10 Year Anniversary

June 16th John and I celebrated our TENTH wedding anniversary!  It's absolutely crazy to me that we have been married 10 years already!  We had always told each other that when we had been married for 10 years we would take a trip without the kids to the beach or somewhere semi-far for 5 days to a week long so we could completely relax and enjoy each other's company.  Well, as our anniversary got nearer and nearer we still hadn't booked anything because we were nervous about leaving Clayton very long since he had been weaned from nursing for less than a month.  Also, keeping a 14 month old, 3 year old, 5 year old, and 8 year old is not easy for anyone so we knew we would have to divide the kids up for the grandparents to keep them and that a week was too long to ask anyone to keep the kids.  We still have high hopes of going on a week long trip just the two of us one day, but I don't foresee that happening any time soon.  BUT we did get to getaway to celebrate for two nights!!  It was absolutely perfect because I wouldn't have wanted to be away from Clayton any longer (and NK and Clayton ended up being a little sickly (summer colds and Clayton's first ear infection) so it was nice to be nearby and only gone for the weekend.

We went to Gatlinburg Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.

We left Friday around lunchtime and went to Gatlinburg through Townsend so that we could stop for a delicious lunch at the Burger Master:

I love the above burger master picture-look how relaxed we look knowing we are just beginning a weekend of relaxation! Haha!

First activity was a hike.  We planned to do Grotto Falls, but first we did about a mile hike through some of the area of the mountains destroyed by fire last year.

It was odd how you could still smell the burned smell, but neat to see that even in all destruction (the ground was even burnt) you could see green plants beginning to grow again and we saw several deer in this area too.

See the deer in front of John.

Then we headed on to hike to Grotto Falls.

It was absolutely beautiful and such a fun hike.

You could go behind the waterfall.

So pretty!

Yup, there's the waterfall! Haha

After our hike we headed to our hotel in Gatlinburg to get cleaned up.  Then we went to the Island in Pigeon Forge.

We have wanted to have dinner at Paula Deen's Family Kitchen for a couple of years now, so we decided this was the perfect time. We did late dinner reservations for 7pm (seriously, we were living it up not having bedtimes and bathtimes to work around haha! We NEVER, I mean, NEVER eat dinner at 7pm because the kids would be STARVING haha!)  

Obviously Paula wanted her picture taken with me while I was at her restaurant.

John and I have been working to eat really healthy, but we splurged and had dinner at this restaurant-well, we were absolutely stuffed!  The food was delicious!

The next morning John and I got up and went for a 3 mile run together through Gatlinburg.  Then we went to Dollywood without the kids (shhhh....don't tell them!).  We got there before they opened for the day, and we rode 3 grown up rides-The Lightening Rod, the new Dropline (wow, this was intense, but fun), and the Mystery Mine.  You can see the Dropline in the picture behind us.  It is SO high-our ears popped at the top!  It was crazy but we did the 3 rides we wanted to do and left Dollywood 45 minutes after they opened!  We just wanted to do those 3 that we never really get to do, and then we headed to the outlets to do some shopping and have lunch.

We had a relaxing afternoon and then headed out to dinner that night.

Sunday morning we got up and worked out together in the hotel gym before packing up to return home to the kids.

We had to snap one last picture in our hotel room (pretty cool hotel-it had a fireplace), before leaving--this was our first try at using the timer on our phone for a picture.

We had an amazing weekend celebrating our 10 year anniversary!  It was perfect-perfectly relaxing, the perfect amount of time, and the perfect distance away (not too far from the kids).  We enjoyed each other's company and being and to talk, exercise, hike, shop, and have fun together!  On the beautiful drive home through the mountains we both agreed that we need to get away for a weekend more often as it was so refreshing.  I am so thankful to have such a wonderful husband-10 years has absolutely flown by!