Gatlinburg

Thursday morning, we headed out for our annual getaway with Matt and Melanie. Once again, the mountains of Tennessee were calling our name. We have so many traditions with them that we look forward to and each year, we try to make new traditions. This was our 9th year traveling to Gatlinburg! Can you believe that? I think this year was one of our best trips yet!! “Honey, I just loved it! I really did…” ;)

I didn’t take as many pictures as I hoped to, but I will post what I did take. This will be a long post as I recount our trip, so settle in and get ready for some fun laughs!!

As I said, we headed out Thursday morning – no kids! – ready for some mountain fun! Matt pulled out our agenda and we reminded ourselves of what the long weekend would hold. We usually arrive around lunch time and eat at one of our favorites The Best Italian Restaurant. They have the best garlic balls ever!

We didn’t gorge ourselves because Thursday night was going to be dinner at the Murder Mystery Dinner Show. We’ve been to the dinner theatre before, so we were very excited to do it again! This year’s theme was “American Idle”. Eric and Matt both said they did NOT want to sing karaoke…

…Eric ended up singing Sweet Home Alabama and Rocky Top! OH MY GOSH….it was so funny! He was called upon as the talented contestant “Ben Dover”. Matt was given the honor of a guest judge “Ivan Poppanoff”. One of the actors and judges “Paula Fazule” loved our guys! She was precious and after each contestant sang, she’d say “Honey, I just loved it. I really did!” It was so funny!





Eric won the contest (not from singing, I might add!!). He lit up on stage and sucked in the audience with his personality. Such a fun night and we can’t wait to go back!!!

That evening, we checked into our cabin. I won’t go into a ton of details, but we were less that pleased. The one thing we liked about the cabin was the theatre room where we watched a few movies!! It was very cool.

Friday morning, we headed out to the Pancake Pantry. Now, this place usually has a line that forms out the door and wraps around the building. Luckily, we only had about a 20 minute wait. The food was delicious. Melanie ordered blueberry pancakes that had mounds of blueberries, Matt had some kind of freakish (sorry!!) pancakes with raisins and weird sauces. Eric had wheat pancakes with eggs and sausage and I had the French toast that is to die for! Oh, and a large chocolate milk that was almost $3.00!!! I just told Eric “It’s for the baby!” :)

The afternoon was spent shopping around Gatlinburg, napping at the cabin and then we headed to play some really competitive putt putt. After I kicked some serious butt in putt putt (NOT), we had dinner at The Peddler. We fell in love with The Peddler a few years ago when my brother told us to try it. It’s a great steakhouse. The steak peddler comes to each table with huge slabs of meat and cuts them at your table. They have a yummy salad bar and I’m proud that Melanie tried almost everything on the bar! She even cut anchovies up into small pieces on her salad. Oh, a bonus was sitting by the creek again. So pretty and romantic!

The beautiful Murphy's :)

My baby and me....I love him!

After dinner, we headed to walk downtown Gatlinburg. It was really pretty all lit up for Christmas! Yes, I’m a dork and took lots of pictures of Christmas lights!!

Our evening movie was “Taken”. Oh my. A good movie, but it sure makes you think…

I know this is lengthy, but hang in there with me! :)

Saturday, we got up early (gulp) and headed for breakfast at the Apple Barn. Yum yum. (In case you are seeing a pattern, YES, we ate out a lot and at really fantastic places!) If you haven’t been there, it’s a must! Here’s a funny picture. Matt and I were “over” getting our pictures taken, so when Melanie pulled out the camera, we let her and Eric get their picture taken together!! They are now BFF!

We spent the afternoon shopping. And I mean shopping! We went to the outlet, the tool store (yawn), the knife store (double yawn), the camping store (girls sat in the truck) and then to our favorite Christmas store where we got Pralines & Cream fudge!! We shopped right up until 5 when we headed to The Comedy Barn for another show. I just love Gatlinburg because all their shows are family friendly! We laughed so hard and then Eric got called up on stage…again! A ventriloquist asked for his help. He had to “play” Julio Iglesias. It was hysterical! I laughed so hard that I started crying and couldn’t stop! I have it on DVD and if I can figure out how to post it, I will!

Sunday morning, we packed up all of our stuff and took our annual fireplace photo:

And then headed out for some nature spots in Gatlinburg. We took tons of pictures of the scenery, but I'll just show you a couple!

We are honestly so blessed to have such great friends!! I'm so thankful that we started this tradition and have continued it for so many years. I look forward to having our 10 year anniversary next year and even taking the kids one day so they can see some of our past. Thanks, Matt & Melanie for all the laughs, helping through the tears, and for loving us despite the bad moods, indecisiveness, fights......oh my! :) We love you guys. Here's to next year.