(long overdue) Vacation to Gatlinburg

WARNING: This post is going to have a TON of pictures in it….. just a heads up

This past week was our vacation week! Last summer while at the beach with my family, we won a week stay at any Wyndham hotel for listening to their timeshare shpeal. 2 hours of my life for a week’s worth of free lodging? uh, YES. The only catch is that you can only book a month in advance and you kind of get the “leftover” hotel rooms. You can pick what state and area you want to go to and there may or may not be a hotel with dates available. Initially we wanted to go to the beach (duh), but the only beach hotels were 9+ hours away and I was (am) not ready to drive that far with a teething baby. So we went to Gatlinburg! I had never been, so I was excited to go to Ripley’s Aquarium and Wonderworks and just shop and see the mountains. Which is exactly what we did.

We started off the week in Gatlinburg and rode the sky lift first,

and did quite a bit of window shopping and walking around. The next day was Mother’s Day and we went to the Aquarium. They were doing a mother’s day special and since I am now a mother, I got in free! cha-chingg. It was awesome. I can’t remember the last time I went to an aquarium so I had a lot of fun seeing huge, crazy-looking fish, sharks, weird crabs, seahorses, tiny and huge jellyfish, eels, lion fish, penguins (what?!), and tons more. — Oh, and I think the boys had fun too 😉

The next few days were spent relaxing, shopping (Cristian bought me two necklaces (one was from Cristopher) and a beautiful turquoise ring for Mother’s Day), taking Cristopher swimming for the very first time! He absolutely loved it and didn’t cry ONCE. Even when I dipped almost his entire head under water, aaaaand enjoying the jacuzzi tub we had in our apartment/room…I NEED a jacuzzi/soaker tub in my life!

The last two days in Gatlinburg we went to Wonderworks museum which was really cool and interesting and also had a Magic show, and then we went hiking in the National Park (after I got us lost for almost an hour…. luckily it was a beautiful day and we were lost in a scenic park) and lastly, did a little bit more walking around in the “Old Mill” district

My grandparents live a little southwest of Gatlinburg and for the last two days of vacation we went down to see them! We arrived at lunchtime on Thursday and since it was raining, we spent awhile just catching up (it had been over 5 years since I had been to their house last) and playing with Cristopher. I had mentioned to Grandad that I had never shot a gun and had always wanted to, so after it stopped raining, Grandad took Cristian and I in the back yard and let us do some target practice! We shot a (I know I’m going to describe these wrong) 22 rifle, an old 22 handgun, and a 38 revolver. We shot at a cow feed bag about 30-40 ft away and I didn’t miss any 😀 Granted, they were all over the bag, but for my first time, I was pretty proud. We also went down to see and learn about their cows and chickens and bee hives (It was a very educational couple days for me). My aunt and cousins live down the road from my grandparents and they were able to come over for a little while that night to meet Cristopher!

That night was rough….Cristopher is definitely teething and has been waking up almost every hour through the night 😦 I feel so bad for him and REALLY hope he cuts his teeth soon so he won’t be in so much pain anymore. Needless to say, I wide awake at 7:30. and went down to help Happy and Grandad pick strawberries in their garden. We had a delicious breakfast and then we were on our way home.

trying banana for the first time and loving it!

All in all, it was a goooood vacation and we all had a lot of fun even though we missed our lovely dog, Coffee 😉

Back to reality!……