More Vacation Pics

The kids were in the mood to pose for pictures the day we walked the trail to Cascade Falls.
































One of my favorite vacation activities was looking for salamanders in the creeks with the kids. We got pretty good at finding and catching them. Tyler is looking at a tiny salamander on a rock. We found some good size ones, too.





























The butterflies were EVERYWHERE! And they were so pretty. I think Danielle is the butterfly whisperer. :)
































We drove to Cherokee, NC one day. The kids wanted to feed the bears. That place is so depressing, though. We felt so sorry for those poor bears. There wasn't much else to do over there, and it was SO hot and humid. We've decided we can cross this stop off our list of places to visit the next time we're in the Smokies. After we fed the bears, we got slushies and ice cream at the DQ (which did NOT have chocolate ice cream!) and then found a couple geocaches.

























On Thursday we went tubing. There were 4 or 5 sets of rapids that were a little stressful for Danielle and me, but Tyler loved them. It wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped, and I have lots of bruises from hitting the rocks, but it was still fun and I'm glad we did it...ONCE.





























We also hit up the go carts on Thursday. Tyler was tall enough to drive the bigger cars by himself. Still not tall enough to drive the Wild Woody, though. He did a really good job and had a blast!


































Travel tip #1: Do not let your 8 year old pick out 1st Degree Burn Jalapeno Doritoes for a car snack. They are so spicy they had to be accompanied by at least 2 1/2 bottles of water, which meant we had to stop every 20 minutes for at least 2 hours after he ate them.