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On Wednesday, our firstborn son, Manning, turned 13!

It is hard to believe this cute little baby boy I birthed is now a teenager. I adored him then, and I adore him now!

Our friends, Mel and Debbie, met up with us again in their RV. Manning and Debbie share a birthday, so we had fun celebrating both of them.

We started the morning with our traditional donut stack with candles. Then we each took turns saying things we liked about both Manning and Debbie.

We gave Manning his journal so he could read what each of us wrote in it for his birthday. And we gave him some meaningful gifts, which he loved.

Manning and I went on a morning walk, and he, Liberty and I played Ticket to Ride that afternoon. We all went to Cracker Barrel that evening, likely our last time in a restaurant for awhile due to COVID-19. It was a fun day of celebrating!

Becoming a teenager is a big deal, so we planned some extra-special things in addition to celebrating on Manning’s birthday. Manning and I were planning to go on an awesome date this weekend, but we are rescheduling it as most places are now closed. And Ryan and Manning are going to do a daddy/son camp out one night soon.

I am not sure there is a photo that depicts being in a large family better than this one. Haha! Manning is the really cool big brother of this whole bunch, and we all just love him so much!

Happy 13th birthday, Manning! You are a teenager! My first teenager. I can hardly believe it. The day I found out I was pregnant with you I was shaking in both fear and excitement. Fear because I had no idea how to be a mom, and I really wanted to be a good one to you and for you. Excitement because I knew immediately that you were and would be one of the greatest joys of my life. And that’s so true…you were then and you are now one of the absolute greatest joys of my life. You were the most precious baby boy. I loved dressing you in awesome shoes and cute little bowties. You were a sweet little boy, always sensitive and loving to your little sisters. You loved doing fun stuff with your daddy, and you loved cuddling and having conversations with your mommy. You’ve grown into a young man, still sweet, sensitive, loving, fun and a great conversationalist. I still love having conversations with you. You melt my heart with your singing. You are such a great big brother, and you are a good friend to anyone. If I had to pick what my firstborn son would be like, it would be you. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love you more than I could ever express, and you’ll always be my boy! 💙

Sunday we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is the most visited national park in the United States.

There are several hiking trails. We chose to hike the Cataract Falls Trail first. It’s not stroller friendly, but it is an easy hike with small children. It’s a little less than a mile long, and the trail starts near the Sugarlands Visitor Center.

There’s a flowing stream that runs close by the trail, and ultimately the trail leads to a waterfall.

We met a couple along the trail from Texas, Paul and Rachel. Rachel is the baby out of ten siblings. It was really fun to meet and chat with them. As a mom of ten, I am so happy when I meet an adult who had a lot of siblings and loved it.

After we finished hiking the Cataract Falls Trail, we drove our van a short distance to parking for the Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail.

This trail is stroller friendly and an easy walk. There is a stream flowing through, which we loved seeing and hearing.

There are a couple of old chimneys standing that are left from houses of early settlers. These were neat to see.

Bravely loved riding in the carrier on her daddy’s back. And she especially loved when I gave her little bites of a fruit bar. This is the smile she gave after each bite.

We loved exploring and hiking at another national park. The Great Smoky Mountains is a beautiful one, and it is easy to navigate to and through.

We’ve had a pretty full but laid back week here in Tennessee. I was ordered no hiking and to take it easy with physical activity by my doctor until my stent was removed. We would have loved to go to Dollywood this week, but it is still closed for winter. We decided that was probably best since I was supposed to take it easy.

We decided to go to the Dolly Pardon Stampede, a popular dinner show, Tuesday evening. It was pretty pricey, but we thought it was worth the splurge. Our kids loved getting their own miniature rotisserie chickens, and we all absolutely loved the show. It was entertaining and exciting for all ages.

Wednesday evening we drove to Morristown and enjoyed visiting my cousin, Jason, and his family.

Thursday I got my stent removed, we ran some errands and then the kids played on the really fun playground at our RV park. I happily went for a walk since I was stent free.

Friday afternoon we went to Christ in the Smokies Museum & Gardens.

Adult tickets are $14 each and kids ages 12 and under get in free. The museum was neat. We walked through viewing different wax figure bible scenes and hearing audibly about each. We all really liked it.

