the Great Smoky Mountains and family

We spent the weekend in the Great Smoky Mountains to attend my mother-in-law's family reunion. While there we explored the Cherokee Indian Reservation, which was busy with tourists. We stayed at the motel my MIL's father built. It is now on the 3rd owner after her father. It was my first time there, though I had seen it before. It was the kids' first time. Though the motel brought back a lot of fond memories for Daddy, he said it didn't hold the magic he remembered it having as a child. I think the big part of that magic is his grandparents. Grandparents are special like that. But I think it holds a different kind of magic, though - the kids and I being able to share part of Daddy's childhood.

Front of the motel.

Twin River's Lodge (originally known as Ela Motor Court)

Nana chasing after Thing 1.

Curious George went fishing in the back with his Papaw and cousin. This is one of the fish he caught.

Papaw helps Curious George.

The river in the back of the back of the motel.

Thing 1 (pink) and Thing 2 (green) enjoying the open space. They bust into 'Ring Around the Rosie' when Daddy pulled out the camera.

Thing 2 (laying down) and Thing 1 enjoying the kiddie pool.

Enjoying the big pool.
(Thing 2 in blue, Thing 1 in pink.)

gone fishing

Fishing was the big hit of the day on Saturday. The boys (Papaw, cousin B, Daddy, Big Brother) all had fishing rods and introduced Big Brother to his first fish ever. There was a rumor of a rule about baiting your own hook, but somehow I was able to cast without doing so and without a license!

Big Brother had a blast, and best of all no limbs got caught in the hook (Papaw has a story about an a hook on someone's ear when he was young? eww). But I think he probably got a little board waiting for a fish to bite, but he surely wanted to be told when cousin B caught one so he could touch it. Touch meaning poke the fish with one finger.

While the boys were fishing, Nana and I wore the girls and took a walk around the park and watched the geese. I had Thing 2 go with Nana, thinking that if she could see me, she wouldn't mind being carried by someone else. (She suffered from major separation anxiety during this trip.) But it didn't matter, she fussed a little bit, that is until Nana got moving.

We found geese that were hanging around people that were feeding them, so we took a look. The girls were fascinated. There were a couple that thought Thing 2's toes were yummy, but Nana wasn't going to let those pretty little toes get nipped at. Then came Big Brother to check out the geese, too. A lovely family gave us some of their bread to feed the geese, so Big Brother got busy. He thought it was all fun and games until the same one that thought Thing 1's toes looked yummy thought he looked yummy too. "Mommy, it's going to eat me!", he shouted as he hid behind me.

After an hour or so, the humidity was too much so we rested and had drinks. I guess Thing 1 was hungry, she started eating the string of my hat. Daddy found the whole thing amusing and very cute, so here we are. Daddy was present by the way. But I only got a picture of him looking lazy and playing with his cell phone. We don't want the kids looking at this blog 15 years from now thinking their Daddy is lazy, now do we. :-)