The IVEY Twine

That's RIGHT! We have been married for a year now! Instead of boring you with recaps of the wedding, I am going to share with you our fabulous trip to the Smokey Mountains! This was my FIRST time to go! Yep, it's pretty sad! I've been out of the country several times, but NEVER to the Great Smokey Mountains! I thought it was pretty sad myself! But... I had an AMAZING time and I'd DEFINITELY go back! I took over 300 pictures! OBSESSED? I couldn't believe I took that many!

I took so many pics, It is going to be VERY hard to decide which pictures I want to include! I may have to make two posts to get all the pictures in! HAH! :)

So, the first evening when we got to Gatlinburg and checked into our hotel, we decided to just walk around the main strip! We were right on it! It started to sprinkle a little, so we decided to grab a bit to eat at Bubba Gump's! Good thing we walked in when we did! Or we would have been soaked! We walked in and the bottom fell out!

This sign was at every table. "Run Forrest Run" meant that you did NOT need anything from a waiter.

"Stop Forrest Stop" meant that you needed something!
I thought this was a neat idea!
By the way- as I was taking the pic, someone stopped to see if we needed anything!

After dinner, we just walked around the strip to see what all was around, remember, I have never been here before! We walked in a few of the shops to look around. There are some pretty interesting things/people on the strip in Gatlinburg!

We went to the Moonshine shop. It was a pretty neat little set up! I took pics of some of the neat information about moonshine. I didn't figure that I would bore yall with those pictures! I will educate yall some though! Moonshine is illegally distilled liquor that is sold "by the light of the moon." During prohibition, bootleggers, which are people who transport and sell illegal liquor, would soup up their cars to out run the government agents. This is where the term "Moonshine Runners" came from!

TONS of jars of moonshine..

Yep.. This smelled TERRIBLE!!

These little bands were EVERYWHERE! They were pretty good!

I LOVED watching them make Taffy!!

It was kinda rainy for our first full day there. We walked to the Log Cabin Pancake House for breakfast, YES! In the rain. But... it was SOOOOO worth it!

YEP! Chocolate Chip pancakes! YUMMY!

We decided that since it was rainy we would visit the Aquarium. It was fun, but I've been to better! We decided that we wouldn't spend money to go to it again!

I thought these jelly fish were pretty!

Creepy!

And Joe! yes! Really! This little guys name is JOE! :) He showed out for us!
I think he liked to have his picture taken, because he just stayed right there while I took pictures and even video taped him for a minute! HA!

And of course we had to visit the Smokey Mountain Knife Works! If you know my husband, he LOVES knives!! So, needless to say, he was in Heaven!

We also did a little "looking" at the outlet mall! Yes, I called it "looking!" It's only "shopping" in my vocabulary if you BUY something, and we did NOT buy anything! But, we did see this pretty neat shirt in J. CREW!

No.. We didn't buy it! LOL!
My brother asked me to buy it for him though!

We decided it was the perfect night to eat at "The Old Mill" We had been told by several people that this was a place that we must try! They were right! It was YUMMY!! We left SOOOO full... I didn't even think I was going to be able to move from the table, but decided I'd be polite and let one of the other 500 people that were waiting to eat, sit down!

How beautiful is this waterfall! :)

The next day, we decided to go to Cade's Cove and Clingman's Dome! We stopped at a few other places on the side of the road to walk some of the trails!

On our way to Cade's Cove, we saw this mama bear and her baby cub!

He was playing "peek-a-boo" HA!

How beautiful is this view!

This is bear number four for the day!

I feel that right here, in the middle of ALL of my bear pictures, is the PERFECT time to share our SCARY bear story! So, Joseph and I wanted to make the most of our trip to Cade's Cove! We decided that we were going to stop at all the cabins, read the information, and take pictures! We stopped at one of the stops, and we couldn't figure out why NOBODY else stopped.. Well, we got out of the car, started walking down the trail to the house, and BAM! Right when we are far enough away from the car, we see a BEAR! He's about 100 yards from us, headed STRAIGHT for us.. and.. about this time, we are pretty much about to pee in our pants, NO KIDDING! Joe turned around and said in a very hushed voice, "Leah! Bear, bear." I didn't even look, I turned around, and I was gone! Yep! I already broke RULE #1! "When you see a bear, keep facing them, and back up slowly!" LOL! I pretty much lost ALL feeling in my ENTIRE body! Freaky! Anyways, so... the bear looked at us, and just kept walking across the road. We decided that we no longer cared to see that house, and walked, VERY briskly, back to the car!

