Nashville and North Carolina

One of my good friends decided to get married in North Carolina, and we figured it was high time Tate took his first real trip, so we made a good long weekend out of it. We flew into Nashville where we got to spend a couple days with Slappy and Cookie before hitting the road. Grape Juice popsicles are a Saunders specialty.

Caden is always very generous with his water hose drinks. He concentrates extra hard in order to place the water in just the right spot.

This is how Slappy waters the yard. Like grandfather like grandson.

We stayed at the Hemlock Inn in Bryson City, NC, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants a beautiful, peaceful, family style vacation in the Smokies. Here we are right before a little hike.

Caden loved getting to walk through the trees and hunt for bears and pick blackberries.

Tate stayed awake for the first half and then was lulled into a Baby Bjorn coma.

The view. Not too shabby.

Here's one of the few pictures we have as a family all dressed up. Tate was sleeping.

These two provided the reception music, and it was FABULOUS! He stood in front of them sooo patiently and asked in between songs to play the guitar. They finally let him touch the banjo, and then they gave him his own instrument to play. He was in heaven.

Caden is a GREAT helper with Tate.

Noelle and J.T. left in a haze of sparklers, and Caden was more than happy to light one up for them.

It was all fun and games till he had a spark to the eye.

Tate is such a content little thing, we can park him just about anywhere. Feel kind of bad sometimes, but...well, it's great.

Round 2 for the sparklers

We ended the weekend back in Nashville, and we had so much fun seeing Slappy, Cookie and Uncle Burster.

We've been trying hard to have nightly devotionals, and Slappy read the story our last night there.

Our first attempt at scripture memorization.