Friday, May 1, 2009

Our Trip Home...the first few days

We headed back to Utah on April 27th and said goodbye to Gastonia. There are a few things we will miss, but we are excited to see family and friends again. We started the trek by going to Great Smokey Mountain National Park. It ended up being more of an adventure then we planned. Campgrounds are still first come first serve because it's still the "slow" season, so we figured we'd be fine, but when we started getting close it was hard to ignore the 10,000+ motorcycles riding in and out of the park and surrounding area. The place was CRAZY!!! We went to the closest campground..full "go to this campground" they said, "it will for sure have sites", so we drive another hour and a half through the park to that campground....full!!!! It was getting late and we were frustrated with the lack of communication between campgrounds. So the ranger says "go to this campground, it will for sure have sites." Sound familiar, and of course it's another hour and a half away. So we put on our fake smiles, and headed to our last chance. We were lucky enough to get one of the last spots, and felt bad for the endless cars that drove around even in the middle of the night looking for spots.

We ended up loving the campground, and took a trail from the campground to a falls called Hen Wallow Falls. The hike and the destination were beautiful.


The park was beautiful and we hope to be able to go back sometime and spend some more time there. We then packed up and headed to Cincinnati to spend some time with my cousin Tara and her family. It was so nice to be "home". We felt right at home and spending time with Tara and her family will definitely be the highlight of our trip home. We went to a local aquarium one day, and enjoyed playing games and watching the kids play the rest of the time.



Believe it or not, Grant and Kyler are exactly the same age, they were born 5 min apart, you'd never know it by comparing their sizes, Grant is wearing 24 month cloths, Kylers still in 12 months :)

Katie was SO good with Kyler, he'd grab her hand and drag her places, it was so cute!



We sadly said good bye to the Arnesen Family, and made the drive to Nauvoo....which we'll save for a later post....Utah here we come!

5 comments:

Jayne said...

Having fun following you adventure...

Jayne said...

What I forgot to say before pushing submit:

-Looks like a lot of fun!
-Miss you guys (Ellen still asks where you are.)
-Kyler looks like such a big boy
-LeNila was moved to a care center a couple of months ago. She had several close brushes with death last week. Keep the Johnsons and Homers in your prayers as they go through this big transition. It's hard to lose such a neat lady!

Amy said...

Yay! Can't wait to see you guys! We'd love to have you over for dinner when you get back. Email me, and we'll work out a time. Maybe the Seppies can come, too!

Anonymous said...

Miss you miss you miss you miss you miss you miss you!!!!! in case you missed it I miss you!

Unknown said...

Okay. Now I really need to get on the ball. You're on the road and you managed to post about your wonderful (and all-too-short) visit to us. I'm at home, and I still haven't gotten around to it. We did get the rest of the garden planted, though...well mostly. Hope you had a great Mother's Day! We love you!