Thanksgiving 2014

This post is a bit late, but since we were away on vacation to North Carolina for Thanksgiving week, I'm catching up with everything on the home front.  The first week back to work after vacation is always the worst.  Why do I have to get up at 5am again?!?!  Waah!

We stayed in a really pretty house with my whole family for eight nights, right in the Smokey Mountains.

Could you ever get sick of seeing this view from your back porch?  I don't think so!  The vacation went by WAY too fast as vacations tend to do.  The house was situated right near Cashiers, North Carolina & Highlands, NC which were both picturesque towns straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting.

Before this trip, I seriously had no idea that NC had such beautiful waterfalls.  We hit a few of them, one being pictured above was Dry Falls.  Nothing dry about a waterfall but apparently it gets its name because you can walk behind the falls & stay dry.  That's what I'm told, anyway.  Unfortunately, the back was blocked off the day we went.

The first time we hit Whitewater Falls it was so densely foggy that we could barely even see a hint of the falls so we were pretty bummed.

 

It was so foggy that Reese (and myself!) were able to pee right off the trail as people walked fifteen feet away!  We're classy gals!

We were determined to see Whitewater Falls, so we headed back a few days later & could not believe the gorgeous views that had been hiding behind the fog.

We were lucky enough to wake up to snow on Thanksgiving morning which I was not expecting.  I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, so snow is surely not new to me, but it definitely is for my Floridian children & nieces!

Cam was in plenty of snow during a Chicago visit when he was barely two, but he doesn't remember it.  Reese, Mikayla & Maddy had never seen snow before, so this was an awesome bonus!  There was enough snow that the kids could sled down our awesome backyard hill over & over.  I have to admit that I hit the sled a few times too!

Other than my brother having a newly bad back during our trip, everyone had a blast.  Turns out he probably has a bulging disk & will likely need surgery.  :o(

But as always, the cousins had such a great time & were thrilled to have eight days & nights together!

 Cameron & Mikayla were glued to the hip as usual.  Watching them play together is too cute.

11pm party with the bunking cousins!

Mikayla & Reese pretending to be kitties for about an hour straight!

It's always sad when it's time to pack up & head home from a vacation.  Our trip home quickly went downhill (literally) as we wound through the snake-like roads around the mountains that made Reese carsick.  Twenty minutes from our vacation house, Reese threw up all over herself & continued to get sick in a bag for the next four hours.  It was awful!!!  We had never been happier to pull into our driveway 11 hours later & sleep in the comfort of our own beds.  Vacations are fun, but there's no place like home!