Mama bear

We went to the next stop and everyone was out of their cars and in the woods, so we decided to walk over and see what all the fuss was about! It was a mama and her three cubs! I felt safe, considering I was NOT the person closest to this bear! But I did get pretty close so that I could take some good pictures!

Mama bear and her three cubs!

Mama bear and cubs again!

I decided not to add all of the cool pictures from the stops.. If I would have done that, there would have been over 100 pictures on this blog post! But here is one of the pics that I thought was the best!

When we left Cade's Cove, we went to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in TN. It was chilly up there and VERY windy!

The next day we decided to go to Rainbow Falls and hike! SOOOO much fun! I recommend it! It was a 2.7 mile hike UP to the waterfall then a 2.7 milke hike back DOWN! But it was sooo worth it!

This was pretty much the only thing with color in the woods!

I was OBSESSED with the rocks and water!
People here pay tons of money for this, and it was all natural there, and SO BEAUTIFUL!

This bridge is SO cool to me!

One of my FAVORITE things about a trip by yourselves is all of the pics BY YOURSELF! LOL!!!!

OR... all of the close up pics, because all you have is yourself! HAHA!!

When we got to this waterfall, we thought we had hiked all that way JUST for this... Then, someone told us that this wasn't it! We were relieved, but also couldn't believe we had more to hike! We were beat! LOL

And.. FINALLY!!! We made it!!! These pictures do not do this BEAUTIFUL waterfall any justice!!!

Right after this pic, I busted it!

I will leave yall with this picture! (The hubby is getting bored! He says this has taken too long!) I have a few more things to blog about from this trip, so I will finish that later!
But until then!

Leah

As most of you know, if you don't know, you should! I LOOOOVE the beach! It is absolutely my most favorite place in the world!NO JOKE! Joseph and I were able to go on my family's "family trip."
For those of you who don't know, we have taken family trips with my mom's family for about 17 years now! We missed only a few years. One year being because of 9/11 and another year being because my baby cousin, Zac, was born! We have been skiing in: Steamboat, Park City, Whistler, Vail. We have cruised on the Disney and Carnival cruise lines. We have gone to Disney World. And lately, since the family is so big and everyone is grown, we have been taking Beach trips! The beach trip makes it easier for people to go!

We owe a HUGE thanks to these WONDERFUL people for EVERY trip!

Granddaddy and Honey

This year was the FIRST year, yep! You read right! The FIRST year that Joseph went on a family trip! Boy oh boy did he have something to look forward to! I think he had a great time, but some things that he learned: 1.) Where I got my talkative attitude from! 2.) EVERYONE likes to talk (at the same time!) 3.) We down right know how to have a good time together!

We got to the beach late Thursday night (Joseph had to work, and Will didn't get back from a golf tournament until late). So, we had ALL day Friday and Saturday on the beach! WHEW HOO! We got to see several interesting things.

Mom went and asked these people what they were doing.
They informed her that they work for BP and they were checking the beaches for oil.
Her next question was why they carried a port a john around..
they told her they aren't allowed to use the restrooms up and down the beach! WEIRD!

Yeah.. these guys were our entertainment on Saturday.
We laughed at them. And they know we were. They were ~~stupid~~.
We asked why they taped their beer together.. Their response, "Whoever drinks beer the size that they are first wins their wizard status." Go ahead LAUGH! WE DID TOO! ~~IN THEIR FACES!~~ We couldn't help it!

Here is where they begin.. Wonder if they are LSU fans!?
So.. we went and looked and YEP! The tent says LSU! HAHA!

Like I said.. we saw some pretty interesting things! But Joseph and the girls, FOUND some pretty interesting things too! Check these out!

I didn't want to scare anyone with my ~~nasty~~ body in a swimsuit, so I will not put any of those pics up! Oh wait, I decided this year was NOT a good year to take pics in my swimsuit! PAHA! But.. I will tell you, that.. Zac (my 4 year old cousin), told me, "LEAH! you look completely black!" Whew! Better not take him anywhere that I don't want him yelling crazy stuff out! Just kidding!! I LOVE HIM!

Zac collecting cans! He begged to tape them together! LOL

We went to eat at this AMAZING seafood place! I can't remember the name.. WHOOPS! Anyways, I stepped out of my box and ate something OTHER than fried shrimp! I had redfish! It was DELICIOUS! While at the restaurant, we took a few pics! There was the most BEAUTIFUL sunset I think I have ever seen with my own two eyes. It was perfect!

And of course I had to get a picture with these two handsome men!

And another with my HANDSOME HUBBY!!!

This marks the end of the beach trip post! I hope to post about our anniversary trip to Gatlinburg VERY soon, so be on the look out for it!

TIL THEN!

Leah