How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Want to know how I spent my summer vacation? This is the first year I have been privy to the “summer shutdown” at work. We decided to head to the mountains and spend a week in a cabin. We had lots of fun and ate way too much. Don and I even got rehitched. (Pictures soon.)

Unfortunately, I had to do some (okay, a lot) of work during shutdown. But, how can you complain when your view is this?

Of course, we did the go-karts and bumper boats in Pigeon Forge. It was the first time we took the twins on go-karts. They both loved it.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. We were at Ripley’s Aquarium and this little penguin is Derby. He would swim up and interact with the kids.

Derby is ready for his close-up.

We spent the day a the Wonderworks. I was impressed how much fun even I had. Well, except for the hurricane shack. That sucked.

The kids did some wall climbing and a ropes course while we were there. The ropes course didn’t end well… they both got scared. Thank God I have life insurance on Don. You’ll notice I am firmly on the ground.

We also played a game of laser tag.

And played in the bubble lab.

This guy decided to come visit us at the cabin. Yes, that’s a snake. Yes, it’s on the side of the cabin. Yes, it’s climbing up the wall. I didn’t sleep well that night.

We also went on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail – one of my favorite things to do in Gatlinburg. This visit was sad though – a lot of damage from the fire was visible from the road. But, I did get to see what I am pretty sure was a baby bear run in front of the car in front of us.