Another Project Complete

We had a beautiful sunrise this morning. I was hoping to get a picture of it from up at the school, but it was mostly behind the mountains by that point. It was still gorgeous though, nonetheless.

After school was just as pretty, but the clouds were much thicker and dark. We thought for sure it was going to rain, but it never did.

We have had workers here on and off the past couple of weeks, and everything is finally complete for now. The kids'/guest bathroom looks fantastic. We had to have the floor in our shower regrouted so we are now all using this shower. It sure will be nice when we have two! 

Talan had a baseball game tonight. He played catcher, second and shortstop. He did pretty good at catcher for it being his first time trying it! 

It was freezing by the end of the night (okay, it was 65, but that's freezing by my standards 😁) and Easton was all snuggled up with Janae.

And check out this hottie!

The Iron Pigs lost again, but we had a lot of hits and played our best game by far. Talan got ripped out of his second at-bat because a girl got picked off at first, ending the game. He was ready to go get some Sweet Frog though, so he didn't mind. 😁

A Free Evening at Last

This morning there was a knock on our bedroom door and I thought for sure we had a sick child. Then we heard Janae say "When are you guys getting up? It's 7:08" Oops! My phone, aka our alarm, had died so we overslept by about forty minutes. Luckily the kids get ready for school fairly quickly, so we weren't late.

It truly felt like we were in the Smokies this morning. The sky actually looked like it had smoke coming from it in places. It didn't look like fog because it was moving. More like steam, I guess. It was beautiful!

It was only in the morning though. By afternoon, the sky was crystal clear.

Tonight is the first weeknight we've had free in awhile, so we decided to walk downtown.

There are a lot of shops with touristy memorabilia junk, but there are some pretty cool shops too. Easton wants to show me every little thing he sees. He thinks everything is awesome. 😊 He found this sign he liked and read the whole thing to us. Brett pointed out the irony of the first cabin rule being "sleep in," since we did that this morning. 😁

The kids never pass up a place to pose for a picture. Especially Janae. She loves getting her picture taken. She is lucky she is so photogenic! She definitely gets that from Brett. 😑

 We made it all the way to the end of the strip, so we figured we had earned a meal at Texas Roadhouse. 😁

 Awe, Janae loves her mommy! 😂

One last stop before we rounded the corner to head home. We had a wonderful evening. It was a lot cooler than it has been, so it was a really nice night. This is how I pictured our evenings in Gatlinburg. I'm glad we finally had a free night to really enjoy it here!

Bear Sighting!

The sky was so weird when we woke up this morning! It rained all night (which was wonderful to listen to!) and our cars were covered in wet leaves. Yuck! Some of the pictures from the school look like it's snowing! I'm still amazed every day at the beauty in the mountains. I hope that appreciation never fades!

We had a little bit of excitement when we returned to the house. We had heard from the neighbor that the mama bear had broken into some cars so they put her down a few weeks ago. So sad! We hadn't seen her cub in a week or so, and we were beginning to worry that something had happened to him, too. Well, we were standing in the kitchen and I see him mozy on by the window behind Brett! 

Once he rounded the corner, I poked my head out the door, and he peeked around at me! It was so cute! I was too slow, so I only got a picture of his butt rounding the corner. 😂

Then I heard a thump, thump, thump, and I thought he fell down the steps. Brett assured me it was not him...

He rolled my pumpkin down the steps! And then he sauntered his way down the driveway. 😊 I hope nothing happens to him. He's so cute.

Brett had a phone call, so I went to pick up the kids by myself after school. That means that Janae was in charge of pictures. 

Hmmmm...looks like she got more of herself than the scenery! Haha

She had her last volleyball game tonight, so Brett took her while I took the boys to Easton's game.

They ended up losing, so she is done for the season. She's really upset about being done. She loved it! Now we're trying to talk her into basketball. 😁

Easton's team was undefeated going into tonight, and tonight they played the second-best team. We only beat them 6-3 the first time we played them, so we were expecting a good game.

Easton is still playing pitcher and loving it. I sit right behind home plate and he caught me smiling at him one time and grinned back at me. I would be in trouble with Brett for that one! 😂

 He had a nice hit to the fence in right center his first at bat and got a triple out of it!

He finished with two hits, two runs, and two RBIs.  We ended up winning 13-1. Not really the close game we were expecting!

A great win called for some frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog! We invited Brett and Janae, too. 😊

My final thought for tonight is Cali, waving goodbye. Haha 😂 This is seriously how she lays 99% of the day.