Driving to Tennessee, hanging out in Tennessee, then driving home from Tennessee was one of our very best and most fun trips yet! We loved it and it was so so good and fun to see Summer and Andy and Eliana!
We left Sunday after church and drove on through to Colorado.
Truman was a road tripping champ
And also a star of the third new temple movie. Look familiar?
Pikes Peak in the distance as we left Colorado the next morning (we stayed in Castle Rock with some of Billy's long time friends)
That Monday we drove to Missouri and that night we went and saw Liberty Jail. It was really cool! I did not know it was actually enclosed inside of a visitor's center. They rebuilt it and put some Disneyland-esque Joseph Smith characters to show what it would've been like. Pretty rough.
It was really cool and we got a personal tour from the sister missionary since we were pretty much the only ones there.
In the morning we drove to St. Louis and stopped at the arch!
IT WAS SO COOL! We were only going to stay for a half hour or something because that's all we paid for parking, but then they had a sweet movie about how it was made and we couldn't stop watching. It was worth it. I was amazed.
This was actually the old courthouse next door. Also cool.
It was SO BIG. I can't believe they just made something like that.
We had some good lunch at a famous place in St. Louis
Then crossed the Mississippi to head onward!
At that point we hit 111111!
That night we made it to Nashville! It was so joyous to see Summer and she made us some yummy soup while we waited for Andy to come home. Eliana and Truman were instant friends.
Eliana was SO CUTE and all week she just love, love loved Tru.
The next morning we went for a little walk in some Warner park by Summer's house, which was so pretty. I can't even imagine it in the fall. or summer!
Thanksgiving Day me and Bum went to Franklin with the babies to run a 5k! It was fun and that was my 14th state.
Afterwards Summer drove me by the temple. It was so cute and little!
I did not document a single picture of our feast, but it was awesome and Summer rocked it. We didn't thaw the bird out long enough but it still afforded us many delicious pieces of meat. We spent the night hanging out and relaxing and going for a walk around their complex, which is sweet!
Eliana loved Truman, especially his belly button.
Friday we did some Black Friday shopping. Didn't really find anything great, but it was fun to shop with Summer! The boys explored Best Buy and Dick's with not really any success.
Same face Billy and Tru
Tru has no neck
Saturday we were off on an adventure! We drove a couple hours to Foster Falls near Chattanooga and did some hiking and rock climbing. It was very pretty and very fun!
The falls
Sweet bridge!
Me and Bum went on a hike while the boys were getting the climbing gear ready. We saw this climber and he was CRAZY! i don't know if you can even see him, but he was just crunched up there and super strong.
Then Billy and Andy did some climbing! You can barely see the boys in these pictures, but Billy is up there...
...and then I went a little ways up, but I did not go all the way to the top...
Summer hung out with the babies while I climbed
Eliana was loving playing around in the rocks
...then Andy climbed! He'd never climbed outside and he "rocked" it! But really, he did!
Afterwards the boys got in the lake/pond! It looked cold but if Tru hadn't been sleeping on me, I would've wanted to do it too!
We went to church with them on Sunday and Summer convinced us to stay an extra day. So glad we did! I have no pictures, but we had so much fun playing army men, tichu and also eating lots of pie!
Then we left on Monday. On our way out we went and saw Mammoth Caves. It was so cool!
What if you were just walking along and stumbled upon an entrance to a cave like Mammoth!?
Santa photobombed! But we were excited to go in. Tru did great by falling asleep on the bus ride to the entrance.
It was so crazy!
Pictures don't do it justice!
Since it's winter, there were limited tours available and we were only there for the shortest one. It was too short! I wanted to keep going and going, but it was still sweet to see what we did. The caves were cool!
The next day we headed to Colorado Springs to go up Pikes Peak!
The road was closed 1 mile beneath the summit, so we went up and snapped a few pictures for Tru. It was wiiiindy!
I miss Colorado Springs!
Since were at Pikes Peak when we entered our address to go home, our GPS took us the back way that I'd never been before. It was seriously a sacred experience and one of the highlights of the whole trip. Driving alongside tons of fourteeners at sunset--doesn't get much better than that!
I can't even describe how cool it was and the pictures definitely don't even show what it was like. But it was awesome.
We made it back home early Tuesday morning thanks to Billy's awesome driving skills. And now we are living a string of perpetual Saturdays since Billy doesn't have outside work and I quit my job (ok, so I still have to work a few weeks, but not 30 hours anymore. Hallelujah!!!)
Onto the bathroom remodel!
