Family Time!!!

After all the craziness of birthdays and open heart surgery, we really felt like we needed some face time with the kids so we planned a quick trip to the mountains. We picked up the kids from school on Thursday, stopped by the lawyers office to file our adoption petition, and headed west 

(toward the mountains). 

That evening we just got dinner and hung out at the place we were staying fully planning to make the most of the next day. So, we got up bright and early and went in search of a place to hike. We found a place that had a waterfall you could walk behind and was only a couple miles (that's father than you think when you're dragging 5 kids) and so we -naively-jumped at the chance. 

When we first got there we had heard there had already been some bear sightings on the trail. But we weren't deterred at all!  Here we are all excited to start climbing.....

lots of whining and over an hour later, the waterfall began to come into view. It really was beautiful and you could walk behind it!  The kids had a little fun with that part of it.

 Creed was just glad we had made it to our destination!

Everybody excited to be at the waterfall!!

and then we started back.....which was less than thrilling and not at all picture worthy...

after a nap where everyone slept like this (the baby is in the pack n play which is at Creed's end of the couch) we headed out to the pool!!

and because Daddy hadn't tortured his body enough climbing a mountain with little people, he played the role of "horsie" and "shark" in the pool too. he is a GREAT Daddy!!

we treated ourselves to dinner at about the best restaurant ever. Mama's Farmhouse in Pigeon Forge..If you're ever in the area, you totally need to eat there. It is worth every penny! after dinner we took them to a local park to burn off some energy before bedtime. It's the moments where they all play together and enjoy one another that you realize "we really do have great kids"

We thought it would be a good idea to attempt a picture of all 5 of them. So, after Chris bribed them with sun drop, we began...It definitely fell between hugely successful and a total bust...

Here are some of our attempts :)

Once it was too dark to play anymore we took everyone back to our place to bathe 

and get ready for a movie!

It's no wonder the next day when we were driving home the kids all looked like this :)

I'm so grateful for days when you can hang out as a family and things go as planned. It really makes all the hard work and discipline that takes place on a daily basis worth it. I pray that our kids will always enjoy one another as much as they do right now.