Okay, I know…I’m way behind, but I love blogging both professionally and personally, so I can look back at this for years to come.
Last November my husband, daughter and I went to Bryson City for a long weekend! We stayed in a cozy little cabin and had a great time together. Of course the trip was better than expected because we had just found out I was pregnant with baby #2! Although, this meant all my plans for hot-tubbing with a view and a glass of wine didn’t happen…but that didn’t matter anymore! We still had a wonderful weekend!
I should note, we are NOT professional hikers, or outdoorsmans (yes I made that up), but we acted like it! By that I mean we wore running shoes on our hikes and thought it was fine…and well…it was! We also thought we would find the top of this mountain and so we went off into the middle of nowhere of course forgetting that by the time we parked, we wouldn’t even have internet on our phones anymore. So we park and there are 2-ish pathways! There is a sign telling us we are at the spot we wanted, but it doesn’t tell us which pathway…so we just pick one – by taking an educated guess of course – and start hiking! (Oh and this was our afternoon hike!) Let me explain this path was…ohhh….2 feet wide or so? Tim had Madison in one of those backpack things and yes…I just found out I was pregnant and we still thought this was a completely safe option for us and our running shoes! Although most of it was still safe-ish, some of it was literally 2 feet wide but next to the path was a drop off…So anyways, we chose not to worry! Honestly, it was a pretty amazing feeling that we could look around for miles and see no one and nothing and our phones didn’t work, so we were REALLY alone! I mean we did pass a couple of hikers who had poles and huge backpacks and kinda made us feel bad about our super unplanned hike…but other than that it was just us with nature! We kept thinking we were getting to the top…but after a couple hours we thought we better just turn around or we will be out here in the dark. So we did.
Now, things became really interesting! So we came up the mountain (in the car) one direction, on a one way unpaved road, and on the other side of the parking lot sorta thing was another one way unpaved road. No signs! So which way do you go down???? Again, we take another educated guess that if we came up on the one side, we MUST go down on the other. Heaven forbid we choose the wrong way down and run into another car, someone goes off a cliff. So yes, this was a pretty important decision we thought. On our drive down we take multiple wrong turns and try to then turn back around on a one way unpaved road to get back to the “main” unpaved gravel road. Well…seriously, who would have known our phones wouldn’t have had service and GPS to get us off that mountain. Okay, we probably should have planned a little better, but after a couple hours trying and trying to find our way to somewhere that our phones would work we FINALLY made it. Didn’t I mention we had a great weekend! Talk about feeling accomplished?? Yes, we totally felt it!
Last thing…most importantly Madison thought it was so funny because on our morning hike (which was part of a state park and much more helpful) and our afternoon hike, she peed in the middle of the woods. Of course, we quickly made sure she understood this was a special occasion and not meant for normal use! She got a kick out of it for sure!
Some pictures from our unplanned mountain weekend last November 🙂
And…how do I not make my family do a photoshoot in the mountains??
We really did have a wonderful time together and I’m so incredibly thankful for my Husband and my baby girl. They mean the world to me and I know I’m very lucky to have them both.
A few other random photos from the end of last year!
This is what Madison was doing talking to her cousin Ally about what it’s like to be a Big Sister…I was NOT allowed to listen to her conversation.
Early Christmas Present – Frozen on Ice! She loved it!
Christmas Cookies?
Oh how I love Christmastime!
Reading the note Santa left for her. 🙂
So Thankful.