"Bay-cation"

We took a long weekend vacation (or "bay-cation" as Kensley calls it) to Gatlinburg with some of Jeremy's college friends and their families.  We left late morning on Thursday and came back on Monday evening.  We rented a big house and shared it with four families.  We had a great time catching up, meeting and getting to know each others kids and just enjoying our time together as a family.  Between the four families, we had 9 kids ranging in age from 4 years old down to 3 months old.  It got a little chaotic, and loud at times, but it was really fun to have the kiddos together.

 

We decided that the trip definitely wasn't long enough (what vacation ever is?), especially because the kids seemed to finally be getting into the swing of things and the new routine as we were packing up to head home.  We also decided it might be a good idea to wait a few more years to all the kids get a little older and more independent.

So I didn't think I took many pictures, then I realized how many I was uploading.  So here are some of the fun things we did.

Looking for bears...this happened frequently on the trip.

New friends...Kens and Kailyn

Sweet Bo giving Aves a flower

Movie time!

Our house had a theater room in the basement, it was great for the kids...and dads!

Going on a "bear hunt" aka mini hike.

She's starting to pose and smile for me!

Ice cream night!

It was enjoyed by all!

She tends to take more of the shuffleboard "push" approach with the club.

All the kiddos...I initially thought we were missing some.  I guess at times it just felt like there were more kids in the house!  Ha!

The girls LOVED baby Luke!

This girl loves Merry-go-rounds.

This one...isn't quite sure yet.

Ha!  Look at that face.

 

She was so serious!

 

Monday ended up turning out different than we had expected.  We opted to spend the morning at a mini amusement park with one of the families before we left.  Our plans to head there the night before were rained out and the girls really wanted to go on the rides.  So we spent some time there and went out to lunch.  Apparently everyone else on vacation also decided to head home at noon on Labor Day as we hit traffic multiple times on the drive home. Not just small traffic jams, like hour long standstills.  Our should-have-been 6 hour trip home, turned into 10 loooong hours.  During one of our traffic jams, we let them out of their carseats to play on the floor of the van.  The girls did so good, despite being in the car that long.  Kensley has already told me she wants to go on bay-cation again...tomorrow, in fact.