Friday evening we went to our favorite show we went to years ago, The Comedy Barn. We did a combo deal purchasing these tickets the same time we purchased tickets for Dolly’s Stampede. Our whole family got in for $125. We were very happy with that price.

The Comedy Barn is the funniest show. The type of humor gets adults and kids of all ages laughing. We laughed so hard. I think Ryan almost cracked a rib. He laughed until he cried.

We bought a few buckets of popcorn and passed those around. We all had an absolute blast.

The Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area is one of our favorites. If you’ve never been, it’s definitely worth adding to your dream vacation list. We have been here twice and haven’t experienced even a quarter of all that is offered. I imagine we will come back again…and again.

We really love the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area, and we have been enjoying our time here this week!

Our favorite vacation we took in the past was to Gatlinburg when we had 5 kids and I was pregnant with Mercy. One of the things we did on that trip was get an old time family photo taken.

We decided to get updated old time family photos done this week, and we had way too much fun dressing up and posing for these shots.

The girls loved dressing up as southern belles. Mercy keeps talking about how much she loves the princess dress she got to wear. Bravely wasn’t so sure about getting dressed up until she was given pearls. She kept saying, “pretty”, about her pearl necklace. And when we put a headband on her, she said, “Awwwww!”

The boys loved the guns, of coarse. They had a blast acting out different scenes the photographer suggested.

I wasn’t expecting individual photos of our children, but we absolutely love how cute these turned out and are so glad to have these.

Kidney stone update: Remember how the urologist left a string on my stent for me to pull out myself? Yeah…well, the string broke. 😳 I laughed so hard because, as inconvenient as it was, it was pretty funny. I, then, had to call around and find a urologist nearby who’d be willing to remove my stent for me. I ended up at a urologist in Knoxville, TN who agreed to remove my stent after getting an x-ray done. It is out now, and all is well!

We spent most of the week in and near Huntsville, AL. Our friends, Mel & Debbie, came in their RV and were our neighbors for the week. We were so excited to spend time with them!

Playground, basketball, dog-walking, Chinese-food, Walmart run, miniature golf, s’mores and pancakes. Lots of great conversations, laughs, hugs and cuddles – we had the best time!

Our little girls are typically terrified of dogs. I was so happy to see them warm up to Paisley and Paxton. Our kids just loved taking turns walking the dogs.

It’s fun having friends with us at places like Walmart. They get to see what our normal is. Right after we walked into Walmart someone asked if our kids were all ours and then said, “Y’all are crazy.” Haha. That’s just a typical part of our everyday life.

All our kids wanted Mr. Mel as their buggy driver. He made it like a theme park right there in Walmart.

This miniature golf course was at the RV park. It was a lot of fun watching the kids play. And I happily announce to you…I beat my husband. We have played miniature golf many, many times, and I don’t recall ever beating him. He is a really good golfer. Most of my golfing is dependent on luck rather than skill. Ha.

We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and roasted marshmallows for s’mores.

Doesn’t get much better then sitting around a campfire telling stories with friends.

One morning Debbie came over to our RV and made pancakes. Our kids were so excited. 99% of the time we eat protein bars for breakfast. Watching the pancakes be made, helping make them and eating them – our kids loved the whole experience!

On Thursday we went the the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL.

It was awesome seeing the big rockets, and our kids had a great time learning and exploring.

In the midst of all this fun, I knew I had a kidney stone that needed to be laser blasted. Last Sunday night/Monday morning, I woke up with terrible pain in my lower right abdomen, side and back. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so I felt sure it was either my appendix or a kidney stone. I drove myself to the emergency room in Georgia. There I found out I had a 1cm kidney stone stuck in my right ureter. I was pacing the hospital room in pain even after being given morphine by IV. I was in pain!

Once we moved on to Alabama, I saw a urologist. He didn’t see how I’d pass a kidney stone that large on my own, so he suggested he break it up and put in a stent. We extended our time in Alabama one day so that I could get the surgery done. Mel & Debbie stayed two extra days to be there with us and for us. We cannot express how thankful we are that they were there and chose to stay with us! It’s amazing how God aligns things to work out, even in hard times. I had the surgery done on Friday, and I was in so much pain after I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to drive the next day or not. After resting all day, I did feel well enough to drive the next, though.

