Tennessee Time - Vacation Part 1

I'm pretty sure that you've all heard that Kyle got accepted to Idaho State University's Physical Therapy program which starts in just over a week!  Well, before his spot at ISU came up (he was 12th on their waiting list), we were planning to move to Provo for a PT program there that started in May. So, we had made all of the arrangements to move and then his spot at ISU came up and we ended up with a few months off since ISU doesn't start until the end of Aug.  Time to vacation and visit family!  Our first stop was Tennessee.  We spent our first little bit of time in TN helping with projects around the house and at my parent's rental property.  We stained a deck, painted a shed, refinished a table, did some landscaping... kyle got to help move some heavy furniture so the carpets could be cleaned :)  And after our projects were over we got to play.  First off, we entertained company.  My aunt Delsa came down from Memphis to visit for a bit!  It is always so fun to see her!  And I got to meet my great aunt and uncle, Jorma and Liisa, from Finland!  When Sarah graduated high school she and my dad went to Finland for her senior trip and they stayed for part of their vacation with Jorma and Liisa.  It was a lot of fun to meet them and spend time with them.  They are two fun people!  While company was here we went on a lunch cruise on the General Jackson river boat.  It cruises down the Cumberland river, which is also the river that you can see from my parent's backyard in TN.  We cruised the other direction though and got to see downtown Nashville from the river.  It was a cool little lunch cruise and during lunch we were entertained by a comedian and some musicians. 

Liisa, Jorma, My dad as we were boarding the General Jackson

 

Here we are on the General Jackson with the Nashville skyline as our backdrop

Kyle and I also got to spend a night at my aunt and uncles' in Hurricane Mills, TN (just about an hour and a half from home).  They have a beautiful farm!  We went with Joyce (my aunt) to visit the Amish - something Kyle had never seen before.  We bought some of their tasty baked goods and got to meet an Amish family that's really close to Joyce and was also close to my cousins while they were growing up.  So that was neat!  The Amish are very friendly people.  We also got to spend an evening playing baseball with Davis, my cousin Nikki's boy.  He was quite the ball player.  And Troy (my uncle) took us fishing in his ponds.  With our first few catches, he taught us the camera trick to make our fish look bigger.

Same fish, but doesn't it look so much bigger when you hold it out in front of you? :)

Isn't it a beautiful lake?

The next day we went fishing again and, well, let's just say there was really no camera trick needed :)

They were both HUGE fish but I'm pretty sure the one I caught was bigger.  My arm felt like it was going to break from just holding the fish out for the picture. I'll have to improve my upper body strength for next time. Hehe.  Also while we were visiting, Joyce treated us to some scrumptious food at the Log Cabin restaurant. The restaurant which my grandpa built and Troy and Joyce now own.  I remember always loving to eat there as a kid and it had been forever since I'd been there. 

 I stole this photo off the internet since I didn't think to take one while we were there

The food was just as yummy as I remembered.  We had a lot of fun and it was good to get to spend some time with Troy and Joyce!

While in TN we also got to spend some time in Gatlinburg.  It's a touristy little town up in the Smoky Mountains.  We got to do some pretty hikes up to different waterfalls. 

On this particular hike, Kyle and I were ahead of my mom and dad when we spotted this fallen tree that made a perfect bridge across the water.  We got on and scooted out and waved to them as they hiked up.  We really felt like we had scooted out a lot further than the picture shows.  It was a little frightening though so I'm not surprised that we hadn't made it as far as we thought. 

At the top of this hike there was another falls that we could walk behind

 

And on the way down we posed for a group photo

We also did a hike up to a water fall called Laurel Falls.  It was 1.3 miles to the falls.

Here we are at the top.

Pretty much right after we started back down from laurel falls a Huge rain storm hit.  Hehe.  We went over a mile in the Pouring rain.  It was actually pretty fun to get drenched but then I was cold on the car ride back to the hotel.  :)

Pausing under some branches during the downpour for a kodak moment

There were also some trails to some historical sites; old churches and farm houses.  While driving one of the looks with the historical sites we saw some baby black bears!!  Sadly, I took photos of them on my mom's camera and forgot to get the photos before we left.  But I did get this photo:

Hehe.

