Cade's Cove

If you visit Smoky Mountains National Park, Cade's Cove is a must do.  It's so beautiful and you can't help but imagining living there.  As a kid I usually pretended to be living in the pioneer days while running around in the "bottom ground", if I wasn't pretending to be in Vietnam, but that's another story. So when I'm at Cade's Cove I just picture what it must've been like.

Oh yeah, the kids are getting big.  Just incase you haven't noticed. 

 So these kinds of trips are getting to be so much fun.

 This guy was super interesting.  He specialized in pioneer wooden toys.

 Cora thinking she was the shiz-it driving.

Yes, Grant was pretty much letting them all steer on their own.  You could see the driver ahead of looking back to see what in the world was going on.

 I had to pull off the road to play in the river.  

Being the sentimentalist that I can be, I love to see my kids experience the same things as me growing up.  

(grammar friends: would how would I punctuate the previous sentence or sentences?)

 belly, belly, belly

 Jo loved the rocks. 

 I think he's going to inherit my "collecting" trait.

 They were having fun in the water... until we started seeing lots of crawdads.

 One day we headed down to get face painting done.

I've been spoiled by the awesome face painting artist we encountered at events lately.

Lillian wasn't too disappointed that she didn't get the whole face "giant saber tooth tiger with really big teeth" that she had been planning. The 1st grade kitty cat was just as satisfying.

 Josiah not wanting anything on his face.  

 Cora going with the flow.  She got a green heart that matched her shorts.