I am on the mend and expect to be feeling better and better each day. On a funny note…when the urologist scheduled the surgery, he said I’d need to come back in a week to have the stent removed. I explained that we are traveling and asked if it is possible to get the stent taken out by another doctor in a different location. He responded, “Oh, I’ll just leave a string on it for you and you can pull it out.” Thinking he was joking, I laughed and said, “Seriously?” He said, “Yeah, you can do it.” Alrightythen. Ha!

It’s been quite the week! Hard and so, so good. We are looking forward to more RV adventures with Mel and Debbie in the future – ideally without kidney stones!

Yesterday we went to Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain Park.

Tickets are $35 per person, but we purchased tickets for half off on Groupon. Tickets include 2 hours of snow tubing and unlimited time playing in the snow zone.

I loved riding this huge family tube that holds 10 people. One, I love seeing my kids’ reactions. Two, you don’t have to carry these kind of tubes up the mountain. Carrying/pulling a double tube up the mountain for other tube runs was very exhausting.

We let Manning, Rhythm, Tapestry, Cherish and Liberty go together to different tube runs. Ryan and I took turns watching River and Bravely and taking Jubilee, Mercy and Treasure tubing. All our kids loved tubing and had an absolute blast.

After tubing for two hours, we played in the snow zone. It was more like ice than snow, but our kids had fun nonetheless.

It was cute watching Bravely walk in the snow holding our hands. Her little feet were slipping and sliding, which she loved.

It’s not easy to build a snowman out of ice, but after a lot of hard work, our kids completed a pretty big one.

I think going to Snow Mountain is worth the price at half off, but I would not pay full price for it. The tubing lines can get long, pulling the tubes uphill is very difficult and the snow isn’t really snow. All that said…we had a really good time, and I am glad we gave our kids their very first tubing experience!

Today we hiked up and down Stone Mountain.

There is a marked trail. It is a about a mile one way. It is all stone and rocks.

It’s a pretty strenuous hike, but was doable with small children. Treasure, age 4, had no problem. In fact, she was often ahead of all of us and I had to yell for her to wait.

Adding over 20 pounds of weight definitely made the hike difficult for me. But it was a good and fun kind of difficult. I just watched my footing really well because I did not want to bust it with Bravely in tow.

The mountain had quite a bit of water running down and puddles of water due to heavy rainfall the past several days. It wasn’t slippery, though.

The last little bit of hiking on the way to the top was steep. We stopped a couple times for a short break.

Finally, we made it to the top of Stone Mountain.

We enjoyed looking around at the view. We could see the Atlanta skyline in the distance.

Bravely tossed her glasses somewhere along the way. We asked a lady who worked in the store on the top of the mountain if anyone had turned in a pair of little purple glasses. A man swung around and asked, “Are they little wrap around glasses?” I said, “Yes!” He said, “I saw a man pick them up and hang them from a branch on a tree.” As we hiked back down the mountain we watched the trees as we walked, and sure enough, Cherish spotted Bravely’s glasses hanging from this tree. I am not sure we’d ever have found them if we weren’t told they were hanging from a tree. We are convinced this child has an angel assigned to her glasses.

When we finished our hike, we headed over to the Stone Mountain tram to meet some friends we met at an RV park in Santa Fe, NM in October.

It’s so fun to meet other people who are currently traveling full-time. It is a small world. We end up meeting friends we’ve only known through social media, and we end up running back into friends we’ve met along the way.

Jeremiah and Addy were the first two friends our kids played with at the start of RVing. Our kids were really excited to see them and play again today.

We all loved hiking Stone Mountain and then riding the tram up and down. After over 10,000 steps taken, we were exhausted and ready for a night at home!

We are enjoying a rainy week at Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta, GA.

We absolutely love our spot and our view at Stone Mountain Family Campground.

Every time the rain lets up, we head out for a walk. I even threw on my poncho and went for a walk in the pouring rain yesterday. I had my music going, and I loved every second of walking in the rain. My pants and shoes were soaked by the time I returned to the RV, but I didn’t mind.

