Gatlinburg Again!

Uncle Jon came in for the weekend and brought his girlfriend, Kristin to meet the family and go to the UT game on Saturday. They got to our house Friday morning and Jon wanted to take her up to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg to show her around so off we went.

First stop was the Adidas outlet -- Uncle Jon has an addiction to that place!

Here's Samuel wearing a size 4x coat. It might be just a little bit big :)

Then we drove up to Ober Gatlinburg so Jon could take Kristin down the Alpine Slide.

Here we are on the chairlift going up.

Jon coming down the slide

Kristen, Samuel, and Uncle Jon

After we did the Alpine Slide, we drove back down to Gatlinburg and walked the strip for awhile.

Samuel playing with the ball in front of the Ripley's Museum

Uncle Jon and Samuel taking a rest

Gatlinburg Vacation - Part 3

Wednesday the weather was nice so we decided to finally go hiking again. We drove up to Clingman's Dome and were going to hike out to Andrew's Bald, but it was a lot colder and windier up there than we thought it would be and we were afraid Samuel would get too cold. We stayed up there and took a few pictures and then drove a few miles down the mountain to a shorter nature trail that the ranger had told us about. It was just a 1/2 mile loop through the forest, but we had fun. Then we just took our time driving back down the mountain stopping along the way to take pictures of the fall colors. At the bottom of the mountain we did another 1/2 mile loop trail, the Sugarland Valley Nature Trail. It was a really easy trail that went along the river. They had different plaques along the way naming the trees and telling how to identify their leaves and Samuel had a lot of fun having us read them to him and then he would try to find the leaves along the way.

Fall colors

Samuel at the Clingman's Dome parking area

More pics from Clingman's Dome

Samuel hiking on the first trail we went on

Adam driving down the mountain

More fall colors

Along the river on the Sugarland Valley trail

Samuel telling us we had to stop because he had to be the leader

One last color pic

Gatlinburg Vacation - Part 2

Tuesday we had planned to go hiking, but we woke up to a rainy day. We looked through a couple of coupon books to try to find something to do that would be inside. We decided to go to Rainforest Adventure since we had never been there. It is an indoor zoo but we were surprised at how many animals they had - snakes, lizards, frogs, turtles, lemurs, and several other animals. Samuel loved it! He was so excited. It definitely turned out to be a fun thing to do.

Samuel and one of the lizards (I can't remember which one). It would follow his finger around the glass

Looking at a lemur

Petting a blue-tongued skink. She is really fat because she is about to have babies anyday now.

Petting a snake - I think a python

This bird was so friendly. Everytime we walked past him he would lift his wing up and wave at us

Another lemur. This one hated Samuel. There were several other families there and people kept walking up to take pictures and things. The lemur would sit there like nothing was going on, but anytime Samuel walked close to the glass, the lemur would attack it. It was too funny!

This is what happens when Daddy gives a bath in a jacuzzi tub. You're not supposed to turn it on with bubbles, but according to Adam he had just washed Samuel's hair and he didn't think there was very much soap in the water. A push of the button later and there were mountains of bubbles. Samuel thought it was fun though!

Gatlinburg Vacation - Part 1

We went to Gatlinburg for vacation for a week. The fall colors were awesome and we had a lot of fun.

Adam and Samuel relaxing in our room

On Saturday we did a short hike near the visitor's center. It made a loop past an old cabin and then there was a fork that went to a waterfall called Cataract Falls and we did both of them. It was only about a mile long, but we were trying to get Samuel warmed up so we could do some longer hikes later in the week.

Samuel thought this tree along the trail was pretty cool

The log cabin on the trail

Cataract Falls

Sunday we took Samuel to ride the go-carts. Adam had been wanting to take him for awhile and he was finally tall enough to be allowed to ride. They both had tons of fun.

After that, we went to Dollywood for the rest of the day. Samuel is now 42 inches tall and loved showing off his orange bracelet - Dollywood gives different colored bracelets for different heights to show what rides you can ride. He wouldn't ride any of the usual rides he likes because he said those rides were for little kids and he is a big boy now. He did have fun getting to ride the new rides that he was big enough for like the swings, bumper cars, and Blazing Fury roller coaster.

Samuel in our room

Monday the weather was really nice and we had planned to go hiking, but Samuel was acting tired and grumpy so we decided to just take it easy for the day. We did get out and play miniature golf. This was the first time we've played with Samuel that he actually tried to play and got involved in the game. Normally he just swings his club at things on the course and throws his ball down the hole whenever he feels like it. He did really good and actually got a couple of holes in one without any help from us. He even got a hole in one on the last hole and won himself a free game!

Adam teaching Samuel how to play golf

Samuel with the ticket for his free game. He was so proud of it!

After golf, we went walking around Gatlinburg for a little while. Samuel saw this horse and insisted that we take his picture on it. I'm not sure what look he was going for :)