Tennessee Family Vacation

We had such a great family vacation to Tennessee this past week.  We went with another family with kids about our kid's ages.  We had so much fun swimming, shopping, going out to eat, etc.  We had some obstacles of the trip, as I'm sure many with young children do.  Between a trip to urgent care (for an ear infection), a child that suffered her first bee sting, a power outage (for 9 hours), multiple phone calls to doctors, and a child with an allergic reaction I can truly say that we made the very best out of each situation and still had the best time! We were so lucky to have spent our week with such laid back, care free people.  Each night once the kids went to bed, we sat up laughing about the day's adventures, playing cards, having a great time.  I'm sure the photos can tell the trip's story much better.  Enjoy!

We stayed in a cabin in Sevierville, near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg TN.  With five kids in tow, we spent a lot of time at the cabin.

All of the kiddos (not the best photo of all of them, but I love Ella and Jaxon in this one)

Popsicles for bedtime snack!  We broke all rules on this vacation :)

The babies ate A LOT all week, and so did their parents!

Craft time!

Hailee, proud of her necklace

Hannah walking around with a bag of chips.  What can I say?  I said we broke all the rules :) 

Sweet girls

Mommy and her girls

The girls and their little boyfriend

Really, how cute?!

Bubbles!

So many toys

Hams :)

 We also spent a lot of time at the pool.  We had a private pool very close to the cabin that we had to share with only two other cabins.

Fun!

Addie and Ella in their matching bikinis :)

Love them!

Sun bathing beauties

I would say they were ready to go in for a nap...

Mommy and Ella

Our signature shot :)

All of us!

I had to include this photo because look at that RED hair!!!

Ella

The kiddie pool!

My little family

The babes.  Notice the mo hawks :)

One of the first days we were there we all went to the Aquarium.  The girls had so much fun looking at all of the fish!

Ella and the fish!

Ella

To get this girl to smile for a photo is not an easy task!

Mommies and our big girls :)

H&H were not enthused.  *Notice Hailee's poor nose.  She fell and bashed it on a hard plastic chair at the pool :(  It finally looked somewhat decent by the last day we were there.

Pretty neat, Ella in the fish tank!

Addie and Ella in the tank!

Checking out the fish.

What a fun morning!

Paul and I took our girls to Dollywood one evening.  We had so much fun!  Ella loves riding rides and is never scared of any of them.  It is so much fun to be able to ride bigger rides with her now that she is getting older.  We even took Hannah and Hailee on their first "big girl" ride!

I think I was more scared on the ferris wheel than Ella was.

Having a blast!

This is the first little roller coasted that Ella went on.  Paul took her on it.  You can somewhat see him in the middle orange car.

Mom and Ella on the scrambler.  Ella said "no, stop, scared!!!" the whole time on this one but still said she had fun once we got off!

She went on some kiddie rides too. 

I'd say this was the biggest dare devil one of them all...

You can see here that she wasn't too sure.  Again, said she had fun once the ride was over!

Mommy and Hailee ready for the flying elephants!

So much fun!!!!

Hannah was mad that she wasn't on the ride too!

So daddy took her next!  See her little head peeking out way up there?

Ella eating the Country Fair pie

Daddy and Hailee with their cheeseburgers.  One of my very favorite photos from the trip! :)

We had so much fun at Dollywood's Kid Fest!

Hailee, Ella, and Hannah

What a great place for families!

We had a good 4th of July celebrating America's birthday!  In the morning we went outlet shopping and to lunch.  Then we spent the day at the cabin.  I'm pretty sure this was the day poor little Hailee got stung by the bee :(  Hannah was feeling less than stellar this day as well, as you can tell she is in none of the photos below.  Poor thing had mommy holding her all day long.

Play time!

Daddy and Hailee

Kisses!

BFF's!!!

Love this laugh!

Hailee would rather eat the bubbles than blow on them.

Our own personal band in the cabin.

Paul and Rick carrying on with the holiday fun long after the kiddos were in bed!

Cheers to a happy 4th and fun times!

Misty and I had a spa morning out to ourselves and the guys had a morning out to themselves going up a mountain, obviously each on separate days.  All I can say is that our spa morning was amazing!  Just what us mom's needed for a mid-week pick me up!

Hanging out after our pedi and before our massage!

Paul did get some good photos on their trip.

 The power went out on us on Thursday evening at about 6:00pm.  All I can say is that I have no clue how some people around here went for a week or so with no power, especially with children in the house!  Luckily, ours came back on at about 3:00am.  I have never been so happy to be woken up by a big, loud electrical truck outside in the middle of the night! 

Ella and Addie had just as much fun as they would've if the power had been on.  They still watched movies,

had snacks, and laughed,

and even had tacos for dinner (that Misty and I had cooked on the grill)!

Paul and Rick had fun with the "toys" they bought at the store to get us through the night.

Our last night there was such a blast and a great way to end our great trip!  We went to an awesome dinner, shopped some more, and took the girls to a little ride park.

The girls in their matching outfits before dinner.

Love

Hannah and Hailee don't seem so sure..

At the Old Mill Restaurant.  BEST home cooking ever!

Our Fam

Ella Grace

Hannah and mommy

Hannah's ice cream was all gone,

and Hailee's was not!  Now that was a first!

All of us!

Ready for some rides!

So much fun!

The babes were pretty hot and tired.

Love them holding hands here :)

Hailee on the swings!

And Hannah too!  We took Ella on this same exact ride when she was only 11 months old and we were in Gatlinburg with my family.  I love that now two years later all of the kids went back on the same ride together.

Somebody was tired and ready for bed..

Again, what a fun trip we had.  The kids did great in the car on the way home and we are ready (not really) for the week or normalcy ahead of us!  Back to the real world!