Some summer fun

It always seems that summer goes by quick! Even more since the boys started school. We had a lot of fun just hanging out out home. 

By the time mid-June came around Miss Livvy was getting around pretty well. She was not up on her hands and knees but she had mastered the army crawl. To my surprise the grass didn't seem to bother her. 

Both of the boys love to be outside. They really can find anything to play with, their imagination never ceases to amaze me. The sprinkler this year they actually started to play with this year. 

In the years past the goal they had was to avoid the water or getting wet. So they would watch it and run around the water. But finally this year they decided that it was refreshing to get wet and fun to actually play in the water. 

One of the things we like to do is walk up to Sonic in the evening. Sometimes we get food others we get slushes or milkshakes. 

Our official spy

This summer we thought it would be a good idea to do some summer camps for the boys. Phillip's preschool offered a summer program once a week for eight weeks and for Thomas we enrolled him a a couple of summer camps. 

The first camp was in the middle of June. We gave him the list of camps and let him choose which ones he thought he would like. The camps were offered by the children's museum and had a lot of fun educational activities for the kids to do. 

THe first camp that he went to was spy camp. It was a week long camp and with this camp they had to solve the mystery of the missing Millie the dinosaur. Millie is the mascot for the museum. On Friday the mystery was solved and Millie was found and Thomas became an official Jr. Spy. 

He really had a good time and enjoyed the the activities they had. He made a couple of new friends, learned about some things about being a spy, and some fun memories :)

And she's moving...

It didn't take Olivia very long after rolling to start army crawling. Some might be impressed that an almost 5 month old started to move…as my third baby I was hoping she would be stationary for a little bit longer. She had other plans...

 Even though Mommy and Daddy were not ready for her to be able to get around the house, Livvy was very excited! She now could try and get into whatever she wanted :)

 After a few weeks she was able to get around the whole house I could still keep up with her but we had to start watching what we put on the ground and baby proofing. 

Her most go to item?? Paper. Anything paper, she would want to rip it up and eat it. We found in our primary class we had to watch her pretty closely if anyone in our class put their paper under their chair she would go right for it. 

Her other item of choice, the cords to the xbox along with the controllers. We ended up relocating that to the basement because there was no other way to hide all the cords. 

Hiking in Ky

There are not a whole lot of places to go hiking around where we live, so we take what we can get. Not to far from where we live there are a few trails in neighboring Ky. 

They are all fairly easy trails but they really worked well for the kids and after all the hiking we did in the Smokies they didn't have any trouble at all. 

We did end up seeing some wild life which was nice. By the water we seen a lot of turtles and even a snake, which for me was not so exciting. As well as some fish and tadpoles. 

After a bit we stopped to eat our snacks and Livvy had a chance to look around a little lower ;) She really loves being carried in her backpack. Unfortunately for Eric the older she gets the more he has to carry, so he is happy that she is in the lower percentages for her weight.  

It ended up a really fun and cheap saturday morning activity for our family!

Catching fireflies

Just a few days after we got home we started to see the fireflies come out at dusk. The boys love, love this time of year!

As the years have gone by the boys have come rather good at catching them. So they have a jar outside just to catch them and give them a temporary home. 

This year they were so excited to show Livvy the fireflies. So they set the jar right in front of her turned off the lights, and all three of them had so much fun just watching them blink!

Eating and rolling

After we got back from our trip, it was time to for Olivia to start rice cereal. 

At first she was a little unsure so the first couple times she wore more then she ate. After she got use to the texture and the taste, I think she was enjoying it more. 

She went through a phase for about a month where she liked to put her hand together, like she was praying. We thought it was pretty cute as she was "praying" before, after, and during her meals :)

About the same time she started her cereal she perfected the art of rolling over! She actually was better at rolling from her back to her tummy. But after a while she was a pro going which ever way!

She was pretty impressed with her new trick :)

Abrams Falls

The hike to Abrams Falls ended up being a favorite of everyones. So, even through it was a five mile hike at the end of the trip, we were all happy we did it!

At the beginning of the hike there were two rangers that kinda questioned whether the boys would able to make the hike. At this point we had done a five mile and were not worried, but they politely informed us that we could always turn around and watch out for the bears as they were active today. 

There were three of these little bridges, I was a little worried at first but the boys really did a good job walking on. In fact it was one of their favorite things on the hike :)

Miss Livvy enjoyed the hike as well :) As we got to the falls she was awake and ready to have a snack too. 

The boys couldn't wait to play in the water. It was a nice sunny day so the boys took off there hiking shoes and played in the water. They were playing some kind of mining game and pretended to find all kinds of treasures. It was well worth the trip:) 

We had so much fun on our trip and we ended up hiking 18 miles over the long weekend! 

Last morning at the cabin

Sunday night was our last night at the beautiful cabin. We were able to have a more relaxing time that night and enjoy our time together away in the mountains. 

On Monday morning we had a plan to do a hike but were not sure if we were going to do it. We had already hiked 13 miles since we were there and were not sure everyone would be up to one on the way home. As we got up we were all feeling very well so we decided we would do one more hike over at Cades Cove. 

We enjoyed our last breakfast out on the patio, and it was going to be a beautiful day! We wanted to get a few more pictures before we were off on our last hike for our trip. 

