Weekend at Cades Cove

I (Katie) wanted to spend my birthday in the mountains, so we loaded up the car and drove over Cades Cove on Friday. The drive to Townsend is less than 45 minutes from our house.


We stopped at Sonic in Maryville and got Luke a chocolate milkshake!


We saw turkeys in the field.


He was having so much fun just running around everywhere!


He loved the sunroof. (And by the way, that's the rental car, otherwise he would not be allowed to drive his cars on the roof of Mommy's BMW!!)

He loves the horses ... from far away. He would NOT pet one. They were so friendly, though, and starved for attention.

This is "On Your Mark. Get Set. Go!" He loves to run, just like Mommy.


We found this mama deer with 4 fawns. They didn't stick around for pics so I had to get what I could.


"They went that way"




Family pic... A certain little person wouldn't stand still for very long to get a nice group shot.




We found a butterfly on the ground.


This is the coyote that walked up on us while we were having our picnic. He's probably only 20 yards away from our blanket.




We didn't hike all the way to Abrams Falls, though I really wanted to. Maybe next time. As we hiked down the Elijah Oliver Trail, we passed a lady who said she had just seen a bear! She was trekking it out of there. Me, I would really really like to see a bear! In all my years of going to Cades Cove, that is the one thing I have never seen. I've had plenty of near misses though. And this was another miss. If we had been three minutes further down the trail, I would have seen a bear. Oh well. Maybe next time.

You can see more 'artsy' pictures on my other Blog here.

Random Pics

Here are some cute random pictures...

It's Football Time in Tennessee

Luke was so excited to watch the football game!!! Go Vols!!

But he insisted on wearing his cowboy boots with his jersey...





Then he insisted on wearing the boots to church this morning too. It was cute, though. And he even got several compliments on them!
I found them at a children's clothing sale for $4! I think I got my money's worth - he loves them!!!

What a MESS!!

When I picked him up from school the other day, he didn't want to leave. He was having fun playing with Lincoln Logs. I told him that there was a big bucket of legos in his closet that we could play with when we got home. Well, then we made a few stops on the way, we ate dinner, took a bath, got ready for bed and forgot about the legos. So the next morning, he woke up an hour early asking about the legos. He didn't forget!!



So we got them out and played with them while Mommy was getting ready for work.


There were 2 rules about the legos - 1) you don't dump them out and 2) you don't put them in your mouth ... (there are some really small pieces)




So this is what his room looked like a little later....


And this is his toy room, which we call 'Lukeville' ... he has more toys than 10 kids should have!
I really don't know why I bother cleaning it up -- I will pick all the toys up and next thing I know, Tropical Storm Luke comes through and leaves a path of destruction.

Having fun with Picasa...

I just downloaded Picasa3 and I am loving it!!! It's way easier than scrapbooking, and I feel almost as creative.

Here's a little recap from our summer... some pics you've seen and some you haven't ...

Space Chimps

I took Luke to see 'Space Chimps' at the dollar theatre. (Well, it's not the dollar theatre anymore, it's $4, but that includes unlimited popcorn and drink with the ticket price - not a bad deal).

Anyway, he was glued! He loved it!! And I actually laughed out loud more than once. I highly recommend.

Hello, McFly!

One of my favorite movies of all time is Back to the Future (I, II and III). I was in the mood to watch it the other day, and since the movie is rated PG, I thought it would be an okay movie for Luke to watch. Sure, there are a few cuss words but I was hoping he wouldn't pick up on those. Plus, most of the time we put one of his movies in, he loses interest and starts playing with his cars (and Greg and I are left to watch his movie, 'cause God forbid we turn it off). But not this time - he was glued from beginning to end! And he has asked to watch it almost every day since then. He is so obsessed with it, in fact, that his new favorite song is Huey Lewis and the News "Power of Love". He asks to hear it every time we are in the car. I've also downloaded "Back in Time" and "Johnny B. Goode" for him. I think his favorite part of the movie is at the very end when Marty is playing the guitar at the dance. When Luke saw that, he had to run and get his Wiggles guitar and play it the same way Marty was - behind his head, on the floor, etc.

But that's not the funny story. I told you all of that so I could prepare you for this...

So, yesterday I pick him up from school. I ask him all of the usual questions - "how was your day?" "what did you do?" etc. And he tells me that he went up to Jack (another little boy in his class) and he says, (while knocking on his head), "Hello, McFly, Anybody home? Think Butthead." My mouth dropped open. While trying to hold back from laughing, I ask him where he heard that. He said "on Back to the Future - Marty said that." Um no, actually, buddy, Biff is the one who said that to Marty, but that's beside the point.

Guess I'm gonna have to start censoring his movies a little better. Which probably means that another one of my favorite movies, 'Dumb and Dumber' is out of the question! :)

Busy Weekend

We had a jam-packed weekend. Friday night we kept the triplets while our friends Ben and Cindy went out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary. I'll tell you a little secret - I think we had more fun than they did!! However, watching 4 kids is a bit tedious so I didn't get to take many pictures. In fact, I didn't take any. Greg took some of us on the trampoline...











Then on Saturday evening, we had a pool party with our Sunday School class. And I completely forgot to take the camera with me! (Can you believe that?? I know - this from the girl who takes 300 pictures in a single weekend)!! And it is especially disappointing, if for no other reason than to have caught Tim Cline on the bouncy squirrel.

New Class

Luke moved up to a new class this week - "the young 3's". He was so sad to leave Ms. Kelli's class, though. He's been having a rough time with it. And it didn't help that we left Woofie at school last night either.

And he got a 'big boy' haircut too. Can you tell?

We got the big Thomas track out again and set it up in the dining room. So that's what we've been doing all week.

Helping Grampa

Grampa Joe bought a new Rover! Greg found it for him here in Knoxville. And they had it parked in the driveway as they were moving things over. Luke was helping!






The old Rover is on the left - new Rover on the right.






Luke thought he was big stuff!