Having Blane home during the day for a little while has been so nice in many ways.  We have had more opportunities to do things as a family, both fun and just for the sake of togetherness.  To make our new place of residence “official,” we went to arguably the most beautiful place in East Tennessee yesterday.  Can you guess what we did?

We took our bikes to Cade’s Cove and rode the 11 mile loop.  The kids took their respective places:

They would usually be sitting together in the trailer, but Brant had not yet napped and was rather cranky.  I hoped for a pleasant ride, not one full of arguing and crying due to irritating one another.  I also had all of our water bottles and lunch in with him.  And that white fuzz you are also seeing is Larry, our lovable Llama that goes with us just about everywhere. 

Now, since my husband reads my posts, I’m not sharing anything he doesn’t know about.  What I’m about to share is a true story, and he can attest to it.  About halfway in, he informed me that he would like to ask someone to put us and our bikes in their truck and drive us to the end.  I wouldn’t have it!  It’s cheating, I told him.  Okay, pride was definitely involved.  I wanted to be able to say that we biked all 11 miles, kids and all.  It was NOT easy!  I also have this “thing” with physical activity.  I set goals and don’t want to quit before I meet them.  I don’t care how stinkin’ hard it gets, I have to finish what I began (if only it were like that with ALL goals!)  It’s a kind of competition with myself.  Anyway, he did ask a park ranger that stopped to talk to us if he’d give us a ride.  Then he asked what I thought.  “No! That’s cheating!”  So on we went.  The legs burned with each new hill, and it set in earlier with each new hill.  But we did it!

Blane told me, as we were biking, to include a funny story on my blog for your entertainment.  Here goes:  while riding today, Blane said to Tara, “I’m pooped!”  And Tara responded, “Do you need to change your underwear, Daddy?”  And did so several more times over the course of our ride.    Can you guess what season we’re in with her?

This picture just doesn’t do the scenery justice; it is absolutely gorgeous!

We were all tired, achy and ready to go to bed by 7:30.  Well, Blane and I were anyway.  Two kids who did get a late afternoon nap seemed to have boundless energy when we just wanted to collapse.