After a few pictures and making sure everything was cleaned up and looking good we headed over to Cades Cove. Our plan was to drive the loop and head over to the trail head to hike Abrams Falls. 

We had seen quite a bit of wildlife while in the park but we were able to stop on a pull off to see our first deer of the trip. We were able to get rather close and the boys thought it was pretty cool :)

Mirror maze and candy

On our way back to the cabin we decided to a few more fun things in Gatlinburg. We had one more pass that we could do either another putt putt course or a mirror maze. 

Since we did one putt putt we decided to go with the mirror maze. I think at first the boys were not sure what to expect. But when we got in they had a lot of fun with it. 

The boys did pretty well with the maze and I think we only took a few wrong turns. It was a little scary seeing all those Thomas's and Phillip's though!

In front of the mirror maze was a candy factory. Here they had all kinds of candy that you could fill up on. This of course was popular with all members of the family. 

With time we didn't have a chance to go to a breakfast place for Eric, so the candy factory ended up being Eric's "restaurant pick" :)

Shakes N' Dawgs

After our impromptu hike and completing our Jr. Ranger books we were ready to eat lunch. I tried to pick restaurants to represent each person. So when I came across this hot dog place, I knew it would be perfect for Sup.

To celebrate their accompaniment we though it would be appropriate to celebrate with food :) This was a mom and pop joint which sold all different kinds of hot dogs and milkshakes.

I don't remember how many different hot dogs they had but there were a lot to choose from!

Both of the boys liked the painting of the driving hot dogs so we took a quick picture as we were waiting for our order :)

The boys were not very adventurous with their selections as they both got a plain hot dog with ketchup. Eric got a Philly cheesesteak dog and I got a southern fried dog, which was a hot dog coated in cheeze-its and fried. They were both really good and we glad we made the stop!

Official Jr. Rangers

After a good night sleep we were up and ready to go for the next day. We still had a few more things to do with the boys to complete their rangers book so that was our primary task. 

We had planned a short hike for the morning at Laurel Falls, which was just a short drive from our cabin so we had a more time in the morning. 

While we were getting things ready for our day our sweet girl got to relax and play with her brothers new toys :)

We were not able to get pictures at Laurel falls but when we got back to the visitor centers we were able to pick up some more. Part of the Jr Ranger program was to pick up some of the trash around the park. So to get a full bag we decided to go on a short hike behind the visitors center. 

It was an easy one mile journey to see Cataract Falls. We were able to get our rain jackets on for the first time during our vacation, which was a surprise because it rains here pretty often!

After we collected the litter, we headed into the visitor center for one last project. There was a scavenger hunt the boys did to identify different animals that are in the park. After going through the exhibit they were able to find all the animals they needed.

After finding the ranger they were sworn in as official Jr. rangers. They received their badges and a certificate and were rather proud of their accompaniment :)

Putt putting

One of the things the boys really wanted to do while we were in the smokies was to go putt putting. We got a deal with the aquarium so we let the boys choose which one they wanted to go to. After some debate between the two, we went to the farm one. 

Since it was after dinner we were not sure how long they would be opened, but to our surprise they were open til midnight! After our batteries died in our camera and Eric ran to the gas station to get new ones, we were off to the course. 

To no ones surprise the boys picked the porky putts course..there were three to choose from. The course was a lot of fun, but we were behind a group of like ten people so it went a little slower then we thought. Thankfully at one point they decided to split up so it went a little faster. 

The course had a lot of fun farm animals displayed around which the boys liked seeing. Miss Livvy decided it was more fun to sleep after awhile. The boys did do really well and we were all able to get a hole in one!

After a long day of fun and adventure, we headed back to the cabin. The boys were out soon after getting in, but we had a fun day :)

Three Falls hike

After doing some work for there ranger badges and feeding Livvy it was time to start our second hike. This one was called Three Falls hike, as the name suggest we would see three waterfalls on this hike. 

This hike was only about half the distance from the one the day before, so it seemed a lot easier ;) The boys loved looking for the waterfalls and knew they would enjoy this hike. 

The first waterfall was pretty much at the start of the hike, so there were a few more people then we seen the day before. We were still able to get a nice pic in front :) Livvy stayed with Daddy as he took the picture since we just got started :)

This hike was full of all kinds of surprises and the boys thought it was really cool to see all the wildlife. I for one could have done without seeing the snakes, but it was the highlight of the hike for the boys. The boys have gotten really good at spotting snake…not sure if that is a good thing or not…. The first one was just crossing the path this one above was a topic of conversation for a long time. First it is a snake that is eating a baby rabbit. Sup wanted Daddy to try and save the bunny and trying to convince him that the bunny couldn't be saved. 

At the second falls we decided to stop and enjoy the view and have our trail mix. The boys really like to play in water and was a nice break. It was just a little over half way through the hike so it worked out well. 

Our sweet girl loved the hikes. Strapped on Daddy's back she could see all kinds of things and the mesh helped with the bugs. She never complained and always had many comments from the other hikers ;)

The last waterfall was right at the end. At this park there were a lot of tubers going down the river. The boys thought it looked a lot of fun, so we talked about the possibility of doing it when they were a little older. We did see someone flip which was a little comical ;)

After we dropped our hiking stuff off at the truck we headed over to dip our feet in the water. After the hike it was nice a refreshing! Miss Livvy loved it!