Tennessee Mountain Trip - part 1

Posted on Dec. 2, 2009 at 1:25 PM - Post Comment

So we are back from our trip to the mountains and getting settled in here. Our trip was wonderful. There are always little problems (Grady fighting his nap on the way home) but everything really did go smoothly - great weather, lots of fun activities, and plenty of relaxing. So here is part 1 of our trip, starting with the morning we left...

Grady's face when he saw some of his Christmas gifts from us (we gave him the store stuff the morning we left since it was too big to bring)

The store, all set up, with some food that he got for gifts from friends. More play food and a register are wrapped up

opening gifts

His face lit up when he saw the register!

We got to Pigeon Forge and found our cabin with no real problems. We had to go a different way since I-40 is closed due to rock slides, but it was a very scenic drive. Here are the boys when we arrived at the cabin

views

sunset view, a little later

We headed into Pigeon Forge (about 2 miles from our cabin) for dinner and ate at the Old Mill. It was a very cute and cozy place with all sorts of little shops to check out also.

A little dark, but here is the mill - it was so pretty

There were more Christmas lights that I have ever seen in my life - everywhere you looked there were lights - in the towns, at Dollywood, everywhere!

We had a large jetted tub in our bedroom, and Grady took his bath in there 2 nights. He loved it!

 Our first full day in Tennessee was Thanksgiving. Most things are open there anyway, so we headed into Gatlinburg. There was definitely a good dose of cheesiness, but there was also an amazing aquarium. It was just voted best aquarium by Tripadvisor. I really just didn't expect it to be so nice, but it was incredibly clean, new, and different from others I have been to. The coolest part was probably this moving walkway that you ride through a large area. You basically go through a giant aquarium like you are in a tunnel. There are all sorts of amazing animals in there - sharks, turtles, fish. Grady also got to touch sting rays and horseshoe crabs, and we saw some beautiful jellyfish (they had a whole section on them). Very cool and well done. Here is Grady outside the aquarium with their Christmas tree

sneaking under a fish tank

in the rainforest portion - the hugest catfish I have ever seen (though there are seriously some almost that big in a pond near us that we feed)

The sharks - this is where I was inside that tunnel area - you can't tell how cool it was from this

it was right over my head!

Touching a horseshoe crab

This was really neat too - there was a large toddler/preschooler type area with all sorts of hands-on things. There were these little spots where they could pop their head up inside the tanks - Grady loved it. Look at that puffer fish!

Playing with the giant ships wheel

After the aquarium we wandered around Gatlinburg. We got some lunch and then hit up one of the old school candy shops where you can watch them make candy. Grady picked out a few things there. Then we headed back to the cabin and had a nap. After our rest we headed down to the indoor pool at our resort (I say down because we were at the very top of the mountain and the pool was at the bottom). The minute Grady's feet hit the water he just started laughing and going crazy! He LOVED it and obviously has been missing the pool. I think we may put him back in swim lessons.

Touching the bottom with his toes!

Dinner was brought to our house around 5, and it was pretty good but Grady did not want to eat, so that was a pain. Oh well, it was the only real downer of the trip - him not being in the mood for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner Grady had a bath in the big tub again. We put in tons of bubbles and started the jets, so this is what happened...

I'll do part 2 (with some cute videos!) in a day or so.