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!!

Charleston...it's HOTT!

So Bryan and I went on a mini vacation this past weekend to Charleston, S.C. We had a blast seeing all of the historical buildings downtown and relaxing on the beach with our friends Drew and Elizabeth.

Here was the agenda...Pictures to come!

Wednesday - We headed out wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a dinner at Sticky Fingers once we arrived in Charleston! Delicious...S.C. BBQ! Yum! We checked into our plush hotel downtown and walked around...Bryan surprised me with a 2-story suite at the Doubletree! Oh the luxury of Hilton Honors Points!

Thursday - So we began our day in the old Colonial Market....really cool open air market where they used to buy and sell goods but it now has any textile that you could hope for! I really wanted a sweetgrass basket except for the fact that a bowl that is 3" in diameter is $80...who can afford that?!?!? We grabbed some coffee and checked out of our hotel to head to the beach. Charleston and the surrounding area is absolutely beautiful! The sun is so hott hott hott that we couldn't resist jumping in the waves at the beach!

Friday - Drew and Elizabeth joined us late thursday night...Friday morning we hit the beach right away. Little did we know that the sun was so hot! It has been a mild summer in Tennessee and it was so humid! We spent the better part of the day boogie boarding in the waves and playing in the water...Bryan made a replica of a ski resort in the shape of a sand castle! What fun! On to dinner at Los Arcos...a great Mexican restaurant and then walked around downtown for a while!

Saturday - Again...another gorgeous day at the beach...a little crispy from Friday so we put up the umbrellas! The waves were awesome and it was windy enough to keep it cool! We ended up going to dinner at TBonz...a Charleston special and then went to see a movie!

Sunday - The drive home always seems to take forever.... it is only 5 1/2 hours but it seemed to take the whole day! Now we are home and finishing up laundry... a great vacation and definately not ready to be back in the real world!

Camping in Cosby

This weekend we decided to head up to Cosby, TN on the Northeast side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for our first camping trip! We took a carload of camping gear including Bryans grandparent's 1960 canvas tent. It was awesome! This tent was last used by Bryan's Granfather and Dad on a hunting trip to Arkansas. They used to go in the Cherokee National Forest on trips. After some cleaning and waterproofing, the tent was ready to go. We had a fun time trying to figure out how to set it up, but we finally got it!

When we pulled into the camp site, Bryan slowed down in the middle of the road to stop and take some pictures of a Black Bear! We see them quite frequently when we're near the National Park, but it never gets old! At night we grilled hot dogs and of course, Smores. Our friends Justin and Ashley joined us for the night. We hiked around the camp ground and enjoyed the crisp night around the camp fire. The next day, we hiked an 8-mile trail to Ramsay's Cascade, a 90ft. waterfall high up near Mt. Guyot. Wow! It was tough. Although the picture looks like Bryan jumped in the river, it definitely was not from swimming! This trail is known for its HUGE trees. And, we definitely saw some big Tulip Trees. In the picture below, keep in mind Bryan's "wingspan" is close to 6 feet. Once we made it to the top, we relaxed for a few minutes then headed back down for dinner. On Sunday, we got up early to pack up! All in all our first camping trip was AWESOME! We had a great time.

A Fun Weekend

This past weekend, Anna's best friend Sarah Beth had her wedding in Asheville, NC. Anna's parents came down for the wedding and to spend a few days in the mountains. After the wedding, we all traveled Highway 441 across the Smokies and met up with Bryan's family at the Chimney's Pic-nic area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Bryan, his dad Joe and Warren spent the afternoon catching rainbow trout (or at least Joe was successful in catching fish) while the girls relaxed next to the river. It was a great weekend!