Red River Gorge

We took a quick (if anyone would call 4 hours one-way "quick") trip into Kentucky this weekend to vacation at Red River Gorge.  If you counted, you would notice that there are 10 kids in this picture. . .there were 6 adults there to account for all of them!!!
My sister's family:

Her good friends and neighbors:

And, of course, this Bell Bunch:

We met up Friday night. . .later then we thought because our drive was longer then we thought it was going to be.  After a wrong turn off the highway and a couple "pull off and consult the map" stops, we finally arrived about 8 p.m. We had the burgers, buns, and condiments part of dinner so we pretty quickly got the grill heated up and dinner out. 

We had a chalet that slept 14 but the kids were pretty good sports about sleeping 3-to-a-bed and there were sofas too.  Saturday morning I got up to this:

Of course this was on the other side:

We did finally get them out the door and drove through this:

It was a long, one-lane, hand-dug tunnel through one of the mountains!  Tom ran into somebody who said it was dug for a small railway to bring logs out "back in the day".  It was pretty cool.

The hiking spot wasn't far from our chalet and the kids were off and running!  Lots of fun pics:

 Miss Margaret

 Yes, that's Frederick hiking in crocs.  He's something else.

 Thomas

 AVJ getting a helping hand from Daddy

 Beautiful Miss Marie

 What a great gang of kids!

 How I love these guys :)

Water break/rest stop!

Unfortunately, earlier that morning Marie had said she didn't feel well so I gave her a little Advil and she was ready to go. . .until we got about 2-3 miles into the hike. . .and she crashed.  I hadn't brought anything with me. . .and then it was extremely difficult to keep her going.  Tom would let her piggy back when it was flat. . .

Oops. . .my vertical pictures aren't posting correctly. . .oh well.  For some reason (cold? slow pace? kids finding out we took a wrong turn?) everyone was exhausted after 5 miles. . .seriously. . .

O.K., really, though, Marie was asleep.  The kids were commenting on her snoring.  Poor girl.  Guess how many are in this pile?

Three.  One is hidden in the middle. . .and another "pile".  Ridiculous.  Definitely need to get these kids out more :)

Once back at the cabin, though, they got a second wind:

 This game was called Left, Right, Center.  It was a lot of fun! (Marie's on the left. . .shower and a little Advil sure revived her)

 This could NOT be called a "hot" tub. . .maybe warm tub?  They couldn't get it above 90-some degrees.  And it was only 40-something outside.  Burrrrrrr

 The shoes at the door cracked me up

 Dinner in front of the television.  You can tell were aren't at home!!!

 Fire!!!!

 S'mores!

 And pool too.  Needless to say, lights were out and kids passed out by 10 p.m.!

This morning, believe it or not, we woke up to this:

Yep.  Snow.  Ugh.  But we soldiered on. . .

After this quick hike we loaded 6 kids up for a 4-hr drive home.  Yep!  I'm the fortunate aunt who gets to have her nieces, AVJ and Susan, ALL WEEK!!!!  I'm so excited. . .we're not doing anything "special" really. . .just a "normal" week. . .time with them is priceless.  AVJ is Marie's age (they are 3.5 months apart) and Susan is 6.  This is their spring break and they wanted to spend it here :)  My sister and brother-in-law are in for a quiet week. . .I think it will be anything but here. . .ha!

Although hiking trips away (especially in the COLD) aren't really my "thing", hanging with friends and family sure is!!! 

Our week in pictures

I'm still keeping up with "Picture of the Day" pretty well -- even if sometimes it ends up on my cellphone!  My "dream" is to make a monthly book with the kids to journal their year but it's March 25th and it's still just a dream -- ha!  All is good time. . .I've also had a vision of all my husband's soccer team pictures (he's been coaching as long as the kids have been playing) hanging in his closet. . .8 seasons later it's done!!!  The kids and I finally got around to gathering them all and hanging them yesterday:

(The closet is pretty narrow so it's hard to get a full shot.)  We didn't go to any great lengths to measure or anything (oh the HORRORS of that to my engineering husband and FIL!) but it was for an inside closet wall so I wasn't too worried.  I'm so happy to have them all in one place now!!

Actually, this was a project in and of itself. . .at 12:30 this is what my husband's closet looked like:

And about 2 p.m. it looked like this:

Not a *huge* difference because we couldn't purge since they weren't our things. . .but now it's organized (so very important to me -- ha!) and at one point the floor was cleared out enough that I could get in there and hang those pictures!

Indecently, these are not my pictures of the day. . .this is:

Frederick and Marie get up many mornings together and just cuddle close to one another.  It is so sweet and I finally snagged a picture!  Of course, within 15 minutes or so they're usually arguing but it's the sweet memories I want to read about when I'm old and gray and can't remember anything. . .:)

Wednesday, March 23rd:

This was a random middle-of-the-day shot.  One of the very, very best "perks" to keeping my kids home for school is that they can have long breaks for "recess". . .after they ran around outside for a bit they got into the play-doh and created!  (Thomas is staying with my in-laws this week. . .)

Tuesday, March 22nd:

This is a huge improvement over this, taken just two weeks ago:

 Monday, March 21st:

It was Marie's idea to make this our picture of the day :)  We loved our time with family 300 miles away, but we also love seeing the TN state sign. . .we are 45-50 minutes from home at this point. . .yea!!!


Sunday, March 20th:

All the cousins together after church.  The Lord has richly blessed our family.  This picture needs to be framed:

AVJ and Marie are 3 1/2 months apart in age.  I was able to be AVJ's full-time caregiver for the first 3-4 years of her life and am privileged to be her aunt forever!!!  These two are such beautiful girls, inside and out.

Saturday, March 19th:

 Mom had taken us out to dinner but since it was a Saturday night we were split up (my in-laws were with us too). . .this was the kids table, obviously.  Margaret did NOT want her picture taken, which is kinda normal.

Friday, of course was Mom's party and pictures are already posted of that. . .so, thanks to this hour a week I allow myself to blog (the elusive "time" thing), I now have another week journaled for my far-away family and hopefully for my children to look back to one day.  I'm surprised how much this "picture of the day" challenge has helped me to take time to slow down long enough to take pictures of the mundane (eating, school, snuggling) because I really believe it's the "small" moments that make up your LIFE.  Big things are great memories, but day-to-day and hour-by-hour defines who you are and where you belong.  I can't tell you how much I love, appreciate, and am thankful for this abundant life the Lord has given me!

Of course, Rachel Anne helps to keep me on track with this blogging thing with her weekly "Company Coffee" link-up. . .so grab a cup 'o joe (or whatever your poison) and visit or link up yourself!!!  Hopefully I'll be around to stop in and visit with all the Company Girls this weekend too :)

~ Jenni