A Spot of Gatlinburg

The next Gatlinburg shots are from the girls and my trip up the mountain to a cool village on top called Anakeesta. I was quite nervous on the ride up in cable cars as I'm super scared of heights. That is me in the middle focusing on the top of the mountain. On the way down, I insisted that I needed an enclosed car (there were a few), but when I got there at 8:00, it was a 40 minute wait and a 0 minute wait for the open car....so there I was again heading down the mountain since Elijah had a 9:00 p.m. basketball game. I would have not missed those games for anything, that's proof. 

A view from the top - 

My girls and I - 

The girls with their friend - 

Anakeesta had these cool bridges between the mountain ranges; we walked all of them. 

Birthday ice-cream - 

I love all the carved bears of Gatlinburg - 

Jenny 

Gatlinburg - Part 1

Our Gatlinburg week was a full and fun week. We visited the Gatlinburg Aquarium the first day - 

While Elijah was at practices or hanging out with his basketball team, the girls and JD and I went on different outings. This was a hike to a waterfall at the state park.

The basketball games were exciting! After taking second in the state tournament, Elijah and his team played their hearts out. They ended up winning 3rd, but only lost one game by 2 points. It happened to be to the same team that beat them in state. 

That's Elijah with the ball - #30. 

Basket - more Gatlinburg to come. 

Four Weekends in a Row

In March, I was out of town four weekends in a row. The first was a "glorious" five day stay in Baltimore with Alei. She doesn't want to talk about the details, but we had one fun day there, in spite of her being on a liquid diet, exploring the city before our stay at Johns Hopkins Hospital. 

A cool area of the city we spent most of our first day at -

We walked up and down a few streets looking for "the twin sisters" which was a historic home I wanted to see - when I realized this was it, it made it easier to understand why I had missed it.

This was the view from my hotel room; it was a nice area, but I moved to my cousin's guest room after a few days due to its high bill.

This was the view from Alei's hospital room; although it was lovely, we were happy to pack up and leave it after five days!

The following weekend, I went to the eastern shore of Maryland to an adoptive mom's conference. It was so, so good and at a beautiful location and I took only a few pictures to prove it, but none worth posting. 

The weekend after that, we packed up the youngest three kids and headed to Gatlinburg, TN for a full week for Elijah's national basketball conference. We had such a great week and Gatlinburg deserves it's own post. This was the view from our two balconies; I loved the rushing water sound!

More Gatlinburg next post - 

Jenny