Rich's Wedding/My Vacation

Last week was so much fun!! We went to Gatlinburg, TN for my brother's wedding and we stayed for the weekend and had a great time! We (Me, Kevin, my mom and dad, my brother Dave and his son Jake) drove to Gatlinburg Wednesday. When we got there, we met with Rich's fiance's family for a BBQ (kinda like a rehearsal dinner). We decided to take pictures of all the women there on both sides. (Pictured are Me, Jackie (Amanda's sister), Liv (her neice), Amanda (the Bride!), Marcie (her mom), Von (her grandma) and Alice (my mom).)


The next day was the wedding! It was so beautiful! We were worried that it was going to rain, but it rained early in the morning and cleared up around 10 am. The wedding was at noon and it was sunny and beautiful! There was a small reception afterward and once we got back to the cabin it started pouring again around 3. God was definitely watching over this wedding :) They did not allow us to take pics of the wedding, but we took a few before the wedding at the cabin. Here is a pic of Rich (the Groom!), my dad, and my nephew Jake.




That evening, we decided to go to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg. It was fantastic!!! I just love marine life (I always wanted to be a marine biologist), so I took about 200 pictures (really!), but here are just a couple of the awesome life in the sea. I think jellyfish are absolutely gorgeous.. I know they are poisonous, but so beautiful!!!




And my favorite marine life besides the dolphin is the stingray. They are so graceful and majestic! I even got to pet one :)


The next day, we went to Dixie Stampede. It was a pretty cool show with lots of horses and stuff. Great tricks and lots of glitz and showmanship. The dinner was fantastic, too! Here is a pic of me and Kevin before the show.



Then we went to play mini golf. But not just mini golf, Hillbilly Golf, and it was up the mountain! We rode a car up the mountain and we started at the top on Hole 1 and worked our way down a mountain to Hole 18. It was loads of fun, and (if you can believe this) Jake (the 4 yr old) was the ONLY person to get a hole in one, and it was unassisted!! He is really good at sports, but WOW! This is a pic of all of us (minus me of course) after we played.



On Saturday. we went to Dollywood. It's kinda like 6 Flags. We had a good time there, too. We rode the train, the old cars, saw a show and rode a few rides. Here is a pic of me and Kevin at Dollywood.



Dolly was even there that day, and she drove through the park in a car. This is the only pic I got of her, and it is blurry but it was cool!



There was a place at Dollywood called the Sweet Shoppe, and they made fudge, ice cream and taffy. This is the taffy machine, pulling it before it gets shaped into the candy.


And this is Richard, the taffy guy. He was really funny and we really enjoyed watching him make taffy. He was making licorice when we were there.



And this is Charlie, the machine that finishes and wraps the taffy. It is all fed into the machine by hand, and the wrapped candies fall into the bucket and they package it to sell. How cool!



We left Sunday morning and drove back. We had such a wonderful trip.. one I would take again...