Here, There and Everywhere

Wow!  I am such a slacker blogger lately!  Summer tends to go at only one speed for us: warp speed.  Every summer we swear that we are going to slow down, but we like to travel and have fun too much to actually do it. Here's a little bit of what we've been doing:

We went to a family wedding.  It was the first wedding we've been to in a looooong time and the kids were all about it. It was outside and the children ran and danced and ate enough cake to kill a person.  They had so much fun that they've asked on numerous occasions if we could go to cousin Jamie's house every Saturday night for a wedding/dance party.

Yes, that's Miles climbing the tent.  (with Papaw Gary)

GranMary had us over for homemade ice cream and a game of kickball.  This is my mom kicking the ball- NOT a zombie trying to jump over a bear trap.  How cute is she?

Sadie and Noah had their very first swim meet.  They are having the time of their lives being on the swim team this summer.  They wake up every morning just counting down the minutes until it's time for practice.  I am proud as a peacock watching them try something new.

We took a day trip to Cumberland Falls State Park.  The waterfall blew the kids' minds.  If any of them ever gets a wild hair to get in a barrel and go over the falls, I can guarantee it will be Miles.

The self timer on our camera caught what may very well be my new favorite family photo.

We have been spending a LOT of time at the pool with our friends.  Noah and Miles' besties (Kilee and Josiah) are a brother sister duo.  We just adore their family with all of our hearts.  Monica (the mom) and I are kindred spirits and we just giggle like school girls whenever we get together.  They are leaving our little community and heading to Haiti to go into full time ministry in about 6 weeks.  While we are so excited about the new life they have ahead of them in Haiti, selfishly, we are going to miss them like crazy.

  

 Miles and Josiah

Noah and his (hopefully) future wife, Kilee.  

Sadie and her girls perfecting their "George Washington" hairstyles.  

Kamron's company had their annual meeting last weekend in Gatlinburg, TN- a little tourist town in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.  We are so fortunate that he works for a company that values family and allows us to travel with him.  We also got to see him get an award and get recognized for all of his hard work over the last year.  We are so proud of him and how he provides for his clients and for us!  We had a great time in Gatlinburg- but on the second day, our kids were worn out and their behavior deemed them ineligible to be around other humans.  We skipped out on the company dinner and drove out into the Smokey Mountain National Park.  I considered feeding the kids to a bear, but alas, we didn't see any.  We did, however, see about 4 or 5 dozen deer.

We also saw lots of serene, little streams to play in and several old buildings built by early settlers.  

For his next trick, he'll turn his leg into a ghost!

And a few more from the last couple of weeks...

After all of our adventures, it's good to be HOME!  Now, excuse us while we CRASH!