Summer Started with a BANG!

I know I have been out of blog world for awhile and I have a lot of blogs to catch up on. School got out on June 5th at 3:30pm and Jeff and I headed out for our two week vacation at 4:30pm. It was a whirlwind!!! Now we are back and I am trying to adjust to being back home and trying to catch up on all the housework....weeds, garden, laundry, toliets, laundry, spring cleaning, laundry...you get the point!

Anyway, this summer has already been so crazy and I feel like it is going way too fast. This year Jeff had some comp. time and vacation time and since it will be our 5 year anniversary, we decided to take a vacation. We had so much fun!! We started by going to Kentucky to visit my brother. My nephews have gotten so big since I last saw them and there I got to meet my new little nephew, Hugh. My nephews were so funny and adorable. I wish they lived closer. We took them to a place called "Land Between the Lakes" where they had an old settlement thing with a bunch of animals.

On the way to my brother's house we stopped at the St. Louis arch which was really cool. You can ride up in the arch and there are windows at the top that show a view of St. Louis.

We stayed at my brother's a few days and then our next stop was Nashville. Nashville was awesome. We went to the Grand Ole Opry, which was the highlight. We got to see Carrie Underwood, Trace Adkins, Litttle Big Town, and a bunch of older people that I didn't really know, but Jeff was crazy about.

On the way to Nashville we stopped at the Mammoth caves. They were cool, but we actually liked the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico a little better. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and we also stopped at the Parthenon replica they have in Nashville.

On our way out of Nashville we stopped at The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's home. It was so cool and I learned a lot of history. Jeff is a history buff so we stopped at quite a few historic sites and battlefields. The Hermitage was really cool because we saw old slave houses and learned a lot about life on a cotton plantation.

Our next stop was South Carolina. We stayed the night with Jeff's aunt and uncle in Columbia. They were so sweet to let us stay and we had so much fun with them! After a great night sleep we headed to Charleston. We had a blast in spite of the nasty HOT, HUMID weather!!! I will spare you all the millions of pictures, but we went to Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie (again, I learned a lot of history), we went on a ghost walk at night and learned about haunted Charleston, we walked around the town, went to the Boone Plantation and on a swamp walk at the Magnolia Plantation where we were lucky enough to see an alligator! We really had a blast.

After seeing as much as we could in Charleston while we were there, we started our journey back towards to my brother's in Kentucky. We stayed another night at Jeff's aunt and uncle's house and had a great time! We went on an alligator hike, but unfortunately didn't see any gators. Then we went on a firefly walk when it was dark. It was so fun! The next we headed back to Kentucky, making a pit stop to the place we had both been dying to see: The Smokey Mountains!! I'm glad we did this last because it really was a highlight of the whole trip.

We hiked over over 25 miles while we were there! If we had been there longer we could have hiked 25 more and still not seen everything! We mostly went on hikes that led to waterfalls. Everything was so beautiful and I was so glad we had the opportunity to see such a beautiful part of our country.

I have hundreds more beautiful pictures of the Smokey Mountains and our hiking adventures, but this post has already gotten way too long. These pictures do not even do justice to what we experienced. I feel so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and see all of the things we saw. It was fun to see so many historical sites that were critical to shaping our country. I gained a greater appreciation for everything our ancestors went through to make our country a land of freedom. There are many other things we saw and other battlefields I didn't post about, but I didn't want to bore you too much! I hope everyone is doing well and having a great summer. I look forward to catching up on blogs!