Thursday, April 8, 2010

Hiking in the Smokies

Our last full day on our trip was absolutely beautiful! A great day to get out and let the boys run around in the woods!






The Smokey Mountains have always been a favorite place for us to visit and this trip was no exception. We had a great time and got to do lots of things (and eat lots of good food!). We can't wait until next time!

Petting Zoo in the Smokies

I'll just go ahead and admit it up front on this post...we took way too many pictures at the petting zoo! Jackson was hilarious with all the animals though. You'd have thought he was meeting some long lost relatives or something! The picture above is his first reaction to meeting a tame deer for the first time...wasn't scared a bit!

Another first...David feeding a camel. I'll have to say that the camels were just kind of gross...way too much slobber!
Checking out the zebra.

Daddy and boys with the miniature horses.

Jackson trying to climb over the fence to see the "zonkey"- you guessed it...combination of a zebra and a donkey. Very interesting.

Jackson was the funniest with the goats. There were probably 50 goats in the pen and he was intimidated bit...just strolled in like he owned the place and even gave one of them a kiss on the lips!

Love this picture! It looks like they're just talking a walk together. I'm sure Jackson's talking to him "So, what are those things on your head anyway?".


Giving another goat a hug.

Another funny one...when all the goats when running over to the fence thinking someone was about to feed them, Jackson ran over there with them like he was part of the herd or something!

Noah with his favorite goat- he affectionately decided to name him "Fred" and promised to come back to visit!
This was out first to time to go to the Petting Zoo, but definitely won't be the last. We all had lots of fun!

Bears and Snow

During spring break, we took a little trip back up to the Smokies. One of the first things we did this time was to go feed some real bears! There's a really cool display set up almost like a zoo behind one of the gift shops where you can see the bears really well and drop some snacks down to them. The boys really enjoyed it.

Daddy and the boys!
Me and the boys with their spelunking (?sp) helmets on at the "rock quarry"!

After feeding the bears and a yummy lunch for ourselves at Alamo Steakhouse, we headed up in the mountains to check out the snow that remained. There was lots! In some places it was piled about a foot high. Noah had a ball getting out and running around in it.


As much as Noah loved it, Jackson wasn't so sure. It was a little packed down and slick in places. He was a little afraid of falling I think!

That's probably the most snow and ice we've ever seen up there...you can see all the huge iceicles hanging behind us. It was very pretty!