tennessee =)

getting on with vacation, we're spending the first week in tennessee at warren and lita's cabin. we stayed here once before and it is just beautiful and comfy and homey. we love it here, and are so blessed to be able to be here again. there are a lot of things to do around here, or nothing to do if we'd rather. the boys love to be in the hot tub! yesterday morning max asked if he could get in the hot tub and was pretty shocked that i said yes. like that's strictly an evening activity or something. when we arrived, we were met with a gorgeous view. so beautiful here! we got all moved in then went to get some supper. at the suggestion of our friend brian, we tried out the wood grill buffet. he said it was the biggest buffet he'd ever seen in his life. he just might be right! we were more than full by the time we were done in there. went to the grocery store to get some things for the week then back to the cabin. got a good night's sleep then yesterday we played all day. spent a lot of time in the morning just being lazy - time on the deck sipping coffee (and facebooking haha!!), big boys sleeping in, that kind of thing. we finally motivated and went to pancake pantry for breakfast, which we'd been looking forward to. of course by this time it wasn't breakfast, it was lunch, but oh well. best story from this meal is this: max ordered "banana pineapple triumph" which was bananas wrapped in crepes, covered with a pineapple glaze/syrup and whipped cream. he ate his bacon and a little of my hash browns and some of his crepes. then he looked a little sad and when we asked him what was wrong he said he didn't feel so good. off to the bathroom he went and when he came back he told me his food was more like "triumph of the toilet"...eat and puke. oh well. too much sugar for max! we strolled around gatlinburg for a little while after we ate, visiting some places we liked last time we were here, like aunt mahalia's candy shop and a woodcarving place i can't ever remember the name of. on the way back to the van, one of those people who always hollers at you wanting to know if you want to buy tickets to something hollered at us and we actually stopped. she called herself "big mama"...long story short, today we're going to go look at a condo for 90 minutes, be fed lunch then we get 5 free tickets to the ripley's aquarium. hope it actually works out that way! the boys had been wanting to go there but didn't want to spend our "jar money" on that. so this will be good. at least i hope so. spent the rest of the day in water of some sort. most of that time was on some part of the little pigeon river. luke and max got in and went over to the other side in some very very (very) cold water. their bellies were so red! max was a little nervous finding his way back over to us. next thing we saw was blake taking off his shoes and rolling up his shorts to wade out to help max back over. we didn't even ask him to, which makes me so proud. good brother! i love it when they love each other. blake only got to encourage (heckle?) luke - luke didn't want any help. that made it pretty entertaining, because he really could've used it! beautiful day and gorgeous surroundings. we really enjoyed ourselves. on the way home we decided to go find a swimming pool we were told we could use. the boys and greg got in, i only just barely got in. holy cow, it was freezing! pretty sure it was just ice cubes newly thawed. left there to go home and grill some steaks and bake some potatoes, a plan which was thwarted by a thunderstorm rolling in and no power in a very dark cabin when we got home. so we took our worn out scummy little selves to pigeon forge where they had power and went to the apple barn for supper. excuse me - the applewood farmhouse restaurant. yeah, whatever, it's the apple barn. as i said, we were a little worn out, which made us a bit giddy. so of course they seated us in the center of the room, where our boys became the floor show. especially luke, who was in mighty mighty wild and crazy form. we ate too much, stopped by a "stupid store" as luke calls them so he could buy something stupid, then came home. yay for power! got a decent night's sleep so now we're going to get motivated for today. the aquarium (if big mama wasn't scamming us) and whatever else we decide to get into. =)