Road Trip

Cole was supposed to have some minor surgery done at the beginning of July and it ended up getting cancelled because he was a little congested, which is risky because of the anesthesia. Anyways, we decided instead to head out on a last minute road trip to North Carolina where Rick's parents have a house in the mountains. I begged Rick to fly me there.....the 11 hour drive with three little kiddos didn't sound like a great start to a vacation to me.....but he said it would be fine (which if you know Rick is pretty much his mantra for life), and it was. The kids were great. Here's the pics, in no particular order....but it was a great time, and well worth the drive.

No vacation would be complete without a stop to visit the local recycling center.....so that's what we did.

Cole spent the night on our way up to North Carolina in the bathtub of the hotel.....we didnt' have a packnplay and I wasn't shelling out 15 dollars to rent a nasty one....

We went on pony rides and to a petting zoo....

At some point on the trip, Cole decided it was time to get into EVERYTHING. He was in the cabinets....climbing on chairs....I guess he decided he was officially a big boy. Did I mention he starting walking about a month ago? Maybe I"ll blog that eventually...

The kids, especially Carson, LOVED putting out corn for the deer. When we left, Grandpa said he was going to have to put the deer on a diet becasue we'd fed them soo much corn. Needless to say we made lots of deer friends.

We took the kids mining for gems....they loved it. Brynnli wasn't so sure for five minutes or so about putting her hands in mud, but after that....

Once she found a pink gem in the mud, she was hooked.

We roasted smores and had a fire.....

We hiked a waterfall.....which was beautiful. We brought the kids swimsuits and they had a blast playing in it.....I was however a complete and nervous wreck....

I left Cole with Rick for two minutes to be brave and walk around with the kids in the waterfall, and this is what I looked over to.....my sweet Cole who I had been trying to keep dry (the water was freezing!) was soaked and chewing on a tree.

We were so excited this hummingbird stopped to drink long enough for us to take tons of pictures (usually they fly so fast you can barely see them)....until he was there way too long....we're not sure but maybe he got drunk and nectar and passed out....because he was still there the next morning (not with us anymore)....until Rick "helped" him fly back down below.

The kids had fun playing on the playground below the house and riding on the paddleboat....what is wrong with this picture? The only one who CAN'T swim is the one without the lifejacket.....I promise he was wearing one until I walked away for a second....RICK!!!

Carson learned to play horseshoes with Grandpa and daddy, and was pretty good.

Kids watching the deer (it's down there, just in the shadow...)

Watching the bats at night....

Cole getting into trouble....confiscated a Krispy Kreme doughnut off the table and LOVED it! We were there over the 4th of July too, but that will be it's own post. It was such a refreshing trip, and nice to have fun together. We might have to make it an annual thing.