There was actually a gigantic spider in there that I climbed up to look at after Kyle.  It was the size of a baseball. Freaky. Back in town Kyle and I took the ski lift up to the smoky mountain look-out.  

 This is the lift we rode, it was Really steep

 We didn't buy the expensive souvenirs up top but we did opt for the 25cent binoculars

While in Gatlinburg we also spent a little bit of time in Pigeon Forge, it's another touristy town probably 20 minutes outside of Gatlinburg.  In Pigeon Forge there is an outlet mall and there are also some of the Coolest go-karts I have ever seen.  I'm talking two-story go-kart tracks with spirals up and spirals down and little "hills."  My dad, Kyle and I got arm bands for the go-karts and the it felt more like we were driving on a roller coaster track.  Pretty sweet!  Gatlinburg sure is a fun little town and the smoky mountains sure are grand!

Finally, since we were in TN for most of the month of May, we were there just in time to celebrate Sarah's 21st birthday!  WOO-HOO!!!  We actually celebrated a few days early since her true birthday isn't until June 1st.  But I was glad we got to celebrate with her!

 Sarah and her yummy carrot cake

So, that was our month in TN!! If I left anything out it was purely accidental.  I think next time (in several years or more. . .) when we get to go on a long vacation I'll have to blog while traveling and then just go back and insert the pictures later.  But it's been fun to go through all the vacation pictures and write up the stories. So that's it for today but there is still more to come!

Last Little Bit of West Jordan, UT

Before I post about our last few months of vacation I figured I should say a little blip to cover our final few adventures while living in West Jordan!  We attended a couple of sporting events downtown and made use of the public transportation on those nights.

Here we are on the Trax

The first event we went to was a Utah Jazz B-ball game.  Before the game they flew this blimp around the arena to advertise, I thought that was pretty funny. 

The players are down there warming up and the blimp is flying by

 

 And this is both of us :)

They played the Oklahoma City Thunder and they Won! So that made it extra fun. Then, a few weeks later we went to a Utah Blaze arena football game.  We had a groupon for this game so we got a free shirt - Kyle is showing it off below. 

This game was not very crowded at all and after the 1st or 2nd quarter Kyle and I walked down a few flights of stairs and claimed some new, much closer seats . . . hehe.  No point wasting the closer view with empty seats.  I don't remember if the Blaze won or not that night but it was a close game which made it a good one to watch. 

I also got crafty and made us some new accent pillows for our couch.  I was getting tired of all brown.  They turned out very cute but they are definitely a little lop-sided. . . I've got to practice keeping the stitches strait on the sewing machine, I just get really excited/anxious to finish, and want to go fast, hehe. 

 

This is how they turned out!

I tried to do a good job of securely sewing those buttons down but I still get paranoid that one of the buttons is going to pop off.  Hopefully that won't be too soon :) And there is always glue.

Kyle and I also managed to get a hike in before leaving Utah.  Just one though (sad, I know).  We went to the area planning to do this one hike that was supposed to have a waterfall but that hike was on the side of the Mt that was still too snowy to go on.  So, we started up the trail on the other, less-snowy side.  It was a good hike and we were getting close to the end when all of the sudden Kyle was like "Hey Sharon - that looks like a bear."  I stopped and looked and then Kyle was like "oh man, that REALLY looks like a bear." And sure enough there was something big and dark moving across the way... When Kyle originally said he saw a bear he was trying to play a trick on me and thought it was just a rock or something that resembled an animal - But then it MOVED.  We watched it for a few minutes and finally could tell that it was a moose and not a bear.  But that was a scary few minutes.  And when we realized it was a moose we ventured a little further down the trail and it was still scary because that was a big ol' moose. 

Even in the picture it sort of looks like a bear, huh?

 

After we passed the spot where we spotted the moose we didn't get to go much further because we had reached the snow and a little creak/run-off and the ground got mushy.  But after we survived the hike we decided it was pretty awesome that we got to see some wildlife on our one hike. 

And most importantly we celebrated our two year anniversary!  Time really does fly and I already feel like April 17th is just around the corner again.  For our anniversary we played some putt-putt. It was a pretty neat/elaborate course. But the best part was that we were with each other!

:)

More to come SOON!