The wispy, smoke-like fog that hangs over the Smoky Mountains comes from rain and evaporation from trees. On the high peaks of the Smokies, an average of 85 inches of rain falls each year, qualifying these upper elevation areas as temperate rain forests.*from GSMNP website, I wish I could say I took it.

A rare opportunity presented itself at the beginning of this month.  I was able to take a week vacation, and with good planning was able to get the weekend on either end off as well.  So I ended up with 9 days straight off!!  About three weeks beforehand, we decided that we had to take advantage of this blessing.  So we planned a trip to a place with some things we have been desperately needing; mountains, camping, cool weather, and a child free vacation.  Those of you that enjoy easy access to any of the above may not understand how great it is to get just one of the above.  Having all of the above in one fun filled cross country adventure is like Halloween, 4th of July, Festivus, Flag day and the Spring solstice all align together like a holiday coup.
So we planned a hiking trip to Smokey Mountains National Park.  We planned to backpack, camp, relax, enjoy the majestic outdoors, and have time away from a myriad of time consuming obligations.  We were able to coordinate things perfectly on the front end of our trip to see family and attend my nephew's baptism in Houston.  Then came the hardest part of the entire trip; leaving both kids in the loving hands of my parents for the week.  We both shed a tear or two as we drove away, I mean look at least two, they are hard to say goodbye to.
On our way to Tennessee we read up on the important things like what to do in the case of bear encounters.  Things like the following quote from Bill Bryson
"Black bears rarely attack. But here's the thing. Sometimes they do. All bears are agile, cunning and immensely strong, and they are always hungry. If they want to kill you and eat you, they can, and pretty much whenever they want. That doesn't happen often, but - and here is the absolutely salient point - once would be enough.--A Walk in the Woods
And this from a brochure that we found from the SMNP. "If a bear persistently follows or approaches you, without vocalizing, or paw swatting, try changing your direction. If the bear continues to follow you, stand your ground. If the bear gets closer, talk loudly or shout at it. Act aggressively and try to intimidate the bear."  "If the bear shows no interest in your food and you're physically attacked, fight back aggressively with any available object--the bear may consider you as prey!"  These instructions did more to fuel the fires of fear, but fortunately I did not have to employ any of my secret bear paralyzing moves from the government.  More on bears including our 2.5 bear encounters in subsequent postings.

  We had a bunch of delicious meals, an ambitious route, and a days worth of pent up energy from sitting in the car to fuel a special kind of delirium on the first 10 minutes of our hike.  Our packs weren't heavy yet, no ticks had payed a visit yet, and we started off in a slap happy state that is almost indescribable.  It was topped off by Kim almost falling in the river while striking a pose for this picture.  This is her laughing after not falling in.  This nature and fresh air driven psychosis was tempered ever so slightly on our first good up hill climb of the day.

We hiked 12 miles the first day (32 miles in 3 days total for the trip) and were rewarded with a couple of great views, waterfalls, streams, valleys, and rolling mountains.  It was spectacular. We traveled from the edge of the park, into the central valley were most tourists go, and then back into the woods to the base of one of mountain peaks.

We are not naturalist, but we love nature.  We are not outdoormen, but love the outdoors.  We decided on our hike we may not be experts or die-hards when it comes to just about anything.  However we enjoy participating and doing just about everything to some degree and love to dabble in a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Just about anything for the sake of adventure.  Kim planned just about every detail of this trip and excelled at dehydrating and preparing gourmet backpacking meals.  Our first night we ate chicken curry with naan.  We had pretty much driven our bodies into the ground, and after hanging up our backpacks away from the prowling bears laid our weary selves down to sleep beneath the white noise of a nearby babbling stream.

Cades Cove, this one I did take myself.

To be continued...Come back soon for more on bears, balds, and backpackin'.

My Favorite People

This is Bennett playing hide and go seek.  He is hiding. 

 After going to the monster truck rally Bennett loves to play "Monster Frucks!"

We're doing pretty good!

failed

My attempt at potty training has failed. I stuck Bennett back in his diaper.  It went from Bennett begging to go on the potty ALL THE TIME and tricking me into believing maybe he was ready.  The first two days were greats.  He pooped on the potty.  He peeped many many times on the potty. He got so excited to eat jelly beans for peeing on the potty.  He got so excited every time he peed.  His accidents on the floor were no big deal.  I felt no anger.

