Vacation - part 1

I'm sure ya'll have noticed I've been a little slack on blogging here lately. We've had a lot going on. We had family in-town for a few days and the very next day we went on vacation with Brandon's parents, sister and her family to the mountains. Between company, packing and making sure our house was all cleaned up before vacation...it's been hard for me to juggle blogging until now.

We left bright and early from Brandon's parents house on Wednesday morning. We rode about 5 1/2 hours to the beautiful Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. This was our first time visiting Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge. We had the best time and I'm missing it already.

Now to the good stuff...pictures. :)' 

{All 351 of them. Nah, I'll spare ya'll a little...but not much.}

The Jurassic boat ride was the first thing we did. We figured the kids might like seeing the big dinosaurs. To my surprise it wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be like. It was dark and sorta scary with the dinosaurs making really loud noises and some of them squirted water. We didn't realize it was going to be like that until it had already started. Bailey sat in-between me and her daddy. She clung to us pretty tight. I think Brayden felt pretty safe in his daddy's lap. Overall, they did great and actually wanted to go back.

 Brayden, Bailey & their cousin - Collin checking things out.

The gang minus our brother-in-law Chad. He took the picture. 

 We got a picture of everyone this time.

Back: Grand-daddy {Brandon's dad} & Chad {our brother-in-law}

Middle: The four of us.

Front: Amanda {Brandon's sister}, Collin {our nephew} & Nonnie {Brandon's mom}

 This is when we were starting to go in.

Look at the expressions on Brayden & Bailey's face. haha

This is when we realized it was going to be dark.

After the boat ride, we rode through downtown Gatlinburg 

and headed up the mountain to Ober Gatlinburg.

We were just driving around and decided to see what was up there. Bailey actually fell asleep on the way so she missed a little bit of the fun. That's why you won't see any pictures of her at first. Grand-daddy sat in the car with her while she snoozed.

 There was a lot to do up on the mountain.

 The kiddos enjoyed riding the rides.

 I'm pretty sure this was Brayden's favorite ride the whole trip...

only because it was the characters from the movie Cars.

{Below: Video}

{Below: Video}

 We sent Nonnie to go wake Bailey up. We didn't want her to miss out on any more fun.

{Below: Video}

 Bailey walked up to Collin and wrapped her arms around him. 

It was so cute but I didn't get my camera out quick enough.

I'll post part 2 soon. ;)