Beaumont Children's Museum

On Thursday, December 29th, the kids & I went to Lego Day at the Beaumont Children's Museum.

They had several lego activities planned throughout the day, but we just wanted to free build with this giant pile of legos!!

Alex & I both made a Pikachu. His is MUCH BETTER than mine!

And Addy made Swablu

and her evolution Altaria.

Of course both of hers are great!

After building with legos for a bit, we made our way around the museum, checking out several of the exhibits.
Here are some of the fun things that we did...

We connected gears & tried to make them all turn at once.

And we made silly faces out of magnetic shapes.

We colored 

and drew pictures.

We played with sand

and air.

And dug for dinosaur bones.

And of all that was just in the hallway! 

Then we went inside the main room & we...

played music.

We built with small blocks.

And built with LARGE blocks.

And before heading out, we played captain of the ship!

It was our first time to visit the Beaumont Children's Museum & I have to say, I was quite impressed with it! (Especially considering it's in the hallway & classrooms of the Beaumont Community Center!)

Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal

Here's how we celebrated Christmas 2016...

On Christmas Eve, we went to my mom & dad's house.

When we got home that evening, the kids were allowed to open one present. Alex tore into what he was hoping was Skylanders Imaginators (and it was!) And Addy chose NOT to open a present because Christmas morning is when you're supposed to open presents & it wasn't Christmas morning. (Which is just another example how Alex is my mini me & Addy is just like Nick!!)

Then the kids put on their new Christmas pajamas that the Pajama Elf brought, set out cookies & milk for Santa & went to sleep.

So that Santa could come!

Christmas morning the kids woke up early & dug in!

They got lots of great gifts including...

new art supplies 

pokemon figurines

nerf guns

fun blankets

and clothes.

On December 26th, we celebrated Christmas with the Roeders at Susan's house.

And on the 28th we celebrated at Pat & Eddie's.

We had a great time celebrating the holidays with all our loved ones! 

Hoosier Family Vacation Day 5 - White Water Rafting

The next day was Thursday.

We started the day with a late breakfast at the Old Mill Restaurant.

Addy was ready to eat!

The banana nut muffins were delicious.

But unfortunately, I wasn't that impressed with the rest of the food. (Which seems to be a reoccurrence on all our vacations. Nick says it's because we live in Texas & Texas has the yummiest foods! I think he's probably right!!)

After breakfast, we all split up again. Some people went back to the cabin, some went shopping & Nick, the kids & I went to do something that I had been wanting to do, ride the Alpine Coaster.

The coaster runs on about a track that is about a mile long & is built into the side of a mountain.

Alex didn't want to ride it so Nick offered to stay in the truck with him while my little speed junkie rode it with me!

Here we are on the way up. I didn't get any pictures on the way down since we were flying at around 30mph & I didn't want to lose my phone!

The coaster was a lot of fun & a must if you find yourself in Pigeon Forge!

After that, we headed back to the cabin to get ready to go white water rafting on the Big Pigeon River!

This was my first time to ever go rafting & OMG it was so much fun! Since we had the littler cousins with us, we just did the lower part of the river with the level 1 & 2 rapids. My kiddos loved it so much that next time we'll definitely have to do level 3s & 4s!

We were supposed to stay Thursday night & check out of the cabin on Friday morning. But Nick decided to skip rafting & instead take a nap so that we could leave Thursday night & drive overnight. Which means this was our last day in Tennessee & a what a fun last day it was! 

Like I previously stated, before going on this trip, I really didn't think there would be much to do there. But boy was I wrong. We did so much & there was still more I wanted to do. (Make that... is still more I want to do. Because I plan to go back to Tennessee one day & hike part of the Appalachian Trail, drive up to Clingmans Dome, hike to some of the waterfalls, go shopping in Gatlinburg, ride a horse through the park, ride the Alpine Slide at Ober Gatlinburg, raft on the bigger rapids on the upper part of the river & maybe go to Dollywood if it's not 100 degrees outside!) 

So.. if you've never been to the Smokies Mountains & you get the chance to go, DO IT! You won't be disappointed!

And if you haven't read about the rest of our trip, 

here's Day 1 & 2, Day 3 & Day 4.