Then something switched.  He stopped wanting to go.  He stopped staying on the potty long enough to pee.  He refused to try to pee when he was on the potty.  He started peeing all over my floor again. 

Last night I snapped.  Russ rushed home from work so that I could go out to dinner with some friends for a birthday.  Instead he came home to an emotional wreck who had nothing nice to say about a little boy who's name starts with a B.  I didn't go to dinner.  I left the house and drove around until Russ had tucked my little terror into his bed and he was fast asleep. 

I woke up this morning with restored determination.  Unfortunately today I became monster mom.  He has not peed on the potty a single time but he has peed on my floor at least 6 times. He has had plenty of chances.  He just refuses.  So I snapped.  And now I am done. I don't like how it makes me treat my son.   Next time I'm just going to go out of town for a week and leave Russ with Bennett all by himself to potty train.  I'll be nice and bring Renn with me.

I can't wait for this Trauma rotation to be over and I can have my husband back for a little while... 3 more weeks...

I see London. I See France. I see...

Renn's Underpants!

I'm saving this picture to show to future girl friends.

Don't worry girls. He's no sissy. He's really a super ninja. His "Hi-yah!" ninja chop was so lightning fast the camera couldn't capture it.

But even with his inner ninja, he really is a softy.

And he's good at sharing.

That is... when he's not being a dinosaur.

Kayak Dadadaventures!

Since we found out that we were moving to Corpus we have been talking/planning/hoping to buy a kayak. We were hoping for one that someday we could squeeze everyone into, but still small enough for one person to take it out alone. Two weeks ago we found just the right one on craigslist, and later that day took it out for its maiden voyage.


Bennett and I took it out in the bay in the really shallow water. The maiden voyage lasted a glorious five minutes before Bennett said that he wanted out. He kept trying to stand up and I think that he didn't like how unstable it was. Then to convince me that he was serious about being done he kept saying, "Mama, out" over and over. Luckily it was shallow enough for us to get out and walk back to the shore before a breakdown happened. I was worried, how was Bennett going to go on our 3-4 hour father/son fishing trips if he couldn't last 5 minutes. We'd just have to work on it.
Kim and I decided that even though it is just a kayak, he/she needed a proper name. We decided on Flavia, after the main character from a fiction series we like. Officially its Flavia de Luce, but is also known by the nickname Flava Flav, a drastically different pop culture reference.
The second outing with Bennett and Flavia did not go much better than the first. This time we went with friends that were watching Renn on the shore while Kim, Bennett, and I went out for a short trip. Bennett lasted about 30 seconds before letting us know persistently that he would rather stay on the shore.
He was so excited when I first brought it home and told him that it was our boat. He climbed right in and laughed and played inside it then. Now I was getting worried. I didn't want to push him and make him start hating going out in the water. I started thinking about all the different treats and incentives I could try to encourage him.
Yesterday we planned a little trip to some paddling trails near Port Aransas and I think that we turned a corner. Bennett and I went out together for about 20 minutes!! There were a lot of birds to see and he loved pointing them out and saying pelican, egret, and ibis. We saw fish jump and crabs in the water. Then on our way back to the shore we nearly ran into a pod of dolphins!! They came up less than 20 feet straight in front of us. Bennett was so excited. We followed after them for about 30 seconds and I counted 8 dorsal fins sticking out of the water. It was so awesome to come that close to wild dolphins!! With the added bonus that Bennett saw them and got really excited too.
As we got back to the car where Kim, Renn, and Athena were waiting Bennett kept saying "Dolphins, more more." Luckily the dolphins swam right past them and Kim saw them too. Athena apparently noticed them first and and was sad to miss out on her chance of swimming with the dolphins.
Seeing the dolphins jump out of the water right in front of us was incredible. But the best part of the trip happened a few minutes after we got back. Kim and I were talking excitedly about our dolphin encounter and Bennett was splashing in the water next to us. He walked over to Flavia and started pushing her out into the water. When we looked up to stop him, Bennett kept pushing and calmly said "bye-bye" to us. Apparently he was now ready to adventure out on his own.

Bennett's a learning machine!

Bennett loves to play hide and go seek.  He covers his eyes while we count.  This morning I found him counting in our closet all by himself.  Surprisingly he did it again for the camera!  I don't know why he felt he needed to pause in between each number. Dramatic effect?

For Aunt Kelsey and Uncle Scott

 Thanks for making us so cute! Love this tie and headband bow.