Gatlinburg Vacation with the Cothran's

Every year my family (Kristen's) goes to Gatlinburg, TN for vacation during the fall season. My mom always tries to schedule our trip around the time the leaves on the trees are changing. It's such a beautiful area, especially with all the oranges, reds, and yellows on the mountain trees. This was of course Elijah's first trip, and he did great.

We got a family picture made while we were there, and as you can see the color of the bushes were amazing! It really helps having my brother Daniel take the picture with his super camera, especially since he knows what he is doing. 

My nephew, Jonas (3 years old), just loves spending time with Elijah. He always wanted to sit by him when we would go out to eat, or hold him at the cabin. Jonas always says, "I yike him." "He's my bes frien." I know I'm not the best speller, but I intentionally misspelled the words in the quotes because that's how Jonas talks. It's so cute! Among many other things, I'm going to miss having my nephews around when we move.

We went to the aquarium there in Gatlinburg, which was mine and Neal's first time to go. They have these glass bubbles that kids could stand in to feel like they were inside the tank. You have to crawl under the tank in order to get in the bubble, and of course Neal wanted Elijah to experience everything. So, he crawled under and let Elijah see the fish all around him...not that he even knew what he was looking at.  

Our favorite spot for my family to go in downtown Gatlinburg is a place called "The Village." It's a cozy little corner that looks like a village in another country. It has some neat little shops. In the picture on the left Elijah and I are at the entrance to the Village, which is always decorated according to the season or holiday. The middle picture is my brother Michael and nephew Jonas sitting on the horse statue that's outside of one of the art stores that we really enjoy going through. To the right Neal is feeding Elijah the bottle while we were on the move...nursing in the bathrooms and feeding the bottle while sitting on a bench or walking became quit the norm. This was great practice for us since we will be traveling a lot in the future.

 

The first night we were out on the town Elijah got really cold. He had never been in cold weather before and it was hard for him to handle. He had his snuggle blanket in the stroller with him, but he always wanted his hands out from under the blanket. Every time he'd pull them out he'd look at me with pitiful eyes and start to cry. I tried to hold him and get him warmer, but with my cold hands I wasn't much help. He cried until daddy got there and could hold him. (Daddy is always much warmer than mommy.) From that time on, whenever we went out at night Neal always held him against his warm body inside his jacket and Elijah was fine.

One thing that my family always loves when we travel is a good restaurant. One of our favorites is the Alamo because they have great steaks. Each of the boys got a 22 ounce steak (Neal and I shared it). We thought there would be lots of leftovers, but to our surprise there wasn't any. It tasted so good! It was a great last place to go for our last night.