Tutu Party - Pride & Prejudice

The Pride & Prejudice Cast Party was a "Tutu" party (rather than a "Toga" party).

Miss J and Aunt K helped me make the tutus, and they turned out BEAUTIFUL!

Without further chit-chat - my cast in tutus!

I love them and will miss them so very much!  Thanks for making it such a great experience!

~Lone Butterfly  )i(

Gatlinburg Cub Scouts - Day One

We drove up late last night (arriving at the hotel after 11 pm), so we woke up early this morning and put on our new Cub Scout Class B shirts and headed out to breakfast.  This is the balcony in our room (B10 was so cute and careful, he refused to stand up on the balcony with GO at all!).

Our first stop was the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, one of my favorite aquariums ever.  GO was fascinated by the TV and Prince is fascinated by GO.

The Caterpillars worked hard on their Scout badges (Princess even had a Girl Scout book).

Hubby practiced using our new Ergo Baby.

I loved this "fish"...

The aquarium has a really cool tunnel that you ride through, the saw-tooth sharks like to lay on the top of the tunnel.

GO and CW loved this turtle.

When B10 and I came to Gatlinburg in 2007, I took a photo of him next to a Coral tank and it is still one of my favorite photos ever.  On this trip, I wanted to be sure to get a photo of all three Caterpillars next to the tank.

And the two little "Nemo" fish came out to say hello!

GO seemed to enjoy the Ergo Baby as long as she could look around and see stuff.

B10 LOVES the horseshoe crabs, and he loves showing others what he knows.

For lunch we all went to Wendy's, our old faithful standby.

Then it was off to the Ripley's Moving Theatre, another favorite attraction from 2007 and my trip with B10.

GO fell asleep on ET's Daddy, and when she went back into her carrier, she looked like her little head was going to fall off.  But she wouldn't let us prop her forward!

You can see Hubby isn't thrilled with her stubbornness!

We went as a group to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, then I headed out early to pick up drinks for the Scout Dinner.  The families all headed to our hotel room around 6pm to eat pizza and enjoy time with each other.

The goal was to be at the trolley stop by 7:10 pm for our "Winterfest Trolley Ride of Lights".

While it was chilly waiting for our Trolley (named "Frosty"), the Caterpillars had a blast.  GO was in her pajamas and ready to fall asleep (not that she did, mind you).

The hour long trip was awesome (I highly recommend for anyone traveling to Gatlinburg during the winter).  We learned a lot about Gatlinburg and saw beautiful LED lights all over town.

Back at the hotel, it was POOL TIME!  Even GO spent about an hour in the warm indoor pool water, and B10 and CW got to swim for almost 2 hours!

They crashed hard when they finally got in bed asleep!  But, that means they'll be doing good tomorrow when we wake them up early for Day Two.

~Lone Butterfly  )i(

Geocaching with Edelweiss and LG

Today the Caterpillars and I drove out to see Edelweiss and LG. We decided to do a bit of geocaching in their neck of the woods. Edelweiss had checked to make sure that they were still there (we had a massive flood down here and many geocaches in the area were swept away). It was a muddy trip, but besides the couple of swarms of mosquitoes, we all enjoyed ourselves!
LG and CW show off the treasures they have already found.

B10 is always fun to have when we are geocaching, because he's got no fear of sticking his hand down holes in the ground or up in trees. He pulled this lock-in-lock box out for us. It was one of the ones that survived the "Great Flood of 2009".


B10 really helped out carrying GO part of the time I was working with the GPS. You can tell she loves and trusts her big brothers!

After geocaching (we found FOUR!), we headed to the local park to play for an hour or so. The boys were off and running to the playground, while GO, Edelweiss and I hung out on a park bench.
I love seeing CW with LG. When he's with LG or Little Sheep, he really gets to be a "big brother" to another boy. It's kind of cool to see him do for others what B10 does for him.
The park was awesome! So much to climb on - plus I got a really good lesson in how to use my telephoto lens on my new camera.

After the park, we headed back to Edelweiss' house for a hot dog lunch. It was awesome to spend time with friends we haven't seen in a while. I hope to do it again soon!

~Lone Butterfly )i(

Strawberry Pickin'

It's a tradition for the Royal family to go Strawberry Picking the day after school gets out. This year, the friends that normally go with them couldn't - so they invited us!

Queen and I found an ADORABLE matching outfit for Princess and GO. It was like Strawberry Shortcake all over again (it's sad when the 80's make an appearance and kids think it's new).

The Caterpillars love picking strawberries and we had a great time going up and down the fields.

We picked two gallons, which I managed to take home and process quickly (amazing - considering we were also packing to go camping).

After about an hour and a half as a day laborer, we headed to an Italian restaurant close by. It has these delicious sweet and spicy snausage rolls that I wanted Queen to try, but they were out! So disappointing.

Then Prince and Princess came over to spend the afternoon at our house (so Queen could work on packing for Cub Scout camping).

While I processed the strawberries, GO slept perfectly on the floor, sucking her thumb.

The first day of "summer" was officially a success!

~Lone Butterfly )i(