The Great Smokey Mountains

A couple of weekends ago Allison and I finally got out to the Smokey Mountains for a hike. There is nothing quite like getting outdoors and up into the mountains... although I'm sure Allison would have rather been at the beach with a good book! We hiked the Chimney Top Trail which isn't terribly long - only 2 miles - but it ascends over 1700 feet, which is a lot of uphill. Our legs were shaking by the time we got back to the bottom! At the top we made friends with a squirrel who was obviously quite used to being fed. All was well for a few minutes until little Chirpy decided to invite his whole family to the feast. Before long we were surround by a whole clan of very brave little squirrels who were either pressing in on us for a bite of our lunch or squeaking at one another in a battle over prime begging turf. Fortunately I knew how to speak some squirrel and I was able to settle the situation (squeaky squeak squeakers squeak squeaken... if you haven't seen The Emperor's New Groove then go rent it right now!). Anyway, here are a few pics of the view from the top... we did all the work and you still get to enjoy the benefits (although a picture is never the same as the real thing!).




We had to climb this straight up to get to the very top!


This is Squeaky... or Squeaker... I can't remember now




Wow!

Giving of the Thanks

Okay, so we're not so good at keeping this thing updated so far. But we'll catch you up on a few things that have been going down in Trevathan Nation.

We gave thanks. Much like many across this great wide nation we took a few days to observe the national Thanksgiving holiday. We actually went above and beyond, celebrating Thanksgiving 3 times in three different locations. First we had the assisted living Thanksgiving with Allison's grandma. Despite being made up of abnormally soft foods distributed with an ice cream scoop the meal was pretty tasty. Later that day we hung out with the Braswells. Jen made an amazing meal for us. I think I'm still full from it. Then on Saturday we had our official family meal with the Savages. More great food and some great family fun. We were super blessed to have two girls from our church, Katherine and Mariah, join us. They are medical residents and so they didn't have time to go to see their families. I think Thanksgivings are especially great when there's a big crowd. I tried to teach everyone the dominos game Mexican Train... the only problem was I had never played it either. We didn't play that one for too long.

Here's a few pics to prove I wasn't lying about everything we did:

Kely carving the turkey... look at all the goodies!


Us watching, Braswells working :-)


Ha ha. I don't think my father-in-law wanted me to take this pic.


Allison with our new friends Katherine and Mariah


Here's the fam. That's Rachel's (Al's sister) boyfriend Michael on the right. Awwww, don't we make a striking family?