Smoky Mountains & Asheville

For the last weekend of the summer we decided to take a weekend trip and have a little fun just as the family.   To start the vacation off, we headed to...

the airport!

 I think this is the part of the trip E & Kels were most excited about.  These two were so jazzed up, they had an absolute blast moving through the airport process.  

And it is fun for everyone around them when two littles are having that much fun.

To add to the excitement, this was Coley's first flight and our first flight as a family of five.  Lucky for him, he had two siblings that were happy to help him have fun.  

And lucky for us, we brought Daddy to help us with the carseats!

 

After the very exciting plane ride, we were ready for a fun weekend in Asheville, North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains!

And it really was such a fun time.  It was a laid back weekend of lazy mornings on porch looking out at the Smoky's with our kids playing around us, afternoons enjoying a few of Asheville's many breweries, and evenings splashing in the hot tub and playing together.  

But it was our kids that made weekend so fun.  They were all in such fantastic, happy, goofy moods the whole time that it was a blast for us all.

Day one was spent in Asheville at the Biltmore Estate.  We had such a fun day wandering the old house, playing in the huge garden, pretending in the stables and sharing ice cream and wine.  Oh yea, and we were pretty silly, had some good laughs together, and really enjoyed the fantastic day:

(he decided funny faces were better than smiles this trip and she was dancing on the grass in this pic)

Day two was spent exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Lots of hiking - ninja warrior style, viewing the views, watching the wildlife, and a little hot tub swimming to end the day:

Day three was started off with the intent of hiking and playing around waterfalls at a North Carolina State Park, maybe getting our feet wet in the water.  When we got into the park we discovered the base of the falls was an awesome pool that was fantastic for rock sliding, swimming and cooling off.  We got a little more than our feet wet and had what was a surprisingly perfect day: 

This girl loves to ride in the hiking backpack and chatting with her Daddy all day.  He had several hours over the weekend of hearing exactly what goes through a two and a half year olds head.  And she has a lot going through there...

Here is E's copperhead he found along the trail...yikes.  I didn't get a picture of Kel's huge rat snake she found.  Why do they love snakes??

The way home was just as much fun as the ride out, even if they were a little more tired from the exciting weekend.

By the way, the smoky mountains really are smoky.  And a lot of fun!