Saturday, February 28, 2015

Gatlinburg or Bust: Day 3

I think Sunday was my favorite day.  It started out as a bust and we weren't sure we'd get to go anywhere but it shaped up to be awesome.  

The cabin had a pack and play so we didn't take ours.  The sides on the one they had were lower than ours so Barrett just climbed right out.  So we ended up sleeping three deep in the king size bed.  I was nervous because he never sleeps with us at home.  He never has.  We don't have a big enough bed.  But he did great.  
We loved all the extra snuggles.

We woke up Sunday morning and got ready to go to Mass in Gatlinburg at 11:00.  We were planning to leave by 10:00 just to give us plenty of time to get there.  We loaded up in the truck and Patrick started pulling out of our driveway/parking area, and he casually said, "Hey isn't that the neighbors Durango in the ditch down there."  We all looked and sure enough it was.  John and Patrick got out and walked down there to make sure there wasn't anyone in it and just see how slick the roads were.  They came back up and said that the roads weren't bad and there was no one in the car but there wasn't enough room for us to get around them.  So we weren't making it to Mass.  I was so disappointed.  I knew no one was going to believe that we got all dressed and ready to go to church and then couldn't get there because there was a car in our way.  We took a group shot of us dressed up when we got out of the truck.  We tried to find it on tv to watch but couldn't.   
(Our cabin looks trashed in the background, it wasn't really that bad).

After the neighbors got their car out of the way we decided to make the most of the rest of the day.  The weather was kinda overcast and yucky.  First we went downtown to the Ole Smoky distillery to taste moonshine.  That was so much fun.  It was neat to hear about the process (and taste them all to decide on your favorite.)  We left there and headed to Cades Cove.  It was my favorite thing we did when Patrick and I were there in 2010 and I really thought John and Hope would enjoy it.
Driving to Cades Cove is beautiful.  Hope asked John to take some pretty pictures, so naturally he took one of Patrick. 
We started the loop and almost immediately people were pulled over.  We looked out and there were about 6 deer and a woman right in the middle of them taking pictures.  So Hope and I jumped out of the truck and "hiked" out to see them.  I didn't have my good camera.  I was using Patrick's iphone.  Most of these are from Hope. 
It was so foggy.  I love these that Hope took.
Of course I had to get a selfie with the deer.
This was with Patrick's phone.
On our "hike".

I was a little disappointed when we got to the spot we had our picture made in 2010.  It was so foggy you could see the mountains at all.  

We still made pictures. 
Barrett with his Godparents.

Another one of us.  (I know the hat is a little obnoxious but I love it.)

A couple of me and my boy.  I think he was looking at the deer.
He was so sweet.
For fun here we are 5 years ago (almost to the day) in 2010 and now a family of 3 in 2015.
We saw so many deer, it was so cool.  We even saw a big buck.  
we left Cades Cove and headed back to the cabin.  I was very close to getting carsick on the way home, that was fun.  John and I both get carsick and I was nice and let him ride up front.  (It may or may not have been because I'm terrible at giving directions because I may or may not get my rights and lefts confused often.)  Luckily we made it back without any vomit.  I did ride with the window down a lot of the way just in case.   We spent the evening finishing our game of Mexican train dominoes, John won.  Surprise Surprise. 
We woke up Monday morning and it was snowing again.  It was time to pack up and head home.  We had a really fun, relaxing weekend.  I was sad to leave but ready to get back to some normalcy.  Which is a joke now because this week has been anything but normal with all the winter weather.  In fact i'm still unpacking and doing laundry.  That has to be the worst part of coming home.  We're thankful for the memories and can't wait to do it all again!

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