My surprise trip!

Jeff and I are so fortunate that both of our parents insist on taking our kiddos for a week every summer. When the kids were at his parents house in June Jeff and I stayed around Atlanta and just enjoyed doing whatever we wanted and waking up on our own without kids! Jeff has been REALLY busy this summer at work so I just assumed the plan would be the same when the kids went to my mom's house. However, my sweet husband had something else up his sleeve! Jeff was not going to tell me until Wednesday, which is the day that I thought I was driving to meet my mom with kids.He ended up telling me Tuesday because when I went to leave for work my car would not start so I was working on getting a rental car which Jeff knew i would not need! He took to me work and told me when I was getting out of the car. I was so excited! I was also thankful I found out a day sooner so I could get all my work done at the office and not feel like I was leaving anything unfinished. On Wednesday Jeff and I took the kids to my mom's house when he got off work and spent the night with them and then got up Thursday morning to start our mountain adventure. He had booked an amazing cabin for us about 20 miles outside of Gatlinburg. It was perfect. We had two decks with a hot tub attached to the deck outside the master bedroom. We were close enough to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge that we could get out everyday and stay busy but the cabin was also perfect and far enough way to feel more isolated and not so much in a tourist community.

We played putt putt, went to Cade's Cove, toured the Titanic exhibit, and rented tubes and rafted down the river. Jeff schooled me at putt putt....it was not even close! We really enjoyed driving around Cade's Cove and even spent some time wandering around an old church and a few old cabins. One of my favorite things we did was look at an old cemetery. I have no idea why but on one of our first dates we spent some time looking at an old cemetery in Jackson. I think it was one of those things that we did because we did not want the date to end but did not know what else to go do! I still rag Jeff about that date because he brought me back past curfew so I ended up getting a call from our RA Director the next day but he did not get in trouble because he was an RA! The Titanic exhibit was cool but not something we would need to do again.
We did not tube until the last day and it was very last minuet decision. I do not know what Jeff loved more....tubing down the river or laughing at me as I screamed and acted like we were on some major rapids! Bless his heart....he did not marry me for my adventures spirit!

View from our middle deck

Who does not have fun playing putt putt??

Upstairs in the cabin.  We never could figure out why there was a tub in the room! 

Our attempt of a self portrait before leaving the cabin to head home. 

It was such a good trip and I love my husband surprised me. He sure does know how to make a girl feel special! It was a perfect blend of activity and downtime and I do not know anything better then some alone time with the one my soul loves!

An update of sorts

Once again  I have stayed true to my once every few months blog post! We have been busy living life over here at the McKenzie household. So here a few updates broken down by family member.

Daniel:
Daniel is ten and half months old and ALL OVER the place. He is crawling everywhere and pulls up to everything. His favorite places to crawl is into any bathroom to dump the trashcan or to Taco's (our cat) food because he thinks it taste pretty yummy :) He has started eating some real food but still mostly just has baby food and milk. He is taking two sometimes three naps a day and goes down for the night between 7-8 and sleeps most mornings until 6:30-7:30. He is a very content baby and has his daddy's laid back personality. I would say the on thing that defines him right now is he is BUSY. A few of his recent tricks are to wave hi and when asked how big someone loves him he puts one hand in the air as we say "so big" and then he just grins as we clap! 

Emma Kate:
Emma is such a great big sister. She is so helpful and takes great delight in her little brother. She has had a big summer that started off with her first ever dance recital. She had 12 people come to her recital (8 from out of town) and she was the princess of the ball! She received 6 different bouquets of flowers and a trophy. She was so proud of herself  and did a great job. From the recital her and her brother went to MiMi and Paws for a week and Jeff and I had a great week that included date nights and waking up on our own time instead of one of our children's timetables! She also attended a few different camps. Some of them include:
Princess and Fairy Camp at Sweet and Sassy, Day camp at her old school,Girls Just Want to Have Fun Camp at Adventure Kids and hanging out with our babysitter two days a week. She stays busy making up songs, dancing her heart out, creating new crafts, playing barbies, swimming, and watching movies. As much as Daniel has his daddy's personality Emma Kate is definitely my child.

Jeff and Lori:
Jeff has had a very busy summer at work. His company won a big bid and they have spent the summer implementing it with the client. He also attended beach camp with his small group guys from NPCC that are going into the 10th grade. We have had a few visitors from Alabaster visit us this summer and we went to Alabaster once to see a group of our old students to perform in a concert. I turned a year older (32), have made a trip to Dallas for work,  and started consistently working out and love it! The only other big things we have going on this summer is  one more week when both of our kids are going to be gone again this time spending time with my mom and sister. We have already made our date plans! And last but not least we celebrate 10 years of marriage on Aug. 17th!!

I can not imagine doing life with anyone else and so glad that we get to have all of our adventures together!

Our summer is quickly coming to an end and in less than a month we will have a Kindergartner on our hands.