still more sleepover guests!

Last week my brother Robert and his wife Wendy came to Knoxville for a visit, along with my nieces and nephew, Sarah, Lee and Emma Grace.  To say they kept us busy is the understatement of all time - but we had a blast boating, hiking, and spending a day at Splash Country.  

Their first day here we headed up to the lake to spend the day tubing and cliff jumping.   Robert and Sean decided to take the big cliff (which we think is about 60 feet).  

That little black/blue dot in the picture is Robert.  Need to see it close-up?  I think you should (the picture of his face is truly worth a 1,000 words).

The kids had a lot of fun, too!  Here's my niece, Sarah, posing for the camera.

My pictures of Lee are all action shots because, like my boys, he wouldn't stop having fun long enough for me to take a picture.

And Emma Grace's pictures all feature Elliott, since the two were rarely apart.

The kids (including the grown up ones) did a lot of tubing, rope swinging and cliff jumping.  I captured some of the action, including Robert's awesome wipeout!

A couple notes about the video - when Lee was tubing, the screens were still up from an afternoon shower - sorry about that.  And I didn't get any video of Sarah on the tube because Elliott was requiring my attention at the time - which is too bad because she went on a heck of a ride and had a GREAT wipeout at the end.  Trust me, you hate that you missed it.  

And speaking of great wipeouts, I had a bunch of pictures and video which I took with my phone of the hike we all took the next day to Grotto Falls.  Sadly though, when I set my phone down on a FLAT rock to take some pictures with Robert and Wendy's camera, my phone had a little wipeout of its own.  As my friend Darsi put it, the poor thing had an unsuccessful water landing - but she's now living the high life in a Smoky Mountain stream.  May she rest in peace.  The hike was great, even if it did turn out to be 6.8 miles (no easy feat when you're carrying a 2-year-old on your back and another tyke in your uterus)!

Robert and Wendy were kind enough to give the prego a day off after the hike (to take Elliott to the doctor for swimmers' ear), but they weren't about to rest for a day.  They took Kellen and Wyatt and their 3 kiddos to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge (which my boys are STILL talking about - they made us watch Titanic the movie yesterday!), and for a round of Old MacDonald miniature golf.   We all headed back up to the mountains again the following day for a FULL day at Splash Country.  Those Kanes sure know how to make the most of their vacation!!!  And we definitely enjoyed having them here.  Hope to see you guys again soon!