The nightmare of cancer has taught us to seize every moment possible to create family memories. This break we have tried to do that which included a little overnight getaway to Gatlinburg. I am a little behind in blogging this break:)
These two love a good hotel room and so off we went!
Our first stop Saturday morning was the Aquarium in the Smokies in Gatlinburg. It was awesome and the kids especially loved the shark tank! Yikes! Here is a big shark going overhead of David and Kyle.
Early morning heading on I-40 the scenery was gorgeous.
The sea turtle was my very favorite!
These crazy boys!
Our sweet girl beside the tree at the Aquarium. We love little road trips as a family. They are not stressful to pack for or plan for and it was precious time away together.
The lunch choice was probably the worst decision we could have ever made. We ate at Dick's last resort in Gatlinburg. I remembered eating at one of those places at Myrtle Beach years ago with the Johnson family and thinking it was SO FUNNY! I remember them putting one of those hats on my dad and Sid Johnson that said something about them being old. I thought my kids would love it, they could seat us immediately which was awesome since Gatlinburg was packed, our kids were starving, and they had food I could eat. Mike was leery, but I thought it would be great.
Evidently a place that I remembered as funny twenty years ago has gone from being entertaining to raunchy. I was appalled at some of the things that were written on the hats. Kyle walked out of there and said "that was the worst place ever!" He said the portions were small (cardinal sin in Kyle's eyes), they were rude, and they said I was old! Ha!
Mike and I walked out of there commenting that we would never return because clearly that restaurant does NOT share our values. Thankfully also they had sports on their TV's and my boys spent more time watching hoops than reading some of the inapproriate hats. (For the record my hat said Ms. Trailer Park 1992)!
We also went to the Guinness World record place. That place was cool and gave our competitive family many opportunities to compete against each other! Here are Hope and David playing hopscotch. Thankfully no one took pictures of me and Mike competing against each other! Ha!
Besides quality family time, the highlight of the trip for the kids was the penguin exhibit. Since Seaworld Hope has a little penguin obsession going on and she LOVED watching the aquarium staff feed the clan of penguins. It was precious and we had to pry them away. The penguin that kept showing off in front of us was named Ricky which was Mike's Dad's name. That gave us a smile.
Today of course was spent at church. Today at church we talked about all the awesome things God did in 2013 while we look ahead to what God will do in 2014. It was an awesome message. The service was closed with the praise band and congregation singing David Crowder's song, How He Loves. I was so overcome in thankgiving for all the memories, fun, and happy times our family was blessed with in 2013. We do not know what 2014 has in store for us, but I was overwhelmed in thanksgiving in the ways that God blessed our family in 2013.
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