This August, we had the opportunity to travel out to Sevierville, Tennessee for our first Foulk Family Reunion thanks to Grandma Foulk.
Unfortunately, the Robertson family was unable to attend since after it was planned we found out Janelle's due date was right in the middle of it. We sure missed them, especially those little nephews :) Stephanie's husband, Marc, also was unable to attend unfortunately. Everyone else was able to be there for at least some of the time and it was so much fun getting to see everyone. It was especially great to be able to have Jimmie finally get to meet all of this family.
I asked Jimmie if he wanted to help me pack for vacation... this is what I got from him :)
I never realized quite how much stuff traveling with a baby requires. Did I overpack? Yeah, probably. But I'd rather have too much than not enough.
Jimmie did pretty well on the flights. We had a 3 hour flight, 2 hour layover in Texas, and then another 2 hour flight.
Initially, he was a little confused and a bit nervous
He settled down, played for 1.5 hours and then slept for the last 1.5 hours
Overall, he did really well. Lots of people on both flights commented on how well he did.
Texas Layover
Enjoying some time off the plane
Always lots to look around at. He quite liked the airplanes
I realized part way through the day that the pajamas Jimmie was wearing on our trip across the country had some hiking bears and said "Little Explorer" on them. How fitting!
We got to Tennessee on Monday afternoon and just spent some time hanging out with the family. At that point, Tracey's family, Grandma Foulk, and my family had arrived (minus Steph and Geoff).
We stayed at a timeshare that had a lot of resort activities. There were 3 water parks (2 outdoor, 1 indoor), an arcade, a ropes coarse, rock wall, bowling, laser maze, and 2 mini golf courses all at the resort that you could spend as much time at as you'd like. So of course, we spent a good amount of time at each of these things throughout the week. It was a ton of fun!
Aunt Meg with Jimmie outside of the Laser Maze
The funny little bowling alleys
Evan at the rock wall
Grandma Foulk with Jimmie
Dad doing the ropes course
Nathan and Dad doing the partner laser maze. This was really a pretty cool game.
Tuesday night we all went to a dinner show called "Hatfield & McCoy" which was a funny comedic stunt show about two feuding families. It was really quite entertaining and probably one of my favorite shows from the vacation. We were on the McCoy side!
Dad and Grandma Foulk
Mom, Evan, Megan, and Nathan
Aunt Tracey, Kaci, Nikki, and Uncle Chuck
Jim and I...apparently we ended up matching, quite unintentionally haha
It really was a fantastic show and quite loud. You don't realize quite how loud everything is until you are holding a little baby in your arms who is trying to sleep. Jimmie was good, but a little fussy since he wasn't able to sleep through the loud noises. Dad had no trouble though apparently, haha!
(I just had to give him a hard time. He really only dozed off for a minute or two, but it was impressive)
On Wednesday we set out to go on a little 5 mile hike and a scenic drive. Seemed pretty low-key and I was ready to take on the day. The day turned out to be much much longer than anticipated, but it was still a lot of fun.
On the way to the hike, we stopped in the historic town of Gatlinburg to explore all of the little shops and sites. Here are some pictures of our adventures
The group (Lookin' good Meg)
A group shot
Kaci and Nikki found an awesome dog
Lots of "Moonshine" in Tennessee
Nate...lookin' good
Happy little man!
A close up of Evan
Happy kid in a candy store!
Mom's pretty happy as well
After exploring the town, we went on a long drive of about 29 miles of winding roads through the Smokey Mountain National Park. We stopped a few times along the road at various sites
Shortly before the hike, we stopped to have a family picnic.
Jimmie was very happy to be in his K'tan but overall, was starting to get very fed up with the very long day.
We had planned on continuing on to the 5 mile hike because it was thought to be a pretty casual hike and a little more like a walk. But by the end of the picnic, in case you can't tell from that sad little face, Jimmie was beyond done as we had already been out for many many hours.
Thankfully we had multiple cars and Jim, Jimmie, and I were able to head back to the resort while the rest of the family continued onto the hike to the waterfall and another 11 miles of scenic drive.
I gave my camera to Megan because I really wanted to not only see what I was missing but to have pictures of it. Here are some shots that she took of the beautiful Smokey Mountain National Park and Abrams Falls. She got a ton of pictures, but here are just a few.
Evan and Kaci
Dad and his sister, Tracey
Kaci, Dad, and Nikki exploring in the background
A bit of the trail with Mom and Dad
A nice little bee
A big gross bug!!
Cousins, Kaci and Nikki (twins) with the gross bug!
This is one of my favorite pictures!!
Aunt Tracey and her daughter Kaci on the little bridge on part of the trail
Checking out the stream
Mom and Dad
Megan, Evan, and Nathan at Abrams Falls
Mom, Dad, Evan, Megan, and Nathan
Apparently, it was pretty intense and required a very scary sign.
