Vacation Pictures - Great Smokey Mountains, July 2006

A mining adventure...


Gee, Joe - is that bag of gold and gems really heavy?












Busy beavers looking for treasure...






Look what I found!!!!











Leaving with our gold and gems!

Look who also has four missing teeth! Lost the fourth one this morning while brushing his teeth.

Uncle Walter and I keep learning more and more each trip we take! For example in the first picture you can see that with the use of a trail map and trail blazes we were successful in reaching our final destination - the summit of Mt Mitchell. (We won't mention other privious hikes without a trail map or not taking any notice of trail blazing that taught us about what to do when encountering a grizzly bear...) Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi. It took us 2.5 hours to summit a 5.5 mile trail with an elevation gain of about 3000ft.













But then there is always a new lesson to be learned......














Perhaps the lesson learned was that we are way too old to be mountain biking....
Or maybe you should not pick a single track trail rated difficult for your first mountain biking experience....
Or maybe you should actually have a mountain bike before attempting to use any mountain bike trail....


Be sure to click on the pictues to get the best effect! :)

While you are anxiously awaiting more vacation photos, here is a picture of Katie with no teeth!! She lost both of her front teeth while on vacation, so if you were wondering, the tooth fairy can find children in a camper!

Just a little teaser of some of the vacation pictures! The Smokey Mountains were awesome, but I guess they wrote "Smokey Mountain Rain" for a reason - we did manage to have a really great time even though it rained almost every day at least once, but boy are those shoes we brought back stinky! :)













See how much fun the kids have on our trips???? Well maybe it is not all fun...... What do you have to say about that Joe???

















Here we are enjoying a picnic lunch after a good hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Good thing for those trail maps or Walter would have gotten us mighty lost! :)

Wanted to get these posted before we leave to meet the Kreiling family for the annual camping vacation! We had lots of fun fishing with GpaZ and of course enjoyed our visit with Nana as well. So, doesn't it look like they actually caught something????? :)

We had a great time in Chicago visiting with family and hanging out with Dan and Andy (and Uncle Chris & Aunt Julie) over the holiday weekend. We got to go boating and enjoy a good swim in the lake. We also visited the 4th of July carnival in Palatine - I would have to say the kids are too big for this ride anymore! :) And a big thank you to Aunt Julie who took us horseback riding - even though she couldn't join us with her dislocated knee cap....

Here are some pictures of the girls enjoying some time with Grandma Dooley. She had some special pieces of jewelry that she gave to them for their birthdays. The girls loved the jewelry as you can see!

This weekend was the big dance recital. We were thrilled to have Grandma and Grandpa Little come for the show. Maddy performed a piece from Swan Lake and Katie's class did a high energy hip hop number. Both girls did a great job and had lots of fun performing in the special costumes!

Although we miss Chicago, I have to say we love living in Philadelphia. We are studying the early 1600's in history and just started a chapter about Jamestown when I heard that the Godspeed was going to be in Philadelphia as part of the Jamestown 400th anniversary. It was really neat to be able to go on a replica of the actual ship that brought the first colonists to our country. They also had a cute play (from the animal's perspective) what it was like when the colonists first arrived and these pictures are of Maddy and Katie participating in the play.

The girls never tire of showing visitors the Liberty Bell - so if you come to visit, expect a trip to see the famous bell! :)
Here we are enjoying a visit to the Bell with Grandpa.

THE SUMMER HAIRCUTS!!!!




BEFORE...





DURING...


AFTER!

On our first day at Nana & Grandpa Z's, the boys did everything life at Nana's is known for - swimming in the pool, badmitton, driving the tractor, and GOLF! Here are some pictures from golfing - I'm pretty sure Nicky beat me this round! Joey had some great shots, too. Everyone had a lot of fun!!

While in Chicago for our first weekend in Illinois, cousin Mark showed us his fire station with all the cool engines and the living quarters of the fire fighters. Did you see Dad get his heartbeat checked out? The boys really enjoyed the trip! Thanks, Mark!

Here are the first pictures from the Kreiling boys' vacation with Nana and Grandpa Z. Note the two pictures - who's the adult in charge?

The girls (and our friend Zoe) made some beautiful stepping stones last weekend. I had to find a place of honor for them, so we created this garden yesterday - dug out all the weeds and old scraggly grass. The girls decided they wanted flowers in their garden, so we planted some impatients. We have to figure out a border for the garden so we can put some mulch down as well... Dad and the dogs supervised as you can see! :)

Okay, okay, Laura - here are the pictures! *grin*

The birthday cake had a beautiful picture of horses, which tasted good, too! We had to take the cake into the camper to get the candles to stay lit long enough for Katie to make a big wish!

Here's Kate opening her gifts, one of which was a giant red snake!!!!

It was two tired boys who drove back home over the Cheasapeake Bay Tunnel Bridge.

Here are some pictures of Katie enjoying her 7th birthday with Grandpa. We had a fantastic weekend camping at Assateague - lots of ponies and one even walked through the campsite! I unfortunately forgot my camera, so hopefully Amy will post some pictures.