Mattie Kathryn "Mattie Kate"

Life has changed a lot in the last few days for the McCarters! We have added a wonderful addition to our family! Mattie Kate was born on December 29, 2011 at 5:46 p.m. She was 6 pounds 15 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long! We are elated and blessed to have this beautiful little girl!

We are home and enjoying our new family! We are excited for Mattie Kate to meet all of her family!

Bryan McCarter, CPA

Well after almost 3 years, Bryan passed his last CPA test! Yahoo! We are so excited that this chapter of our life is complete! We celebrated with our friends... chili... apple cider... and of course a 10-key cake!

Thank you for all of your prayers, support and encouragement!

Bryan McCarter, CPA

Summer Happenings...

So I figure I am probably the worst blogger ever! It has been months since our last update! So in brief here we go...

School is out so I get time to catch up with friends and family. Bryan and I have had lots of fun hiking, traveling to Michigan, going to Dollywood and much more.

Update on Bryan....

Finishing up his last CPA exam! YAHOO! Enjoying summer and the slower pace at work. He has been hiking and out on the lake!

Update on Anna...

School is out! Still teaching 1st grade next year! Very blessed to be in a school that I love so much! Running the 1/2 marathon in Nashville in September!

This summer we are going on some fun family trips! In 2 weeks we are heading to Mexico with the White family for a gradulate school celebration! Yippee we are finished with graduate degrees (Josh, Emily, Anna and Bryan - CPA). In July we are renting a convertible and driving the Blue Ridge Parkway with friends!

Pictures and more of an update to come... hopefully I will be better at this during the summer!

Tax Season

Welcome to tax season! To most this would not be a big deal... but this family is headed up by none other than an accountant! Bryan began working every Saturday starting January 1 and has really gotten busy at work! I (Anna) made him a paper chain and he gets to tear one link off when he gets home each saturday! Surprisingly things have been going quickly! Check out our Festivus Christmas Party attire... yes my sweatshirt is a picture of Bryan with a funny hat (this is pre-Christmas)!

School for me has been wild! Wild I tell you! I love every minute of it, however I am busy busy busy and attempting to teach in the midst of taking care of everything else at school! ha! It works out well becuase Bryan is really busy as well! I love what I do and I love going to work each morning! I am truly blessed with a family of co-teachers that are encouraging, supportive, fun, and wonderful Christian people!

What do we do for fun you might ask?

*wii Olympic Sports with friends

*skiing

*training for the Knoxville Half Marathon

*spending time with friends

*planning summer camping trips

*hiking, hiking, hiking in the Smoky Mountains! (This is Rainbow Falls - totally frozen... 90 ft. waterfall)

Do we actually get to see each other in the midst of this craziness?

YES! We have been able to spend time with each other at night when we both get home as well as on Saturday night and all day Sunday! Check out a few pictures of our adventures since the Holidays!

Tis the Season...

Well... to make things simple, we have a tradition of going to North Carolina to get our Christmas tree! Because we spent Thanksgiving with the White's, we waited until this weekend to venture to the mountains to get our tree!

Bryan woke me up at 7 o'clock this morning... wide awake! I was thinking to myself... what are we doing up so early? Well.... feast your eyes on this...you are not seeing things! SNOW!!!!

At our house we got 2-3 inches of SNOW!!!!

I look a little tired but this is how we started out our day at 7:30 this morning when we started our trip and it started snowing!

To make things even more interesting, I-4o is closed going to North Carolina due to a rock slide. So, a 80 minutes trip took us 2:45 minutes.... thanks to salt trucks driving 20 mph on back roads throught the mountains.

Depite our long trip, we sang Christmas Carols and enjoyed the beautiful snow topped trees!

We found a perfect Christmas Tree... a picure will soon be posted! We got such a tall tree that we ran out of lights trying to decorate it!

It was a beautiful day, filled with lots of Christmas joy and time spent together! This is one of our favorite traditions that will continue to enjoy and look forward to each year!

Lugging Our Way To LeConte

Anywhere you may be in East Tennessee, look east on a clear day and you can pick out the high peaks of Mt. LeConte. Although it is only the third highest peak in the National Park (6th highest east of the mighty Mississippi), it is the TALLEST mountain from base to peak east of the Colorado Rockies (from it's base in Gatlinburg, LeConte rises nearly a mile to it's peak over 6,500 feet). Hence why it prevails over the landscape.

Last weekend, the McCarters along with the Ryans and LaBigs headed up Alum Cave Bluff Trail to the top! It's a tough hike, with a steady climb from the valley of LeConte Creek up to the top. Alum Cave Bluff is a huge bluff about the size of a football field overhanging the trail. It's really amazing. Once you make it on top of the mountain, the only lodging located inside the park, LeConte Lodge, awaits all hikers with fresh water and the coveted "I hiked LeConte" t-shirt.

The 10.5 mile round trip is worth it!

Fall on the Parkway

It's been an unusually wet fall in East Tennessee. Fall is usually nothing but a stretch of beautiful, crystal clear blue skies days and highs in the 60s. But this year, cold and rainy is the norm. A few weeks ago, though, we took advantage of a beautiful weekend to drive up the Foothills Parkway that borders the national park. We got some absolutely gorgeous pictures just before sunset. Take a look and enjoy!!

Oh, and we apologize for not blogging for several weeks. It's been quite busy, but that's a horrible excuse!!