Back to the Flatland

We had a GREAT time in the Smokies! We arrived on Thursday afternoon... and didn't come home until yesterday. We celebrated Valentine's Day, Mimi's birthday and Amanda's birthday. I made a neat flower-shaped cake for the official celebration. Everyone really enjoyed themselves. The cabin that we stayed in was awesome! We were able to take Shasta along with us. She did really well... It took her a couple of days to get settled into a new home with new "puppy procedures", but overall she did great.

We did some shopping at the outlet mall in Pigeon Forge. As usual, I loaded up on stuff for the kids and managed to get nothing for me or Doug. We spent some time in the National Park... did the Cades Cove loop drive. The kids really had fun running around one of the open fields there... kinda like a scene out of "Little House on the Prairie". It was in the low 60s the day that we did that. We tried to go back a second time to take Mimi and Anzie through, but the road was closed due to trees being down. The last full day that we were there, the winds were horrible. I thought that the cabin was going to blow off the mountain.

Dean and Doug did some geocaching and hiking. The hiked to the top of Mt. LeConte on the super-windy day. Dean said that he felt like Jim Cantore at one point... just about to blow off of the mountain.

We are trying to get things back to normal today. Laundry... running errands... you know how it goes. I only wish that we could have stayed for a few more days. It is just so relaxing and beautiful there... As always, we'll try to get some pictures out here sometime.