It’s Thanksgiving week which means all things Turkey and Tradition. Finn has been doing a lot of art projects both at home and at school. He loves to talk about the feathers and what is he thankful for. 
Griffin and I headed to Mansfield on Tuesday evening with Lily so we could be there to begin our annual Hosta Seed planting festivities with Dad on Wednesday morning. Each year we seem to get a bit less planted as we take several breaks to eat and sit and stretch – we are getting older! But it is a fun time that I look forward to each year. The Bethune’s were there too and there was much cousin chaos and fun times with Grandpa as always. I wanted to make a pecan pie this year so I thought it would be fun to have the kiddos help. They each had a part in adding an ingredient and then helping with the mixing and dumping into the pie plate. It turned out delish. Kevin came up Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning we enjoyed tasty Turkey cinnamon rolls to start our day. We then headed to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving where we enjoyed a delicious first meal. Griffin also loves playing with his second cousins, who are all a bit older than he is (Ora wasn’t there this year), and he also loves to go see and feed the horses. Afterwards we returned to Mansfield for our second feast of the day. Early the next morning we got up and headed to Bob Evans to begin our traditional Black Friday shopping and dining affair. 
Finn likes to take part in the Bethune bedtime routine, as he typically goes to bed a bit later, but he enjoys getting his jammies on at the same time and listening to stories with his cousins. 
Saturday is game day, OSU versus The Team up North so in order to prepare Griffin and I made some tasty OSU cupcake treats. Then we lounged on the couch and relaxed :). The game was very exciting this year, especially at the end. Thankfully the Buckeyes got the Win. 
On Sunday after church we headed for our traditional trip to Cackler’s Family Tree Farm in Delaware to pick out our Christmas tree. This might be the fastest we’ve ever found the tree we liked best! We found a lovely 13 1/2′ tall Cannan Fir within 5 minutes of arriving at the first field we looked at. Amazing! Kevin brought his battery powered saw this year to make life easier, however, it died shortly after he started using it! Ruh, roh! Lucking others were nearby who were done with their saws so we borrowed theirs. Finn enjoyed being able to help his Dad cut down the tree. It was so long that it didn’t really haul very well in the tiny sled so this year Kevin ended up asking one of the workers to help him carry it to the barn to get the needles shaken out (since we had to go through gravel to get there and didn’t want to take home a ton of gravel to our family room!). It all worked out great and while Kevin was securing the tree to the Jeep Griffin enjoyed playing in the corn and the other fun things in the kids area. 
This was a heavy tree!! Kevin and I were able to get it inside after he mounted the tree stand to it out on the patio. We brought it in (had to move literally all the furniture out of our path to get it in) and then slowly set it upright. It was so tall it scraped the ceiling this year! So I headed up to the loft, Kevin leaned the tree inward to the loft, and I trimmed off the leaders so the star would fit. We now know our limit is 13 1/2′! We love the tree though and Finn thought it was soon cool to set it up. 
https://youtu.be/ZE7YRC_KTzM
Griffin enjoyed some bears in the snow pancakes from the Pancake Pantry one morning 🙂 Then we explored the Village area shops for a short bit and then later headed to Dollywood. The weather was so warm! We were in short sleeves and were toasty walking around but once the sun went down the temps dropped too. We had a great time and Finn got to sit and talk with Santa. He asked for a real baseball bat, a real baseball, and a real baseball glove. (No more of this soft stuff!). He also saw Clarice, Yukon, and Abominable again this year. He also played a “baseball” throwing game where if you get all 3 balls into Abominable’s mouth you win a stuffed Abominable toy. Sure enough, he got three in a row on his first try! We were happy for him and he was so excited. He was tall enough this year to ride several of the rides this year so we saw several smiles of him enjoying new things. He and Kevin even rode on a crazy spinner ride that he thought was great!
Another new adventure for us this year was heading to Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg. It is really a nice place and we spent a few hours walking around checking out the different animals. They even had a couple of animals you could touch so Finn got to feel what a jellyfish and a horseshoe crab feel like!
Another really neat area was the penguins. There are tunnels that kids can crawl through that go right through the swim tanks and then they can pop up and stand amongst the penguins! He loved going in and out several times. 
A new restaurant we hit up this year for breakfast was Crockett’s Breakfast Camp. Oh my, it was delish! I had their signature pancakes that are cooked in a cast iron skillet and they are literally 2 inches tall, each! Griffin helped me polish off the strawberries and whipped cream that accompanied my griddle cakes 🙂
We moved cabins this year in the middle of our stay as we were there long enough that neither cabin had the full length of our stay. The second cabin we went to, “Lover’s Lookout,” we stayed for only single night before being moved at our request due to gross amount of cockroaches that we discovered after returning to the cabin on what would have been the second evening. Gross! Fortunately, we were able to move to “Treehouse” which was a great cabin and we enjoyed the rest of our stay there :). 
And here are some videos from our time in Tennessee, including Griffin’s first flip! He was so excited that when we went back to The Island the next day he wanted to do it again.
And we celebrated anniversary #4 while on our trip this year. We spent the evening at the Dixie Stampede and then moving from a yucky cabin to a clean one. It was memorable!
Check out our handsome Tiger! Here is Griffin’s pre-school picture from this year and below is his Tiger class photo along with teachers Miss Jen and Miss Irma. He is really enjoying school and comes home telling stories about what he did and talking about his friends. It’s pretty cute! He eats lunch there too and typically eats really well. When I pick him up and he is telling me about his day we check out his lunch and he is so proud when he eats really well 🙂
On Tuesday, Election Day, we headed to the polls and took Griffin along. Our polling location is always active and busy yet we don’t have to wait so we were in and out pretty quickly. Afterward we headed to our traditional Annie’s Southern Kitchen for a tasty breakfast before Kevin and I headed to work. 
Here are a few others from this week before we left on our annual trip to Tennessee. Finn loves player with Cooper and Cole whenever they are home and outside. They enjoyed a fun afternoon playing in the leaves. He also made some fun artwork with Debbie this week including a Turkey, a pilgrim hat, and a feather hat. 
Finn loved playing with the oven mitts and a package of ping pong balls that we purchased to play some “baseball” in the cabin. It was amazing that he was able to catch so many!
Smoky Bear had a pool! We enjoyed playing in the pool although it was not very warm! So our stints were rather short but we had plenty of good times!
One of our first adventures in Tennessee was a new adventure for us. We drove through part of the Smoky Mountains National Park and saw some landmarks there like the Chimney Tops area on our way to Clingman’s Dome. A new adventure for us this year as we walked the paved, very steep, half-mile trail to the summit at 6,643 feet, which is the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Here is our family selfie at the top of Clingman’s Dome. It was a hazy day, with all of the forest fires in the area, so the views weren’t as great as we were hoping. But it was a fun adventure to the top!
