Bacation Day 6...

Thursday was the day Donnie had to leave our fun group. The kids were torn up that she was leaving. Jackson actually lay on the bed all sad after she left! The rest of us headed out for a drive in Cade's Cove. We always make time to go on this beautiful drive. It has history and photo ops for me and lots of deer and turkey for Jon so it's a win-win. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit to not being in the best of moods on this day because I was flat out tired and stressed. It seemed to take forever to get there, but I should have just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Any who...

Here we are at an old church and grave yard in a rare family photo. We had actually never been here before, and it was really neat. We walked around reading all the old tombstones and seeing how short the lifespan was back then. We actually saw a grave for twin girls that were born and died on my twins' birthday. Kind of freaky. I have been to lots of graveyards before and never seen twin graves and for them to be on mine's birthday was so strange. I am an absolute history buff and always wished I lived in another time period, until I had twins. God bless ultrasounds and neonatalogists. Actually, God bless fertility meds because if I had lived in another time it probably would have been without children, and that wouldn't have been worth all the hoop skirts in the Ole' South! My little crocodile hunter found a cicada and carried his new pet around on his shoulder! Not to be outdone, Ashton carried one like a baby.
Isn't this a beautiful picture? I thought it would be better with a little of the road in the shot, so I stepped back, AND......... totally didn't see the concrete thing that goes at the end of a parking spot (is there a term for those?). I fell, I horribly, horribly fell. It goes on my lifetime list of worst falls. While in mid-air I realized I was going to fall with my GOOD camera so I twisted to try and save it, AND........ate pavement. Seriously, I had black pavement on my tongue. My mouth was bleeding like crazy. I managed not to crush my camera, but it still sustained a bad hit which scratched the bottom but didn't ruin it. I was so glad to have an audience too. I met some really nice people who I tried not to cry hysterically in front of! Most of all, I was so glad to have my supportive husband there. Yes, the one who took pictures and made plans to share them on his blog. Sadly, you won't see the pictures of me bleeding and crying here or there, or else Jon Dodd!
Next, we went for a picnic. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Yeah, picnicing with two crawlers who really shouldn't have Coke or peanut butter sandwiches yet can crawl and grab them ain't all it's cracked up to be! After digging sandwich out of one fat little hand after another after another after, well, you get the picture. Well, I had had it! I was so out of patience that everyone was probably ready to kill me too, but it got to be such a string of catastrophes that it was really funny, believe it or not!

We did end up having a great time looking around the old village (BTW AJ, for the rest of my life when I walk down that path I will forever remember little Silas burping his ABC's!). I love this picture of my mom and brother. I'm not sure we have very many pictures of the 3 of us together, and at least my scars aren't showing too much.

More great photo ops. I was just glad he didn't push her in!
Jackson got a hand me down digital camera for his b-day, and I can't tell you how it warms my heart to see my little photog snapping away. He and Uncle Tyler hung out together taking photos. It was cute to see him emulating his big uncle.
We were all amazed to see this buck run right in between us. It was awesome to be so close to it. Jon got so excited he didn't even video with the video camera in his hand!
Though we really seemed to have some bad luck I truly enjoyed this day hanging out with my family in such a beautiful setting!