Turns out it was a very good thing we didn't go. The trail was very grueling and was quite the hike. Definitely wouldn't have been able to take a stroller and it would be too long for us, even with Jimmie in his carrier. They didn't get home until about 4-5 hours after we did. While they hiked, I was able to get our unit cleaned up and organized and still took about a 2 hour (much needed) nap.
Thursday we just hung around, played some games, did the water parks, and resort activities
Everyone needed a very relaxing day after a very long and tiresome Wednesday. That afternoon Stephanie arrived from California. It was awesome that she was able to come even though Marc wasn't able to. So fun to be able to meet Jimmie and see her pregnant! Can't wait to meet our next nephew this October!!
Thursday night, the family was nice enough to watch Jimmie so that Jim and I could go out to dinner. Jim really likes a restaurant called O' Charleys that they apparently only have in the south, so it's been a while since he's been to one.
It was actually the first time that both Jim and I had been away from Jimmie at the same time. We've left him with Mom or a relative before, but not farther than walking distance away. I was kind of a nervous wreck at first even though he was with everyone in our family. He did just fine and we had a great date night!
Jim's looking a bit like a thug here.
Oh yeah, he does just fine with Grandma :)
Friday, we did some more water parks. This time, we brought the stroller and carseat so that Jimmie could relax. He liked it quite a bit!
Here's a shot of some of the water slides from the indoor water park. The giant cone one was definitely my favorite. Not gonna lie though- the first time I went on it, it scared me to death!
Sitting poolside by the lazy river
Some of the outdoor slides. The colorful ones are racing slides.
The blue one (which you can't really see well) is a body slide where you walk into the tube, lean against the wall, and while you're still standing the slide counts down "3...2...1..." and then the floor drops out from under you. You go nearly straight down and up and around that loop. It's such a drastic movement, lots of people don't actually make it up over the loop. Megan and I both almost didn't make it. If you don't make it over the loop, you slide backwards to where you can see a small gray staircase going up and get out of a little trap door from the slide. A very different kind of water slide than I'm used to for sure.
We also got to explore this place. It was really cool with everything apples from a general store, to restaurants, to ice cream shops, to the orchards, they had it all.
That night we all went to the Dixie Stampede which is a great dinner show. If you've never been, you really should check it out.
Geoffrey wasn't able to get off from work at all, but was able to fly down that night. It was great to see him again even if it was just for a short time.
On Saturday, we all went to the Smokey Mountain Opry, which was kind of like a variety show. It was a really great show, but unfortunately was the one that I wasn't able to enjoy as much because Jimmie was kind of on one. Thankfully, I was still able to see a lot of it because the theater had a Children's Sky Box. I think I probably would have had to spend the whole time in the hallway if they didn't have this.
Jimmie also managed to go through 4 diapers through the 2 hour show with 2 blowouts. Eventually, I didn't have anymore outfits! With his clothes and blanket soiled, I really was kind of at a loss of what to do. It was a little chilly and I didn't want to just leave him in his diaper. Thankfully, I walked out into the gift shop and found a glow in the dark Smokey Mountain Opry onesie. SCORE! It was a little bit of a headache at the the time, but we were very lucky that they happened to sell these and it will for sure be one that we remember.
That night we had a closing family home evening of sorts. We shared our favorite scriptures and talked about some family history. We divided into 2 teams and each team was assigned an ancestor. We had a designated amount of time to read about their lives as a group, learn about them, and write a song about their lives. Then we came together and shared our mini-masterpieces.
It really was so much fun and such an awesome way to learn about your ancestors! It'd be great for many family home evenings to come. And when you're done, you have a great compilation of songs about your ancestors!
We had to leave very very early Sunday morning. But before we left we made sure to get a 4 generational photo. Grandma, Dad, myself, and Jimmie.
Jimmie and his Great Grandma
Jim and his favorite twins
Jim was so great throughout the reunion with all of the kids. He was a really good sport and spent lots of time with Evan and the girls at the water parks and resort activities.
The flights home were not quite as enjoyable...
He still did just fine, but wasn't very happy about it.
Really, he did great, except for the last leg of our flight before take off. It took our plane to get going and Jimmie just wasn't having any of it...so he decided to scream. Eventually he settled down and fell asleep.
And when he woke up, he was sure a happy little traveler :)
Once we finally got home, we were able to pick up Nala. Daddy felt bad for leaving Nala for a week so he decided to buy her a treat. A very big treat...
Who needs a treat that big?! She's loving it though :)
We are so grateful that we had the opportunity to come out for the reunion. It was so much fun doing all the different activities and seeing the different shows. The best part though was getting to spend the time with the whole family and having Jimmie meet a lot more of his family. We're especially grateful for Grandma Foulk for making it possible for us to come and participate in everything. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in planning everything and for going out of your way to make our vacation a wonderful and relaxing time!! So glad to have these wonderful people in our eternal family.
