Happy Easter

Half of the gang-not all smiling-

still a very happy Easter!

Snapshot

Grill is going, good smells are everywhere. The first lightning bugs are out and we have Mumford and sons on the Pandora. Hannah is doing her gymnastics routine, Matt is embarrassing everyone with his awful dance moves and Caitlin is keeping us all abreast of the middle school happenings. Matthew is switching between checking the grill temperature and working the rubix cube; Ben's asleep after a long day of being a six year old baseball star. As for me?  I'm just soaking it all in. Saving it up.  Savoring every. Single. Second.  Family time is the best time. 

Mountain Rock

Family fun at one of our favorite places....

Asheville with the Kids

We took the kids to Asheville! Super fun trip...here are the pictures.  Sorry no story to go with it today...blogger deleted the epic post I had written and now I'm tired.  Happy New Year!

Mountain Views

Family views

More views

So foggy!

Hotel pool shenanigans before bed

Gingerbread house contest winner

My personal favorite

View from Grove Park Inn

Waiting in the Lobby

Boys

Friendly game of thumbwar

Playground

King of the castle

Slingshot over the river

Hotel breakfast

Veg time...

Dinner out

Chocolates from Chocolate Fetish

Prizes from Curio

Latest addition to "the club"

Shopping at Mast's

Wonderland.  Not exactly the Disney themed store we expected...should have known better!  At least the sign was cool :)

Schroeder soup...No Caitlin's allowed!

People watching at Grove Park Inn

Ben

It's a Secret Y'all

Sunday supper is kind of a big deal around here.  The kids love it because we always play some sort of around the table game. The grown folks like it because it's the one night of the week that the kids are solely responsible for post dinner clean-up (aka the damn dishes) and we love the break (this blogpost is in fact, brought to you by the fact the four minions are downstairs right this minute cleaning up after a VERY messy chicken and shrimp pasta dinner.  So we have some time).  But I digress...this post is really about the game.  Lately the kids have transitioned from "the talking medal" game to "telephone".  The game where you tell secrets all the way around the table and see how it ends up when you get to the last person.  This game brings out the MAJOR sillies in the kiddos...Matt and I have repeatedly ended up with food in our ear canal because the whisperer to our left is laughing so hard as they actually whisper out partially chewed food. (Matt and I have to keep reminding ourselves that getting out of damn dishes is totally worth it).  Tonight I decided to take some pictures of the event...except of Caitlin because she has gotten really fast with her "no photo hand-to-the-face".  These pictures tell it better than I do....

Matt, pretending to understand Ben's jibber jabber and trying to figure out how to remove rotini from his inner ear.

Ben thinks this is hilarious.  Matt?  Notsomuch.

Matthew practically requires the chokehold to stay still long enough for the secret

"ZEBRA ZEBRA ZEBRA"

Inevitably how the game ends....

It's pretty much Tradition now...

For WEEKS Matt has been itching to get back up to Vogel to hike to the lookout point of Blood Mountain.  We did it several (maybe two?) years  ago and Matt remembers it fondly.  (I remember it realistically...four kids.  One dog.  Six miles of climbing a mountain...the last mile of which was filled with panic over whether we would ever see a familiar landmark again.  I think I actually started to wonder if we could make a meal of Chassie.  Don't tell her.  Matt's recollection of the trip is slightly more rose colored)  However!  Matt starts getting all twitchy and wild-eyed if we don't get him into the great outdoors often enough, so we piled into the car and headed north.  This time the kids were older and the dog was too old (and probably knew what I was thinking the last time) to go, so we let her stay home to guard the house.   I was cautiously optimistic that this trip was going to really be a great hiking experience (not to mention that this time I packed enough granola bars and breadcrumbs to ensure that we made it back off the trail and into the car in good time.)

The trip WAS good.  It was a family retreat and we all enjoyed the time together.  And there was SNOW!!  Lots of snow!  In early November!  It was a little chilly but for the most part the temperature was mild enough...and we got many  pictures thanks to Matt...who played the part of camera engineer (when he wasn't the Ben taxi-more on that in a minute.)  We brought along one of those spider tripods (the kind you can wrap around a tree limb) and we actually managed to get a few pictures with ALL of us in the picture!

Here's one I love...on our favorite rock:

A nice, normal family, right?  Ha!  Let's take a quick look a the picture that was taken just before that one...

A little background.  In order to get the shot Matt had to do some serious Olympic type work.  The camera was stationed in a nice high tree, and the photo spot was a good 10 yards (plus a huge incline) from the camera.  So...the conversation before and during the shot went something like this:

Matt: "GUYS.  This is serious. Once I press the button, SMILE.  DO NOT STOP SMILING until you see that flashy light.   EVERYONE'S CHRISTMAS DEPENDS ON THIS."

Caitlin: " Duh dad.   We got this.  Blah blah blah smile".  (Typical pre-teen talk.)  

Ben: (who loves to mimic)" YEAH DAD BLAH BLAH HAHAHAHA" (he would later regret this).

Matt clicks the button, We have ten seconds to be completely ready. He makes a flying leap into position, produces the perfect smile with three seconds to spare...at which point Ben decides to turn around to tell me something completely unnecessary like "Mommy that camera is about to flash".  And the camera clicks.  And catches Matt in the middle of a four letter word, me horrified at the use of said four letter word, and Matthew...realizing that Ben has just ruined Christmas.  Again.  Hannah and Caitlin, my rule followers, never stopped smiling of course.  

So much for nice normal family.

The rest of the pictures were better.  No more (on camera) four letter words and for the most part a happy family.  We made it to the top and pictures along the way:

The top!!  In the background is the lake...this picture does NOT do the view justice....it's beautiful!

From the top overlooking the other side...beautiful mountain view!

Me: THANK YOU GOD FOR THE END OF THIS HIKE
Ben: Wow! Is it really over so soon?

And...we made it back to the parking lot!  (no breadcrumbs necessary).  And here you see Ben's ride for the majority of the downhills.  On the uphills it was better...he rode on Matt's shoulder for those.  The boy lasted all of 1.5 miles and then decided this was cold and WAY too much work.  So we got to taxi Ben for the rest of the trip.    

This is actually at the beginning of the hike...see how happy everyone is?  Just wait.  Six miles and 35,000 Ben complaints later they won't be looking so cheerful...

It really was a good trip.  On the way home Matt and I decided that after several trips to Vogel, this was now a tradition.  Which means we'll be back next year :).  CANT WAIT...;)