One GREAT BIG Week!

Wow, it was really a HUGEMONGOUS week in the life of little Addie Ruth and our whole little family too. It all started last Sunday when the darling beauty was baptized at church. As you see in the picture, she is more than blessed to have THREE wonderful Godmothers (who are her PGAs (Prayer Group Aunts) and Fairy Godmothers also). Her latest "Addie-ism" is holding her hand up in the air towards the ceiling like she's giving a true "Praise the Lord" kind of shout out...and that's exactly what she did throughout her baptism. A classic that thankfully was caught on video and we will have forever and ever. Priceless. Soon after little sweetie was baptized, Mommy and Daddy frantically finished up some last minute packing and we headed south to the Smoky Mountains for our first family vacation. So far, this was the most wonderful vacation I have had (sorry Mom and Dad, but other than all the responsibility and planning, being on the parental side of things seems to be much more enjoyable than when I was a kid!). Addie survived the drive down there, other than the last hour in the car the first night when she cried so hard so worked up some vomit (and I'm talking the big KID kind of vomit, this is no longer the little baby "spit up" version of sorts!). Good thing the car seat cover is washable!!!

The first day in Gatlinburg, we ventured to the Ripley's Aquarium and it was pretty cool. I'm not sure it was $45 cool (call me a tight wad, I don't care), but we all enjoyed looking at the different sea creatures and I especially liked the sharks that looked like they had hedge trimmers growing out of their mouths. After all the excitement at the aquarium, we made our way up to the top of the mountain (one of them, not sure which one though) to our cabin. It was WONDERFUL...although we didn't end up spending much time there.

On the second and third days we spent time hiking on three different trails in the gorgeous mountains: Abram's Falls in Cade's Cove, Grotto Falls on the Roaring Fork Tour, and Laurel Falls. All three trails were completely different from one another, except they all had the end result of seeing some kind of waterfall. Abram's was the most challenging, but completely satisfying and Chris' favorite. My favorite was Grotto because the temperature changed at least 5 degrees (I honestly have no idea how many degrees, so this is a ballpark guess) by the time we made it up to the falls. Our least fav was Laurel just because it was paved and it sure didn't feel like we were in "true nature." The falls were beautiful though. Addie rode in the Ergo carrier (another MUST HAVE for parents and I know I could make a commercial for them and sell them along with Fuzzi Bunz!) and she was quite content the entire time we hiked. Chris did all the lugging of her and I thank him for that...but I surely think all that Daddy sweat she was drenched with by the end of each hike created a stronger bond between them. She turned into a true Daddy's girl over the course of this trip. :)

We made the long haul for home on Thursday after stopping to get some of that wonderful foothills taffy Chris adores so much and letting me get my Gymboree and Baby Gap fix at the outlet stores (I tell ya, that wore us out more than the hiking, no kidding!). Grandma and Aunt Minky will appreciate this one...We were home-free (about an hour and a half away) when suddenly I got the urge to fail as navigator and cause us to miss our turn because I just couldn't stay away from Paducah (where the quilt show is in April every year). No really, it just so happened that our turn was where we stopped to eat dinner and neither of us were looking for signs after that deliciously scrumptious Wendy's food. Oops!!! So we turned a 6.5 hour drive into 8, that was totally expected with a 9 month old (although she didn't have anything to do with it, for crying out loud!).

So home at 8:45ish on Thursday night and then turned right around and left for New Harmony to go camping on Friday afternoon. What were we thinking??? Actually it was a great "introduction to camping with a baby" as our friends put it. We were so lucky to have borrowed my uncle Tom's 1986 (yes it's almost as old as Chris and I) Viking pop-up camper. Boy, it was an experience to remember. We definitely couldn't have done it with Addie without the camper. Out of firewood and running on a few hours of sleep, we decided that one night of that was enough and we headed home on Saturday afternoon to enjoy our own beds for a change.

Among all the busy-ness this past week, Addie has decided to start crawling on her hands and knees rather than doing the army crawl. She also pulls herself up to standing in the pack-n-play...and the final new trick goes something like this: "How big is Addie?---So Big!" She finally gets it and realizes how silly Mommy and Daddy are for thinking it's so hilarious!

All in all, we had a truly magnificent time and I'm sad that vacation is over. We created so many memories just in this one week that will be cherished forever. There will never be another "first family vacation" again in the lifetime of the Knight family. Big cheesy smile :) THE END--whew!