she kept me up with her wiggling all night and then it happened-for the first time ever -she fell off a bed and on her way down slammed her chin/face onto my mamas night stand and her teeth did a number on her lip.  I felt so bad for her.  I stayed awake the whole night, making sure her she stayed near the center of the bed so it wouldn't happen again. In the morning it was very swollen and looked quite icky (see below).  Thankfully, with in 48 hours the swelling went down and by day 7 her lip was fully healed.  

As much as these moments are no fun, they sure leave a good story to be told. 

Another page for the adventure book. Hey, it's life!

excuse the blurry photo-it was taken
with my phone.  

And, this was our last day.  Mom and Grace painted sun catchers. I watched Letters From Juliette.  We did laundry and repacked. It poured and gave us one last thunder and lightening storm show.  It was beautiful and refreshing. We said goodbye to Arlene and headed on our way to the airport. My poor mama.  It rained the entire way and she does not like to drive in the rain.  The weather was terrible.  Grace gave Grandma at least 10 hugs goodbye.  She was sad to say goodbye to grandma but was happy to see daddy in a few hours.   We made it through security with ease-Praise God!  And, we got on our plane ok, but then the "fun" started.  The terrible weather caused 2 hours of the worst turbulence I have ever experienced.  I was so sick the entire flight.  I held a bag to my mouth the entire trip. I thought we were going to crash a few times.  I think I prayed for two hours straight.  And, through out the flight I just kept thinking how I had another 4 hour flight after this one and didn't know how I was going to make it.  Thankfully when we got to Minnesota I was able to sit for an hour and eat something.  I started feeling loads better.  Grace and I had an entire row of seats all to ourselves on the last light.  Grace got to lay all the way down and ended up sleeping the entire way home.  We made it to Seattle safely and it was so wonderful to see Loren after all those days away.  He drove us home and we all went to bed.  Back to life.  Back to reality.  

What a wonderfully lovely vacation.

Thank you to everyone who was apart in making it spectacular for us.

We are two blessed girlies.  

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

Please excuse the random videos below.

Blogger will not let me delete them.

I thought they were photos when I loaded them.