Kanuga and Thanksgiving 2013

Late November had us on consecutive trips to North Carolina for a church retreat and to Arkansas for Thanksgiving at the cabin in Arkansas. Here are some highlights of both.

New Years Eve

Family Vacation

The same week that students in some parts of the country were just starting back to school, we were enjoying Fall Break. It is the one-week break we get off of school after the first six weeks of the school year (we get at least a one week break every six weeks). During the break, we took a short trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I think this may be our first ever family vacation during which we didn't have a plan to meet up with anyone else. Just us, traveling, for the purpose of enjoyment. I'm using that "first" as an excuse to not really cull down the pictures very much!

Headed to the tram that would take us up the hill to Ober Gatlinburg, winter (mini) ski resort, summer amusement park.

A rare picture of the parentals together (thanks, C).

John actually did NOT like the ball pit, so this was a pretty lucky photo!

John's first chairlift ride. Terrifying. For us. It was a lot more terrifying when we were up higher, but I was too nervous to take pictures at that point. didn't want to turn around to take a photo, for fear that John would get excited and leap out of T's arms...

Baby on skates! I got him all the way around the rink once by anchoring his skates between my feet and using my arms to pull us around the rink! (he was done after that).

Headed back down the mountain on the tram. John called it a "boat", so we declared it a "sky boat".

Pancake breakfast. We were cursed with terrible service for almost the entire trip. 

The bad service drove us to the free moonshine tasting. You can now taste some moonshine at our house. 

Incline train to the top of Hillbilly Golf, in which you play mini golf down the hill.

At Ripley's Aquarium

The last restaurant meal of the trip (also the first good service of the trip). Thank you, local brewery, for your decent service, tasty beer, trivia game and food that does not pretend to be fancier than it is. Plus, look closely. That's SANTA at the bar. Yes, Santa. He came over and talked to the boys. Carter has been talking about it for days. 

Nature.

At the top of Clingman's Dome. Highest point in TN. Third highest east of the Mississippi. We have now been to the top of the highest point in TN and GA. Time to start counting, I think...

Notes: 1) I have carried John up to the top of the highest points in both GA and TN. 2) John and I are wearing the same ugly facial expression in this picture. 3) Thomas doesn't feel the need to take multiple shots of a picture in order to reduce the likelihood of ugly face. 4) The background here somehow looks totally fake, but I can promise you that it is real, and it was high up! 5) John is pretty much at the weight limit for this backpack, so he's on his own next time.

Dads and Uncles are Fun

Dads and uncles keep the kids entertained. Highly entertained.

Sand, Steam and Pisco, and Pandas

Just a few things that appeared during our weekend.  We had a really fun, very busy, and somewhat productive weekend!

Thomas won tickets to the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, which is a three-day food and drinking extravaganza that runs from Friday morning through Sunday evening. We only participated in a small fraction of the events, but really enjoyed everything we did. We got a sitter and went to a dinner Friday night, but on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we got together with the other Fowlkes' and each gender got an afternoon away.

Thomas' company also hosted a festival on a property they own on Saturday, so we also did that.

And Carter performed at church on Sunday.

And I did some much needed shopping.

And I made a lot of baby food.

And John learned to crawl.

That doesn't seem like TOO much in words, but really, it was a crazy weekend. So I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Friday Night: Food & Wine Festival (FWF) dinner at JCT Kitchen.
Where I met my new favorite cocktail: vodka, lime juice, maple syrup, white pepper and a tequila floater.
Seriously. So, so, SO good.  

Saturday morning: Festival at Riverview Landing
Playing in the sand ring
Carter says, "Mom, is there anything better than sand?"

Exploring the river
Anything to distract Carter from his demands that we take a dog home with us
(it was a dog-centric festival)

Saturday afternoon: the Fowlkes men head to the FWF
Ashley and I take four children under the age of 6 to the mall
All children survived and were allowed to ride the train
John opted to skip it in favor of milk with mom
Ashley and I actually manage to shop (briefly)
And we only buy one thing that's exactly the same (pretty amazing for us)

Thomas sends a photo of his point-of-view from the FWF
The "wine" part of the name is a bit misleading
There was wine, but there was also an abundance of beer, bourbon, pisco, vodka, tequila, moonshine, etc etc etc 

Later that afternoon, the cousins had some good outside fun

While I got busy steaming a LOT of veggies in preparation for smushing them for John
I'm pretty sure that this was my last batch of mush
By the time John eats all of this, I think he'll be on to all finger foods!

When Thomas returns from the FWF, the glass around his neck is empty

He takes a nap in the midst of the chaos
(remember: 4 children under 6 running about)

It really doesn't seem to bother Thomas

He did eventually perk up in time to eat again

Sunday morning: We're all up VERY early for Carter's last choir performance
(in my opinion, a big mother's day scheduling failure on the part of the church)
Carter did great, in part, (I think) because his ability to choose whether or not to be part of the choir again next year was predicated on him doing well. So he did. And I suspect that was his final performance.  

Saturday afternoon: Our turn at the FWF
Happy Mother's Day to us! 

Thomas and Park weren't able to do this on Saturday, so we got our glasses waxed by the Maker's Mark people 

Can we do this for Mother's Day every year?
Seriously. 

Cousins

I took this video a couple of weeks ago. It's a little long (2 minutes), but it gives you a pretty good picture of each of these kiddos personalities.

John and Family

John has been blessed to have a lot of family visit him in his first week of life. I missed getting shots of a few family members with John, but here are the ones that I got.

Mass on the Grass

Our favorite time to go to church is when they do Mass on the Grass - a casual outdoor service. I much prefer the less formal service and music (fiddle is more my style than organ), and I also just love to be outdoors for worship. Between the heat wave and my propensity towards swelling these days, we opted to sit in the shade for the first time this year! Someone snapped this sweet shot of Carter during communion. I particularly love it because it actually captures all 4 of us: Carter, my belly, and both Thomas' and my hands.

Spring Training Trip

As has been alluded to, I took a trip to Orlando with Cart Cart and the other Fowlkes' to see the Braves spring training for an extra long weekend. It was filled with lots of baseball watching, lots of eating (steak, hibachi, ribs, etc.), and admittedly not that many pictures. But here are a few: Champion's Stadium is the Braves stadium at Disney where they play. It is a great sports complex with multiple baseball fields where all levels major and minor league practice, lacrosse, field house for cheerleading (mostly, as best I can tell), and others. And of course, it's all branded Disney!

Sammy had a great time hanging out with the guys for a couple of days, watching ball and wearing sunglasses. He did have a hard time getting that monkey off his back, though.

Sammy did like the lacrosse net on the back field.

We all also went to Sea World and had a great time, saw the Shamu show, and rode the carousel.

For more pictures, see them other Fowlkes' blog post!

News

We have all kinds of news!

On the work front, tomorrow is my last day with S&P. The company decided to shut my business unit down last year, so I've been winding things down for the last several months. After five and a half years, I'll be on to a new adventure! More on that soon, but let's get on to the more exciting stuff...

Patrick & Kirstin produced a new family member earlier this week! She's the second new addition to our family in the last 3 months (with nephew, Sammy's arrival in October). She's the first Stegall in the next generation. I couldn't help stealing some pics of her to post here. Isn't she a beauty?!

Eavan Marie