Good Times and Spiders

So we had a FABULOUS trip to Gatlinburg this weekend. Words can't describe how good it was to get away. We pulled off Luke's valentines party and then headed out in the car and made great time. We got to Gatlinburg around 9:45 ish on Friday night. FUNNY STORY.
We get to the cabin and are SO excited to check things out. We run from the car and like little kids (well two of us are little kids technically ; ) start running from room to room. As a family we go up the staircase to the top bedroom to explore and as we come down there is a huge bear on the wall:

As we are going by the bear I look at it and saw a HUGE, I mean HUGE hairy spider on the bears eye. I freak out a bit and call Tim up to show him, and he freaks out. O.K., I'm going to try an fast forward this story, but NO LIE it was like 15 minutes of Tim and I throwing things at the spider to determine if it is alive (the kids meanwhile are freaking out crying saying they don't want to stay at the cabin and want to go home AND we haven't even seen 1/4 of the cabin yet). After this drags on and I continue to see my kids getting more and more worked up and my husband unable to get it from the wall I grabbed a broom and tackled the spider. I stabbed it, it went flying and................................... it was FAKE!!!!! We couldn't believe it.

So we calmed the kids down and explored. Tim and I ended the night in the hot tub, what a great night.
The next day we explored, it was such fun. Some highlights:
Tim and Luke went to the car museum while Lauren and I went to Wacky bear and let her build a bear.
We headed to the village, our favorite part of Gatliinburg and watched them make candy:

After we were tired from shopping we headed back to take a nap and get ready for dinner, it was Valentines Day. We did call ahead seating for the Park Grill. Here are the kids dressed up for dinner;


We had a great meal out, the food and service was great. Then we enjoyed an awesome night of mirror mazes and miniature golf, shopping and walking around.
The next day we decided to hike to Laurel falls.
Here are the kids and I on the way up.

These signs were posted ALL over the place, there were STEEP drop offs so we had to be careful with the kids, I love this picture though:

It was a LONG hike up but the falls were BEAUTIFUL, here we are in front of them:


After that we headed to the Outlet malls. They have a Disney outlet there and it was PURE HEAVEN! We got a lot of stuff there, and at the Old Navy Outlet and the Nike outlet, great shopping. Then we took the kids to the Nascar Speedpark, they both got to race, they had so much fun!

After that dinner at our favorite place: Applebarn, Y-U-M-M-Y!!!
Had fun relaxing fire side in the cabin and hot tub that night, sad it was our last night. Our last day we got late checkout, and the kids enjoyed the hot tub as we packed up. We headed into town and shopped some more and enjoyed the sunshine:



What a great trip. Thank you Lord for the money provided to make it possible and for safe travels there and back. What a wonderful weekend of great times with family and memories to last a lifetime, even the spiders ; )