Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

This year for the Kitchen family reunion, we returned to a favorite haunt in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It's gorgeous and a bit crowded (as we discovered with our hour and a half traffic jam through downtown) but mostly just beautiful. We rented two cabins which was almost enough to house 14 adults and 14 kids. Dana and I took the long overnighter to Atlanta (got bumped up to business class too!) and drove up to Knoxville to pick up Jeff and Jessica. We went out to a Crepe place for lunch which was surprisingly good, then headed down to the cabin (and aforementioned traffic).

Sunday we somehow ended up in the Spanish branch so I didn't catch much but the Spanish speakers (Dana, Sarah, and Dave) had a great time and it was proof you can feel the spirit even if you can't understand the talks.

Monday, the girls set out for our zip lining trip. Our guides were Outstanding :) and it was really pretty cool. What better way to bond than being roped together like cattle?

Note Jessica's tiny kid helmut. Don't feel bad, Jeff had little boy gloves so perfect match!

That night we took family photos and a few of us may have ended up in the river (Fred). After the photos, Granny and Grandpa Kitchen, Aunt Jeannie, Uncle Mike and their families came over to the cabins for smores. Nothing like a campfire in 100+ heat. It takes skills to roast marshmallows from ten feet away.

Tuesday, the boys went for their zip line trip and the girls went swimming.
That night we went to the Tennessee Smokies Baseball game. Dana, as usual, caught a t-shirt and we even managed to win a drawing long after our car went home for another t-shirt so apparently the Tennessee Smokies realized we didn't bring enough clothing for the whole week.

Wednesday, Dana and Taylor went golfing; Mom, Dad, and the David Kitchen family went on a crazy bike ride (funny story: don't ever tell a Kitchen they can't hook their kids bike trailer up behind the bike they just rented from you cause they'll just strap it to the 10 year olds bike and ride it anyway. Wish I could have seen that:)). In the evening, we hopped over to the resort G&G were staying at for some serious water park action, a chocolate fountain, and amazing hamburgers.

Thursday was perhaps my favorite day. We did a big group river float and the weather was perfect. Dave made pizza for dinner and because we're just so weird, we also did a Root Beer testing for the adults. My pick was the Frosty Root Beer and the least favorite (by unanimous consent) was the Jamaican Ginger Beer. Yeuch. That night we watched Inception in the huge movie room with surround sound...so much surround, in fact, that we shook Mom's bed upstairs.

Friday, we loaded up and headed out. We took Jeff and Jess back to Knoxville (stopping for a little mini golf tournament on the way. I refuse to say who won.).
We took another red-eye home, this time without the business class but with Motrin PM and a once in a lifetime view of the Northern Lights out our window.

Now I know you're wondering what we did in all that time I left out? Well...

-feeding 14 kids

-swatting 2 million mosquitoes

-running from the most giant burrowing wasps man has ever seen

-avoiding the mamma and baby black bear that kept carting off our trash

-playing card games

-snacking

-Dana winning 2 free games of mini golf, neither of which he used....again

-an old lady mooning her friends on the golf course. Dana and Taylor were surprised, to say the least

-sleeping (in Dana's case, there was a nap on the side of the road before we picked J&J up in Knoxville and after too.)

-taking care of our injured (Fred's eyes, Sarah's tailbone, Taylor's back, Dad's mosquito attack)

Finally, we stayed at a hotel in Seattle on our last night just to drag out the amazing vacation and before we headed home we took a nice hike up to a tiny waterfall (so tiny I couldn't see it but Dana assured me it was there) and then we went shopping where we saw this:

Which just about sums up the whole vacation: awesome! Thanks Mom and Dad for yet again pulling off an amazing trip.