Wow! What a week! We had a great family vacation during Russ' week off of school. We were headed for Kentucky - a 10 hour drive from Jacksonville - so we started off by going half way. We spent a night in Greenville, South Carolina and enjoyed the beautiful Falls Park on the Reedy River. We got some great family shots (now here on the blog) and had a great time enjoying the cute downtown area. This is how we get around when we have a lot of walking to do with the boys... What are we going to do when number 4 arrives?!
Next we made our way to visit my Grandpa and his wife Helen in Kentucky. The whole drive was beautiful, and the boys are very good travelers, so what may sound miserable was actually quite enjoyable - I thought (you'd have to ask Russ if he agreed). Grandpa lives on 50 acres of land in a tiny town near Lexington, so we had plenty of room to hike and explore...
We also went swimming - probably an average of twice a day - the boys favorite part! They loved being able to swim anytime they wanted, and we were pretty willing since Helen insisted on doing all of the cooking and cleaning with absolutely no help allowed. What else were we going to spend our time doing? She wouldn't even let me fold my own laundry! What a vacation!
We also did plenty of fishing - both from the shore and from the little peddle boat they have for the pond. Needless to say, we had a week full of FUN and very relaxing!
Here are the boys with their Great-Grandpa Packer...
On the way home, we spent a day in Maggie Valley and Ashville, North Carolina. We stayed in the mountain house of one of Russ' professors - Dr. Rumble and his wife. It's the 2nd time we've been their, and they were very kind to let us stay. Here are some pictures hiking to Clingman's Dome in the Smoky Mountains. It was not a long hike, but it was fairly steep. Most hikers were huffing and puffing pretty well by the time they reached the top. Even so, little Mason (who has recently become Mr. Independent and wants to do everything just like his brothers) managed to hike the whole thing all by himself. Russ did hold his hand to prevent him from tumbling down the hill backwards, but that was all he would permit without a fight.
Hooray for a successful vacation! Back to real life now: laundry, cleaning, cooking, school (for Russ and Cole), and Sancho the wild bird.
