Spring Break Part 1 - Tennessee!

Wow! What an amazing trip. It was so crazy how fast we connected to people we had never met (other than on facebook) before. Our parents know each other really well, but the kids had never met except when we were babies maybe. =)

I am going to try and explain the layout of their property and where everyone lives. There are 5 houses on about 20 acres of land. 1 house is great grandparents. 2nd house is grandparents. 3rd house is Taylors...daughter with her husband and their 7 kids. 4th house is Stapletons...other daughter with her husband and their 4 kids. 5th house is a family friend of theirs. It is so fun!! They have a couple of horses that the younger kids really enjoyed!

Friday night: relaxed got to know each other...very quickly I might add. :)
Saturday: We went to basketball games for the Stapletons to youngest boys. That night the adults went out and Haley, Matt, Ashtyn, and I watched the 7 kids.
Sunday: Mrs. Stapleton (Haley's mom), my mom, Haley, Ashtyn, and I drove a couple hours to Chattanooga for Haley's dance competition. We had a blast in the car and enjoyed watching all of the different dances. We passed through Georgia for about 5 minutes and had a bunch of friends near Atlanta who wished we would have drove a little further to see them! When we made it to Chattanooga we went to lunch at Panera. Yummy! Before the drive home we got Starbucks. Both fun treats that we don't normally get. It was a fun "girls day-trip!"

Monday was spent just hanging out and having fun.
Tuesday we went out to lunch and toured the CBN place in Nashville. My dad has a friend who works there. It was pretty neat. I'm sure my dad enjoyed it because he understands all the camera and video editing machines. = )
Tuesday night we had a family dinner with almost everyone! :)
One of the days we went hiking in the woods and that is when the kids were able to spend most of the time with the horses because the weather was nicer.
Wednesday was our last day there (the Sellars went home that day but we stayed a day later)...we went into Downtown Nashville and took a few pictures before it started raining. Then we headed to the Opry Mills Mall, the former place of Opryland. We shopped for a little while...rode the carousel!...and ate lunch. Then the 6 oldest (Matt and Haley Stapleton, Maddie and Mallory Taylor, Ashtyn and I) went to Haley's dance practice then all went to youth.
Thursday we made the long trek home. It took longer than the way there. There was a big 18 wheeler wreck that my dad happened to see as soon as the guy swerved off the road when he looked into his rear view mirror. We called 911 and had to stop for about 20 minutes. Thankfully the guy was not hurt at all...definitely a miracle because the whole cab of the truck was crushed in with a tree going through it. After we got back on the road we made more stops than we wanted, had to pick up Hunter from the airport (he had been in Honduras on a mission trip for 8 days). It was long but we made it! :)

I think that is about it for our Tennessee trip! It took a while to get this posted because I had to catch up a lot on school when we got back. I'll be posting pictures and stories from our adventurous camping trip soon. =)

Me, Haley, and Ashtyn!

The two Taylor girls (Mallory and Maddie) were able to go with us on this trip into Nashville.

Fam picture without Rach and Hunter:(

Me, Ashtyn, Maddie, and Matt

Huge bonfire we had!

Me and my Aunt Dana! We came with their family to TN so that added 6 to the mix. =)

Sellar's kids! Eli, Ean, Ella, Ezra!

8 of the kids!

Clara, Ethan, Eli, and Ean (on the horse).

The only picture of the kids sitting still. After letting them run around a while and get some energy out we sat them down with a movie and their dinner...we had fun spending time with the younger ones!

Since Ella was the only girl...we escaped into the kitchen with her and
made peanut butter bars!