Cades Cove, TN

This past weekend Josh and I headed off to the great smokie mountains to go camping with my sister, brother in law and niece. After moving in to our new place in Birmingham on Friday, we headed out that night and arrived at our destination at about 3:00 Saturday morning. We were all very exhausted although we had little time to rest. Sunday morning we got up early to start our 11 mile bike ride around Cades Cove. The Cove was absolutely beautiful, and we all had a blast looking at all of the different sites and gorgeous mountains! The total 11 miles took us around 6 hours to complete. After we arrived back at camp we were all exhausted, so we relaxed around the campfire and headed back to Birmingham mid-moring on Monday. It was definitely a hectic weekend for us, be it was totally worth it!


This is Ella in her bike carriage. As you can see she loved it and could have gone on for miles!

One of the beautiful veiws from the tour around the cove.

Adam taking a break from the heavy load!!

Josh and Bentley needed a break too.

Josh and I on our way to look at one of the old buildings on the tour.

Ella was such a trooper! She loved looking at all of the old barns and houses. Never once did she cry or complain on this trip.

Bailey (the dog) wasn't allowed in the old buildings, so Josh and Adam took turns keeping him. This was Josh's turn...

Here we are again taking another break, and letting Bailey get a drink from the creek.

All of us together!

Ella eating her lunch. The tall grass made it hard for her to walk in. I lost count of how many times she fell in that field, but it was probably pushing 100.

Josh and I posing for a scenic picture.

Bentley, Ella, and I all waiting on Josh to bring the truck back so we could load up and head back to camp!

Bug Blast '09

This was one of my favorites

One of Josh's favorites

(Zoe)

(The green machine in all of it's glory)

This past Saturday Josh and I headed to the Tannehill state park for the "Bug Blast '09" VW car show. Of course we drove the little green buggy to show it off at the show, and (all though most of them were small children) there were a few people who actually stopped to look at it! I think that made Josh proud:o)

Daniel Brown (Josh's cousin), his wife Chrissie, and thier little girl Zoe met us at the park and hung out with us for a while. I'm not too sure that Zoe is much of a VW kind of girl, but she is such a cutie! We had a great time getting to hang out with the Browns for the day, and the show was alot of fun too!

Dauphin Island

Last weekend Josh and I both had a long weekend off work, so we decided to go on a road trip to Dauphin Island, Alabama. So we packed up the tent (along with a portable air conditioner courtesy of Josh) and headed south! This Picture was taken in front of our tent/home for the next few days.

After getting everything set up at the campground we decided to head out to the beach for the day. This picture was taken about ten minutes before Josh's shoulder popped out of socket while swimming in the ocean. And we thought things might actually go as planned this time.....What were we thinking??

Now that Josh's shoulder was too sore to swim, we thought we would explore the island a little. This boat was part of the estuary that was located right down the road from our campground.

Fort Gains was right across the road from the estuary, so we did a little more exploring....

Later that night we went back out on the beach for some crab hunting...

Josh was pretty good at catching them, but I don't think he knew what to do with them after that...

Taking a break on the beach at night.

The next day we decided to take the ferry to the mainland to visit Fort Morgan (another Fort used during WWI). We made this trip on foot, and it made for a long day of walking!

We made it to Fort Morgan just as they were opening so we were the only ones there for a while. Here we're posing in front of the main entrance to the fort.

Inside the Fort. This is where the gun battery's are set up to bomb the ships trying to come to shore during the war. It was pretty incredible!

This picture was taken the following day. Josh and I thought that we could use just a little more walking on the trip, so we took a 5 mile walk into town to get some ice cream. This live oak forest was a park that we found on our journey to town.

These trees were amazing!! I just couldn't resist:o)

On the way back from town we took another route and came upon something called " TheGoat Tree Forest". As you can see in this picture, the trees were HUGE!! Isn't it funny how even at the beach Josh and I can manage to find interest in the trees?

Can you canoe like I canoe?

Here we are getting off to an early start, excited about our long day of canoeing (15.5 miles).....

Just over the first bend on our trip we came upon a field of what looked like grass in the middle of the river. Not too bad I guess, it was only about a mile and a halfs worth... Josh asked "should we keep going"?? And my answere as usual "Of course we do!"

When we finaly made it through the grass forest, giant rocks and shallow water were there waiting for us to round the next bend. After alot of stuggling to make it through with our awesome canoeing skills, we finaly decided it was best to just get out of the canoe and walk the boat down the river until we found deeper water.... this only lasted for about two miles (three hours) ....no biggie right?? (this is a photo of me and the canoe in the middle of the river).

After many hours of sweat, blood, (and I think a few tears from Josh) we finaly made it to some deeper water, and beautiful scenery!

Here we are on an island that we stopped at to eat our lunch. After going through the first part of our trip we had decided it was best to plan our eating carefully and salvage our food, there was no telling how long we would be out there!!

Here is one of Josh trying to get the many gallons of water out of the boat that had accumulated thus far. He used a ziplock bag that we had to keep our sandwiches in. We both figured it was around five gallon that he scooped out! Josh claimed it was the weight of the water that was making his end of the boat drag the bottom of the river so much....whatever helps you sleep at night Josh....:o)

Packing up ship and getting ready to begin the rest of our voyage. In the second half of the trip the water was much deeper, so we were able to stay in the boat the rest of the way. However, with the high winds at our face, and the river wanting to move us in the opposite direction, we were both worn our from all of the paddling!!

Although things didn't go quite as planned, we had alot of fun amongst our struggles. We saw a TON of wildlife (racoon, deer, hawks catching fish, and plenty of fish!)It was definitely a day to remember! We made the whole trip in about six and a half hours.

Happy 4th of July!!

Josh and I decided to go out to a local park here in Tuscaloosa (Sokol park) to watch some fireworks on the 4th. It is agianst the law to shoot fireworks in Tuscaloosa on every day except on the 4th, so you can imagine how crowded it was!! It took us close to an hour to get out of the park when the show was over. Howevere, the fireworks were really great and we had a good time while we were there!

Honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico!

Waiting in the Houston Airport to leave for Cozumel, MX.

A view of Cozumel from the air!

Here we are at the resort (Melia Cozumel)

A view of the pool area

Dressed up for a nice dinner together

Josh showing off his coconut that he found on the beach and cracked open!

Here we are at Xcaret, relaxing on a giant hammock

Conquering the Mayan ruins in Xcaret

During the river cruise at Xcaret

Biking in to downtown Cozumel

Josh posing at Senior Frogs

One of the monuments outside of downtown Cozumel

This is the scooter that we rented one day to drive around the island of Cozumel

Action shot of Josh and I driving down the road on the scooter

This is one of the stops that we made on our trip around the island. The water was crystal clear and the waves were HUGE!

Here we are dressed up for a nice dinner on our last night in Cozumel.

Our last dinner in Cozumel.

These are all pictures of our honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico. We had a great time just relaxing, snorkeling, exploring around the island, and just hanging out on the beach! We really didn't want to leave when the week was over, and we're already planning on a trip back soon! The water was so blue and beautiful over there, neither Josh nor I had ever seen anything like it before! Definitely a wonderful trip!