Last Thursday, we packed up and headed to Gatlinburg, TN to the Smokey Mountain Westgate Resort & Spa. This was our first vacation outside of family vacas, and it was a blast. Our neighbors & good friends went, too, but we stayed separately since all the 2 bedrooms were sold out. It was fun vacationing with friends & getting to do most everything together for the week. I will admit, vacationing with no help (aka, family) was a little more difficult + a bit of a learning experience, but so much fun. There was a lot of planning around nap times & meal times, and fitting everything we wanted to do in was like putting a puzzle together. We got to do so many fun things that the 5 days really flew by! We took it easy when we arrived and hit the heated outdoor pool. Mason was more interested in watching the other children play than swimming or playing in the water.
Friday, we did the indoor water park at our resort, Wild Bear Falls, which was pretty awesome since the weather decided to be super cold. Mason loved getting to walk all around the water park & try out all the different pools, slides, lazy river, and other water activities. Mac loved the big kid water slides, too ;-) Saturday, we headed downtown to Ripley's Aquarium- I would say this was Mason's favorite. He loved seeing all the fish so close & getting to crawl through all the kid tunnels to see everything even closer. We did some downtown strolling & headed to Pigeon Forge that afternoon. The sky wheel was just like the one in Myrtle Beach & it was fun to see all of Pigeon Forge from a different perspective and listen to the blue grass music on The Island. Mason's favorite music is definitely blue grass & he enjoyed dancing to all the songs!
We drove to Ober Gatlinburg on Sunday and checked out the Wilderness Experience. They take in injured/rescued animals & it was neat to see them so close up. We got to see most of them during feeding times, which was extra fun for the kiddos, and us, too ;-) After, we headed to lunch at Smokey Mountain Brewery, which was in a super cute shopping area & had a pretty awesome view by the river, too. That afternoon we packed up & headed out to 2 different hikes...5+ months pregnant + a toddler makes for a bit different hiking experience, but such a blast. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip & I could have stayed another day or even week to check out all the other hikes in the Smokey Mt National Forest that were close to us. First we hiked a little more than halfway up Chimney Tops, which has a completely vertical rock climb at the very end to see the view. Needless to say, Mac carrying Mason & me being pregnant + snow/ice left over on the trail led us to enjoy half the hike & plan to come back to do the whole thing another day. Afterwards, we drove to the Gatlinburg Trail & strolled by the river for a little bit before meeting our friends for dinner.
<3
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