It’s vacation week! We look forward each year to what has become our annual trip to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We were fortunate this year to have beautiful warm and sunny weather which allowed us to have several days of outdoor adventures. Yet again this year we explored the Smoky Mountain National Park for several hours of walking around and exploring Cade’s Cove. It’s fun to go each year and see how much bigger Griffin is and the different things he likes to see and do. 
After all of that hiking around we headed to The Island and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Paula Deen’s Restaurant. Yummers. It is served family style and we indulged in all kinds of tastiness as you can see in our photo. After dinner we walked around the Island and played some games. Kevin and I were both stunned when Griffin, on his second try, won a stuffed animal from the “claw” arcade game. Wow, he was so excited and I was surprised as I had just watched several adults with numerous failed attempts!
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.
I took a screen shot of the weather (after we’d been there several days) so we can recall next year how lovely it was 🙂
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!
I’ve been looking back through the blog lately and seeing how much better my photos used to be. I’ve gotten pretty lazy and only on rare occasion do I break out the “real” camera as I usually resort to my cell phone out of convenience. Even though I have an iPhone I can’t seem to take a good photo with it! So, sorry for the quality of these pics but I’m still happy to have the memories despite their blurriness.
Several nights before bedtime lately we’ve been reading the “family rules” print that hangs in Griffin’s room. One of the rules is to try new things. Debbie put this pic in the app this week from lunch time with a caption along the lines of “I love to try new things Miss Deb.”. I thought it was pretty cute. 
On Friday Kevin, Finn, and I all went to the pediatrician so that the boys could get their Flu shots. I had told Finn about it the day before so he would know he was getting a shot. At first he acted nervous and pretended to shake his arms, but then I explained how he always is just very observant and watches the nurse come in the room and then quickly give him a shot. Normally he doesn’t even cry. He was ok with that and I told him we’d go do something fun afterward. Sure enough, Kevin and Finn got their shots and he had asked Kevin to go first so he could watch. It was super quick and then it was Finn’s turn, he got his in his thigh (not his arm like Kevin). It was so fast he just watched, flinched for a slight second, and bam we were done. No tears! So we headed off to the place of his choice – Graeter’s for a monster sundae. 
I realized this week that I never really took pictures of the pumpkins that Finn, Debbie, and Sam carved – so here they are. Finn’s is on the left, then Sam’s is the small one on the right, then Debbie’s on the back right. The middle medium size pumpkin was just an extra I guess. And then they spent some time painting the other pumpkins too. 
On Saturday Kevin and Finn mowed the yard after Kevin repaired the mower. The belt that operates the blade deck had shredded. Now that it is replaced it mows so much better and is pretty much like new! After mowing they raked big piles of leaves – can you find Finn?
On Saturday we were thinking of making a quick trip to Mansfield to see mom and dad we’ll be gone most of the time up until Thanksgiving. We were enjoying an early pizza lunch and decided to let Finn play at the Worthington Mall playground for a bit after. I was walking around the mall when Kevin texted me to come back as Finn had fallen and hit his tooth and lip on the slide :(. He’s not normally much of a crier, but he cried for a good long bit and had a bloody lip and tooth. That solidified our idea to head to Mansfield so Grandpa could check his tooth out! Turns out he seems fine and after a nap in the car on the way there Finn was full of energy and ready to watch the Buckeye’s late game. While I didn’t snap any pics while we were there I did get one of Lily in the car. She’s very excited when she first gets in and when you almost arrive at the destination, but for much of the hour long ride she just sleeps. Once we arrive, that’s another story! She starts pacing and just wants to get out since she knows where we are!
And here is our 5-year, first-date-aversary pic. It was five years ago, November 5, 2011, that we went on our first date to the OSU-vs-IU football game at Ohio Stadium. So, what better way to celebrate that to watch the OSU game on tv?
On Sunday after church we headed to Enon for a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong too. Another beautiful fall day to be outside, this time playing soccer and baseball. 
