Mountain Vacation

We took our first family vacation with Ella this summer to the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. Above is a pictures of the beautiful rental home we rented for a week. We were blessed to be joined by two wonderful couples that shared our vacation with us. Jon & Bekah stayed with us for the first 4 nights and then the Parken Family came to join us for the last 3 nights. It was a great time to get to know our friends better and enjoy a relaxing vacation in the mountains. Below are some more pictures of the house.

The living area.

The amazing view from the back deck!

The back deck. We ate almost every meal we were home for outside on the deck. It was always beautiful and cool in the morning and evening!

Family picture at one of the waterfalls we hiked to.

Jon & Bekah at a different waterfall!

Another family picture at yet another waterfall. I believe we saw 4 waterfalls in all during our trip!

Family picture after a day filled with hiking and white-water tubing down the river. Ella had lots of fun sitting in the water throwing rocks.

David and Ella playing in the water. This was Ella's favorite thing to do on vacation. She loved sitting in the water throwing rocks. We probably have 20 pictures that look exactly like this one of different days and times she was doing this.

Ella and David in the hot tub. Ella was so used to going swimming everyday that when we got back to the house after a morning of not doing any swimming, she insisted she go in the hot tub. So of course we tried it out and she loved it.

One of the afternoons, David, Jon & Bekah all went on this Canopy/Zipline Tour. They had a lot of fun going down 13 zip-lines and learning about the area trees and wildlife. I unfortunately was not able to join then since I was and am pregnant. However, Ella and I had our own adventure swimming in the river and then going home for our afternoon nap.

The Merritts and Parkens after eating dinner at a great BBQ joint. We had so much fun seeing our good friends again and meeting there little boy. It was a very fun time and we hope we get to do it again soon.

Ella and Everett being super cute outside the BBQ place. They both just kept laughing at us while we were trying to take their picture.

Ella and Everett playing with the water at the community pool/waterpark we went to.