~Vacation in the Mountains~

Last Tuesday, the Shotwell clan {Chris & Kristy, Michele & Phil, Alison, and JT} came to Nashville to celebrate Christmas with us and to ring in the new year.  They arrived at about midnight late Tuesday and we didn't spend much time chatting, it was pretty much straight to bed.  Wednesday morning {Christmas morning #2}, we all woke up early, got ready, and had breakfast casserole.  After filling our bellies, it was present time.  We exchanged gifts and then quickly gathered our things.  We loaded up the cars and headed out of town. 

DAY 1
We were headed to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  We rented out a 3 story, 5 bedroom cabin nestled in the Smoky Moutnatins, complete with a pool table and a hot tub.  Gatlinburg is just to the east of Knoxville, so I figured it would take about 4 hours to get to the the cabin.  WRONG. We carravanned across Tennessee; one stop for gas, one stop to pee, a quick bite to eat, 236 miles, and about 6 and a half hours later, we made it.  We checked the place out and got settled in.  The moms headed to the store to get food and other necessary staples for the week, while the rest of us played around, and were giddy to finally be on vacation {we booked the cabin last spring}.  While the old people headed to bed {and Madison}, we youngsters headed downstairs to play some pool before calling it a night.  While playing, Michele, Alison, and I heard a pretty loud growl.  Freaked out Convinced that it must have been a bear, the plan for Alison having a bed all to herself quickly changed and we became roommates for the remainder of the trip. {I wouldn't want to sleep alone either, as her our room was on the first floor, one wall of windows, and another wall of glass doors.} We heard the ferocious growl 4 more times in the night, twice waking us from a dead sleep.  We were glad when daylight finally came.

DAY 2
We woke up, had a little breakfast and headed down the mountain to explore the town.  We found a fun mexican restaurant {we Hess's and Shotwells love mexican food}, where we were able to eat on the rooftop to enjoy to the gorgeous mountain backdrop and warm sunshine. After lunch, Alison, JT and I headed off on our own to do a fun mirror maze and go to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum while the others headed around town.  We all had a blast and by dusk headed back to the cabin for a pizza dinner and board games.  FYI, Alison and I heard no growling that night.  Yippeee.

DAY 3
Day 3 was declared a pajama day.  We all slept in, ate a delicious pancake brunch, and hung around the cabin. We played iPads, played the Kinect, took naps, chatted, ate, laughed, and enjoyed the lazy day with each other.  After a delicious home-cooked steak dinner, the "kids" headed out to WonderWorks.  We spent 3 hours or so playing at the interacive museum.  They had all kinds of fun stuff; an earthquake and hurricane simulator, rock climbing wall, laser tag and lots of other fun stuff.  We had tons of fun.  Great lazy day. 

DAY 4- New Year's Eve
We woke up early and headed to the aquarium. We spent about 2 hours looking at all the fish, sharks, penguins, stingrays, and all the other sea life.  Then we headed to Dick's Last Resort for lunch.  If you have never been, let me enlighten you.  At this place then are intentionally rude, poke fun at you, throw things at your table, give you a hard time, and make hats with goofy things written on them that you are made to wear.  We all got a kick out of it.  After lunch, mom, dad and I headed to taste test moonshine.  That's right, we had a taste testing of about 6 different kinds of moonshine.  Woowee, it burns!  haha  Then the whole group took a sky-lift tram up the mountain to over look the town.  We walked a ton throughout the day and were exhausted by the day's end.  We headed back to the cabin at sun down to ring in the new year together.  We cooked burgers on the grill and played more games until midnight. 
Just as Alison and I were settling into bed, guess what we heard???  That growling again.  It was about 1:30,  Chris came down to see if he could tell what it was.  He has spotted a bobcat earlier in the day and we thought maybe that was it.  Alison stayed up a while longer and googled bobcat growling, and we were convinced that it was much bigger than a bobcat.  We swear it was a mountain lion, and it was right on the other side of the wall from our bed.  Alison and I were the only one's to hear, I tried to record it with my phone, but it never growled again.  It freaked us out.  Eeek.

DAY 5
We woke up early and were packed and out of the cabin by 10am.  We stopped at O'Charley's for brunch before hitting the road.

We had  so much fun together, and I really really hope that we don't wait too long before our next little vacation.  Hope you guys had a happy new year!  Here is a little video of all the fun we had.