"Baycation" in the Woods

Last week for Spring Break, we took off to a little cabin in the woods in Townsend, TN with our good friends, the Jolly's. I love the mountains...and can now honestly say, I have no reason to ever stay IN Gatlinburg again! The only reason I need to go to Gatlinburg is for the outlets (which we did one day). Other than that, I would rather avoid the over-crowded, Panama-City-in-the-woods type atmosphere provided by Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Townsend is about 25 minutes from Pigeon Forge and is the perfect place to be close to the state park and just close enough to all the action if you feel the need to be over stimulated. (We also did that one day when we went to Dollywood. I don't think I'm ready for the whole Disney thing yet...although we did have fun on the one day of the week they threatened to close the gates due to being over capacity!)

I think my favorite day was when we went into Cades Cove and just let the kids play in the water at one of the creeks. The kids loved it and it was way cheaper that the roller coasters!

And we hit up several state parks...yeah, you can call us nerds. On the way down, we stopped at Cumberland Falls State Park. Hit up the Great Smoky Mountain National Park while in Townsend and the adventurous side in us all came out when we were looking for a place to have a picnic lunch on the way home and I found Cove Lake State Park just off of I-75 before you get to the Kentucky state line. (Don't leave the house without your atlas! Who needs a GPS when you have a well-worn 2005 United States Atlas from Walmart??) We knew nothing about the place, just decided to stop...and we found a great little place with a playground, picnicing areas and lots of ducks!

Here's some (ok, a lot!) of my favorite pictures... And if you are a grandparent (or any other obsessed fan) and desire to see all 333 pictures that were taken last week, you can do that HERE. Enjoy!


That's Cumberland Falls behind us. And Charlie thinks it's raining...


Showing the kids that the water wasn't that cold. Except it really was. And you see that black area...yeah, when you step on that, you just sink. Could have been a really, really funny picture...


Safety first. Don't want anyone falling in!


He stood here for a while trying to decide if he wanted to cross this fallen tree to the other side...


...Until this happened, and he couldn't be outdone by Sam!!


So, we all crossed together! Well, all except Nicole who was still thinking one of us was gonna fall and crack our skull on the rocks below and refused to join us. I kinda thought that too, but I kept my freak out on the inside...










Finally ventured out into the deeper water. And this was right before he had a panic attack when he realized he was a little too far away from Mommy...Don't worry. Emma saved him!


















Could you find any four cuter kids??


Our chauffers, packers, grillers, navigators, protector from bears, superduper dads! And the one on the right is lookin' pretty good!! No offense, Dwayne...


Our "1978 Senior Picture" picture. Officially. Dorks.