The Smoky Mountains are Great!

Since J is getting married at the end of April, the last few weeks have been packed with some big events, namely J's bachelorette party and J's bridal shower. 

The bachelorette party is of a different caliber for young folks these days. Gone are the days where you can remain local and make the event last merely a few hours. Nowadays, the bachelorette party may be out of town (even out of state or out of the country) and it can last for days. Honestly, I don't even know if I had a real bachelorette party 10 years ago.  But that was SOOOO 10 years ago!

This bachelorette party was way fun though. J had been wanting to go to another national park but it was difficult to find a national park outside of Texas that she hadn't visited and that was nice but not covered in snow. Luckily, we happened upon the Great Smoky Mountains, which none of us (in the bridal party) have ever been to! We kept the location a surprise to J, which proved to be virtually impossible. The bridal party did a good job of it, but our mom leaked the word "mountains" and our dad leaked the state. Wow. Pretty bad right? But J was a good sport and refrained from Googling "Tennessee mountains." 

I was there from Wednesday until Sunday.  It was a long time without our kids...the longest I've ever been away from all of them at once.  B was a good sport and encouraged me to go and he told me not to worry about it.  He did an amazing job watching all the kids while I was gone!  Taking care of 4 kids by yourself is no small feat.  Seriously an awesome dad!

The trip itself was amazing!  The 7 of us (6 bridesmaids and 1 bride) rented a cabin in Gatlinburg, right by the park.  It was a cute, cozy cabin with a wonderful view.  Of course the cabin was named "Ah...the View!"

It was nice because some of the girls cooked a few of the meals.  It was a dream for me...to not have to be "on" for an entire weekend...to not have to plan a meal...to not have to look at the clock to time meals.  The other girls were so great about letting me just take care of myself for a few days.  (Love ya, ladies!)

On the first day, it was just my cousin (ML) and me.  We thought it'd be fun to spend some time together and just hang out.  I haven't hung out with ML by myself in over a decade!  And honestly, I don't know if we are EVER allowed to meet up by ourselves again because our whole first day was a comedy of errors.  On our way to Tennessee, we both hit numerous flight delays.  Then when it was time to rent a car, BOTH of us had expired drivers licenses!  Yes, you read that correctly--not just one of us, but both of us!!  For those of you who don't know, car rental companies do NOT rent cars out to people with expired licenses!!  So we had to take a cab to our hotel.  After we discussed our mutual disbelief, we walked around downtown Knoxville.  Everything was within walking distance and the weather was nice...we discovered lots of cute little shops and enjoyed a nice dinner together.  When we crawled into bed, we thought we had said goodbye to all our bad luck.  WRONG.  At 12:40am the fire alarm in he hotel went off!  We both laughed and couldn't believe our bad luck!  It was a false alarm and stopped after 10 minutes, so it wasn't too awful.  But the next day we agreed we can never meet again by ourselves.  The universe does not want us to do that ever again!

Luckily, after the other girls arrived, the rest of the trip went smoothly.  We spent one day just hiking in the Smoky Mountains.  We did the Chimney Tops, which was killer.  2 miles straight up and then 2 miles straight back down.  I had forgotten how much my right knee dislikes descents.  It really started hurting after awhile.  I definitely prefer uphill hikes....harder on the lungs and heart, but easier on the knees!  

Our second hike was to Laurel Falls.  This one was cake compared to Chimney Tops.  The waterfall was so beautiful!  I've seen lots of waterfalls in my lifetime, living in Oregon all those years...but this one was still impressive.

(I actually bought Evie a My Little Pony doll at a restaurant before we went on the hikes, so we decided to take her along and take pictures of her at different locations.  I knew the kids would think it was so funny.)

One day we went ziplining in the morning.  We did our trip with Climbworks and loved it.  The guides were funny and the ziplines were SO fun!  We got to do one line backward and hanging upside down.  This was actually harder than I thought!  We all had a blast!

I was actually the only person to not make it across one of the lines that day.  I was so close to the end, but didn't make it so I ended up going backwards to the middle of the line.  One of the guides had to come out and get me.  He made it interesting though, so it was still great fun!

Then we surprised J with an afternoon whitewater rafting trip on the Upper Pigeon River.  This part was planned that very morning!  J told me that going rafting was on her bucket list and I knew we had to make it happen for her.  I was actually the only one out of our group who had been whitewater rafting.  So I really enjoyed going with all these girls who were experiencing it for the first time!  They all had an awesome time...and so did I! I DO have to say that the water was colder than I expected it to be.  And I don't know why I agreed to sit up front with J because we got hit with the most freezing water!  The water was about 40-45 degrees...so it wasn't freezing, but it was super super cold!  I couldn't feel my feet after awhile.  It was a great rafting trip though!

We ended our "Extreme Day" with a historical nature hike in the park.  J and I even did a letterbox while we were there!  Love it!!

I definitely missed the kids and B because I kept noticing things that I wanted them to see or do.  I think the kid that missed me the most was Eli.  He is such a sweetie.  I had a really early flight Wednesday morning, so I said my goodbyes on Tuesday night.  Eli was in tears when I tucked him in.  Then the next morning he woke up at the crack of dawn and ran to open the front door to see if I was still there!  He is just the sweetest kid.  On the second day of my trip, Evie mentioned to B, "Mommy should be home by now."  I love her!

Even though I missed my family, it was hard to say goodbye to this view the morning of my departure...

This was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime trip for me.  My mom kept mentioning that I need to thank J for this opportunity!  Ha!  So, THANK YOU, J, for allowing me to take a trip like this!  It was one of my best trips...and I'm so glad I got to spend time with such nice ladies (or girls...since most of you are 10 years younger than I am!!  Ahhhhh!)!  I miss you all!

I LOVE the Smokies and can't wait to go back one day!!  Yay!!