Warning: this is a very long post!
We had an amazing family vacation this summer. Last summer we sent an email out to a whole slew of people, inviting them to vacation with some of us in Tennessee. We actually found this crazy house online, that slept over 40 people, up in the mountains. Well, most families have a hard time committing that far in advance, and with how expensive the house was, we had to know for sure! Turns out, there were four families total who were a "yes!" We downsized the house a bit, but were still super excited to go!
We rented a cabin up in the mountains. The cabin had four big bedrooms, three bathrooms, a theater room, air hockey table, pool table, and hot tub, among all the other regular amenities. The DeJonges, Westermans, and Darnells came along. It was a blast. We did a lot of hikes, hung out in Pigeon Forge (which is a huge tourist town), went swimming, tubed down a lazy river, played lots of games and had bonfires. Here is my first batch of pictures!
This first hike we did was pretty insane. It wasn't super long, but it was uphill the whole way out. And at one point, it was a cliff on one side with no guard rail. Check out the sign below.
The views were beautiful and the trail led to some really cool falls.
Usually after our morning hike, we would either head back to the house and hang out, or head to the pool. Dinners were always fun too! Each family took a night to cook and then we ate out two nights.
The house had an awesome covered porch that we spent a lot of time on.
Hannah is holding a spider. Ew. Her and Allie would often pick one up and bring it over to scare me with. I finally had to tell them, very seriously, to knock it off. Boy did they get a kick out of that while it lasted.
Most of the hikes were fairly close to our house, except for the highest point in the Smokey's. That was over an hour car ride but the views were beautiful, even if the car ride made me sick!
This observation tower is the highest elevation.
Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy.
These plants were pretty cool along the hike. They were filled with bees!
The walk up was pretty steep. The kids were grateful to walk downhill on the way back. They all did very well for all the hiking we did.
Back at our house, roasting marshmallows!
We even had a bad mitten net set up and played some fun games of that!
The pool table gave us some great entertainment as well!
I'll post part 2 soon! They won't be in order, because they'll be from my phone.
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