Today the rain stopped long enough for us to go on a nice walk around the campground and then to head into Atlanta to visit Centennial Olympic Park.

It is a neat park to walk. The olympic rings, the flags, the torches and the fountains were cool to see.

We walked across the street to ride the Skyview Atlanta Ferris Wheel after we finished checking out the park.

We are learning that many places offer discounted tickets on Groupon. We purchased cheaper tickets than we’d have gotten at the ticket booth right then on my phone.

We loved seeing the great views of Atlanta from the sky. And we thought looking down on Centennial Olympic Park was an awesome view.

Bravely was amazed every time she caught sight of her Daddy. She’d yell, “Hi Daddy!”

When we got off the Skyview Atlanta, we saw the Let’s Kiss sign and just had to take this photo. Our kids thought it was hilarious, and so did the people standing nearby. Haha.

We hopped back into our van just before the rain started coming down again. It was a perfect afternoon, and we were so thankful for the little break from the rain!

We have been so excited to hang out with friends this week! We went to church with the Faulks in Texas, and then they moved to North Carolina.

We enjoyed dinner at their house earlier this week, and today they took us to Asheville’s Best Gem Mine to mine for gems.

Each of our kids were given cards to identify different kinds of gems.

The kids each got a bucket of dirt that they shoveled into sluice boxes. They moved the boxes back and forth in water filtering out the dirt. They were amazed at the gems they found.

Liberty found a geode, which looked like a big random rock. The man in charge cut open the geode, and it contained clear quartz crystals inside. We were awestruck by it.

I had never heard of mining for gems and had no knowledge about it prior to today, but it was so much fun! Our kids had a blast and came home with some really neat gems and great memories. We’d definitely do it again!

Thanks for such a fun day, John and Michelle!

The place numerous people recommended and the number one place we wanted to see in Asheville, NC was the Biltmore Estate.

The prices I found on the internet were so high we thought it just was not something we’d choose to do.

Yesterday we stopped by the ticket office to ask about pricing and if there were any discounts available. We were told it would be $63 per adult and $31.50 for each of our four kids ages 10 and over. Under age 10 would be free. $252 is a splurge for us, but it was quite a bit less than we thought it was going to be so we decided we’d do it.

We loaded into our van this morning to head toward the Biltmore Estate. We stopped by the RV office to mail some postcards. A woman staying in the park saw our TX license plate and came over to talk to us because she is from Texas as well. When she found out we were going to the Biltmore Estate, she offered us some free tickets she had that she wasn’t going to use. We were so excited – our WHOLE family got in for free! Thank you, Jeanette!

The Biltmore Estate is the largest home in the United States. It is a 250-room French Renaissance chateau. Construction began in 1889, and the first guests were welcomed in 1895.

We enjoyed walking through the house and seeing each space.

Our kids especially loved the library, the bowling alley and the swimming pool.

I loved the huge organized pantries.

We thought the gymnasium was so fun to see. There were wooden dumbbells and some really interesting work-out equipment.

Once we finished touring the house, we walked around the outdoor gardens.

We saw photos of how gorgeous the gardens look in the spring. There were hardly any flowers blooming due to visiting during winter season, but we still enjoyed walking through.

There is a conservatory on the grounds that is full of beautiful plants.

We appreciated seeing all sorts of unique flowers and plants.

I personally love succulents, so the space devoted to those was my favorite.

When we walked out of the conservatory, it was raining. We walked as fast as we could with small kids in tow – not very fast – back to our van.

Then we drove to Antler Hill Farm on the estate.

There we got to see and pet some farm animals.

I never pet animals at petting zoos. It’s not my thing. But this pregnant goat, who is likely carrying 3 kids and will deliver soon, loved me. No matter where I stood, she kept walking up to me wanting me to scratch her cheeks. Having been very pregnant nine times, I couldn’t resist giving her the love. Ha. So I scratched and scratched her cheeks.

Bravely goes wild over any animal and repeatedly yells, “Puppy!”

River is pretty unsure about most animals. She mustered up all the courage she could, and she petted a rooster. I did offer her a cookie to help her press toward bravery. She was excited she did it, and she enjoyed a cookie at the RV later.

All in all, it was a really good day! We loved visiting the Biltmore Estate.