My heart

It's been a million years since I've blogged.

Summer has turned to Autumn.

So we went to the Smokey Mountains.

Where our hearts are always home.

My husband took a much needed break.

To see the changing of the leaves.

They were stunning.

And decided to never go back again this time of year.

It was beautiful, yes, but the busiest time of year. Who knew?

We went on hikes.

And spent copious amounts of time in a car.

We took deep breaths as we let our kids, literally, run up the side of a mountain.

We watched our two year old take in all that was amazing in her mind. "Mama, mama, MOUNTAIN!!"

We got to have sharks swim just inches above our heads.

We mooed out the windows at cows and maaaaaaed at the goat we couldn't help but name Billy.

And my two year old rode her first roller coaster and couldn't get enough!

We got to do a lot of hands on homeschooling.

And tried repeatedly to get a family picture. Oh my.

My 5 year old made up songs about Jesus for my dad.

I saw my brother for the first time in a year and a half.

My children fell in love with him.

My heart melted.

I snapped a picture of my husband and I on a hike.

We look happy.

My heart smiled.

Then Sunday came and we had to say good-bye to our beloved Tennessee.

Indiana was calling us home again.

Disney Land for Adults

Last week I went to Hawaii. It was a top performer's trip my husband earned last year for work. We were spoiled silly and it was awesome! Beautiful resort, awesome food, cool people. The list goes on and on. Here are some highlights...

Sunset at the resort. This was taken with my point and shoot camera, which tells you it was a pretty amazing sunset. They all were.

Breakfast of copious amounts of fruit. At one point I thought I might become a papaya with lime. Thankfully I didn't, but, I brought my love for the stuff back to my girls and now they are happily munching away at it too!

New friends! This is my new friend Kara, who edits a blog called Simple Kids. If you are not familiar with it, you should be. It has a lot of current and useful information. Go check it out. She lives not too far from me, loved that it took going to Hawaii to meet her!

(Fake) Relaxing. It rained a lot in Hawaii, which, all told that is better than Midwest Rain so I'm kind of OK with it. In this picture it was raining over Hawaii and beautiful as soon as the ocean started. This happened a lot. Bizarre. Another point and shoot picture which is why the coloring is so funny.

I got to take lots of pictures with my husband. Crazy, this has not happened in 5 years!

I got to be goofy with my husband.

I got to dress up with my husband.

I went ziplining! I even purposely hung upside down hundreds of feet above a waterfall. It felt awesome!

We found this Petroglyph Park. It was really cool. Love history!

We remembered anew why we got married!

And yes, for those wondering, they do give you a lei when you get off the plane!

We went to a black sand beach.

We understood why people would live here!

We went to a Luau.

I wore ridiculous amounts of sunblock, a big hat and sunglasses and did not get burned. It was a small miracle!

I wore a fresh flower in my hair. Which I'd never done before but was quite lovely!

We went up to the mountains where the temperature dropped a whopping 40 degrees!

We saw a lot of hilarious signs.

We went snorkeling off this boat.

And swam with these sea turtles!

Yeah. It was pretty great!

Disney

A little over a week ago, we went to Disney World for the week.

Something not at all like us.

We never take vacations.

This year we did.

And, I can't say we were disappointed.

We had fun on a Safari.

And having breakfast with princesses.

And hugging Mickey.

And kissed Donald on the nose.

Seeing a Broadway type production.

And shot down the bad guys.

And spent a lot of time trying to cool off.

And finally saw The World.

Nothing beats the beach

This past week we spent in Florida. Disney was the name of the game for 5 days. The last two days we spent driving back to Indy and we are ever so tired. But, we did manage to fit in a couple of hours in Jacksonville beach on our way back, and oh, we love the beach so much. It's too bad we are so land locked, because I would so be there all the time. Here are a few pics from that day...

We can hardly wait to go back again!