The Great Smoky Mountains 2008

We loaded the car up Sunday morning with Scamp in her jammies and her two buddies, Box and Rocks to head to the Smokies. It only takes us 3-4 hours to get there, and we met up with my parents and sister's family halfway.
We stayed in the Black Bear Resort in a chalet, and here's a partial view off one of our balconies. Scamp called our cabin the Big House. She loved that she got to spend so much time playing at the house with her cousin Bubby. There were 5 bedrooms and a jacuzzi tub in every one of them. It slept eighteen, but with a party of 10 we stretched out. Scamp slept on the floor on a mattress off a pull-out bed in our upstairs room. She loved it.

After relaxing for a little while once we'd arrived my mom, sister, and I headed to Kroger and picked up groceries for our four day stay. My mom always packs tons of drinks, snacks, and picnic stuff. We (my mom mostly) cooked breakfast and dinner daily, then we packed a picnic and ate at a couple of parks for our lunches. We didn't eat out our entire stay minus the trips to and from our destination. That saved a ton on money.
We went to the Wonder Works Museum on Monday before lunch. This was one of our favorite parts. A camera distorted our images on a huge screen as we danced to lots of disco music. A picture from this angle made us look like shadows.
After leaving Wonder Works my sister, her husband, Beef, and I attended a time share presentation and received 8 free tickets to the Ripley's Aquarium. It was my first presentation, but the guy was really nice even though we were only interested in the free tickets. He graduated from the same school Beef and I did.

Later that night, we went to Old MacDonald's Mini Golf where the pigs really do fly. I don't think we were supposed to sit on the livestock, but it made for a funny picture.

Beforehand, my niece had the idea to put Box and Rocks into her backpack. I've already mentioned that these buddies tagged along so that I could take pictures of them and make a scrapbook for our swap partners in a different state.

They even played golf with us. Many people looked at me strangely because I was always posing the raccoons for pictures.

Here we are from left: my niece Alex, Scamp, me, my nephew Bubby, and my mom. Scamp didn't play, but she roamed around with Nana and petted the talking animals. She requested to pet the "dirty little pigs." The things she says! Bubby had a fun time and did really well putting.
Scamp decided to show up her daddy in a game of Dance Dance in the arcade there. She's got moves! That's all for day one. I'll post more in a day or two.