Aquarium

This week was Zearl and Betty's Spring Break, so we were blessed to have David's parents here to visit! Since it was not our Spring Break, we mostly stayed around here and continued with our usual routines. Above is a picture of Granna reading to the kids.
We spent the day Saturday doing some extra special activities. First, Granna and Z-pa took the kids to eat at Cracker Barrel while David and I went to the gym. Then we all went to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg! Most of the pictures I have are from the Aquarium.

Here's Mackenzie near the entrance.

Josiah enjoying the interactive areas.

Josiah in front of the large ocean aquarium.

Josiah and Mackenzie watching the fish go by.

Mackenzie "in with" the sea horses! :)

Josiah "in with" the sea horses. :)

We had a wonderful time and a great week. Thanks, Granna and Z-Pa, for coming to visit!

Our Weekend

Mackenzie's Christmas musical was this past Thursday night and again on Friday morning. Friday was Grandparent's Day at her school, and I was delighted that my dad and Lisa were able to attend for Mackenzie. The above picture is of Mackenzie's Thursday night performance. Getting there 30 minutes early was certainly not early enough for a seat with a good view! Live and learn. On Friday morning we were there in time for front row seats. :) Mackenzie is on the second row from the top, second child from the edge. Her dear friend, Avery, is standing right beside her on the very edge.
This picture is of the Friday morning performance. We had better seats, as you can tell from the proximity of the picture! Again, Mackenzie is on the second row down, second from the edge. The musical performance was fantastic and quite impressive, too.

As soon as the performance was over on Friday, we headed up to Gatlinburg's Aquarium for the afternoon. This was Dad and Lisa's first time at an aquarium, so it was a neat experience for us all.

My dad and Mackenzie in front of a school of fish.

Mackenzie with Lili at the aquarium.

Mackenzie and me, enjoying the colorful fish in the huge tank.

Papa, or Poppie as the kids often call him, and Josiah exploring at the aquarium.

Josiah in the cave area at the aquarium.

Mackenzie and me in the interactive area.

Mackenzie and Josiah checking out the jelly fish.

My dad, me, Josiah, and Mackenzie in front of a beautiful Christmas tree in Gatlinburg.

Dad and Lisa, or Poppie and Lili

Papa and Lili with Mackenzie and Josiah. I love this picture!

Friday night, though we were all exhausted, we had a surprise party for Lili. Her birthday is this week, so we celebrated a few days early. I'm no cake decorator, but I had fun making a cake for her birthday. I was stunned and pleased when I found out that no one had ever made her a cake before! We all enjoyed the party. :)

Then we woke up Saturday morning to find snowing pouring from the sky. How beautiful is God's creation?! Josiah loved the snow. He had been talking about making snow balls all week, since we first found out that a chance of snow was in the forecast.

Poppie pulling Mackenzie on the sled in our yard. I bet we got a couple of inches of gorgeous snow. By lunchtime it was all gone, but we certainly enjoyed it while it lasted! We had a great weekend and made some wonderful memories. Thanks to Dad and Lisa for taking the time off work to come our way for a visit.

(Side note: David's Grandma had major abdominal surgery Thursday night and is in ICU. She is 95 1/2 years old. Please say a prayer for her and all involved in her care.)

Aquarium, Wedding, Butterflies

Whew, I've gotten behind with my blogging, so here's a quick update with a ton of pictures. :) Mackenzie, Josiah, and I all headed up to Gatlinburg for a day at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies last Friday. We love that place! Here's the kids checking out the sea horses.
Josiah pointing at the sea horse with Mackenzie standing nearby.

On Saturday night all four of us went to Bryan and Holly's wedding. (David and Bryan work together.) We had a blast! The wedding was at a place called "The Stables." I pictured an old fashioned barn, but it was quite decorated and nothing like I imagined! Above is a picture of the bride and groom leading the train off the dance floor out into the crowd. :)

Here's one view of the inside of the barn. They served a full buffet dinner to all the guests! What a nice surprise.

Here's the dance floor, with the bride and groom's names lit up above and the wedding cake was in the gazebo on the left.

Our kids really enjoyed exploring outside.

Mackenzie near the waterfall area where the bride and groom got married.

Josiah near the same waterfall.

Josiah doing his "holy cow" dance. :) It's a classic at our house.

Random gazebo up the hill from the barn area. Kinda reminds me of The Sound of Music. ;)

Looking down at the barn from the random gazebo. (The chairs have all been picked up, but the area between the barn and the waterfall is where the wedding took place.) Josiah actually slept in my arms through the entire wedding, including the fireworks at the end. He was tired!

Sweet little girl.

Mackenzie found a flower and was putting it in her hair.

Josiah was playing with his shoes.

On our way home, Mackenzie asked if she could get married someday. We said, sure, if she finds the right fellow. She did not miss a beat in saying, "I already have found the right fella." We asked who that was that she found. She said, "Josiah's the one I'm going to marry!" Pretty precious. We explained that she should marry someone that she's not related to...then she replied, "Well, if I can't marry Josiah, then I guess I'll marry Grant Miller, and Laura Miller can marry Josiah! Then we can all live close together." We assured her that we thought that was a great plan. :)

David ordered caterpillars, four of them, a few weeks ago. We enjoyed watching them as they went through the phases to become butterflies! Of the four, three became beautiful butterflies. After watching them for the better part of a week, I was tired of feeding them and their wings kept getting stuck in the liquid (sugar water) that caused them some issues. He, he. Long story short, I was ready for them to go free! We released them last night.

Butterfly on Mackenzie's hand.

Mackenzie loved holding the butterfly.

We took lots of pictures, just before the butterfly flew away!

Josiah waiting patiently for the butterfly to climb on his finger.

Josiah loved holding the butterfly, too.

Poor butterfly. You can see the wing issue. Two of the three butterflies were able to fly away...one was not able to fly. At least we released it into the grass.

Josiah loved those butterflies. Both kids did. They wondered if any of the butterflies would fly to "Awkensaw" to see our family. I do love those cute phrases.

On a side note, just before we headed out to church yesterday afternoon, I headed out to pick the garden. To my dismay, as I reached down to pick the squash I almost picked a snake! Yikes. I pulled back, left the squash there and went to get David. By the time we got back, the snake was gone. Tonight I knew the garden needed picking. I put on hiking boots and gathered my gumption. I'm pleased to announce that the garden got picked and I did not see a snake tonight! Well, the garden got mostly picked....I just couldn't make myself reach the entire garden. :0

The Aquarium!

We sure had a fun day today at Gatlinburg's Aquarium of the Smokies. It was yet another rainy day, so we headed to the mountains for some fun! We were definitely not the only ones who had this same idea, but the aquarium was not over-crowded. The kids LOVED the outing! We all enjoyed seeing the funny fish, big fish, small fish, colorful fish, sharks, sea horses, octopus, jelly fish, sting rays, etc. The kids really like watching the sting rays as they were very active today. They are graceful as they glide through the water. My favorite is the sea horse. Those little creatures are just too cute! Josiah was brave and touched a horse shoe crab; Mackenzie had asked to touch one and changed her mind at the last minute. :)

We enjoyed some shopping after we were finished playing in the interactive part of the aquarium. Thanks to David for entertaining the kids while I ran in and out of several stores! Stride Rite had a buy one get one half off sale, so both kids have new shoes that only cost $14.99 per pair! We are home now and exhausted from a fun day!