Summer vacation

We just finished a terrific vacation week! Our vacation started with a visit from Aaron's sister Rebecca. She came down for a long weekend, and the girls were delighted to spend time with their beloved Aunt Becca. (The grown-ups also enjoyed her visit!)

 

We went up to Chattanooga, where the girls had a great time at the Ross's Landing Park. The highlight of the park is a long staircase with water running down into a large wading pool at the bottom. The entire water feature overlooks and is fed by the Tennessee River.

 The girls also enjoyed getting to play in the hotel room. We had adjoining rooms, and they were endlessly delighted by the ability to open up the interior door and go back and forth between our room and Janet and Rebecca's room.

We rode the Incline Railway, described as the world's steepest passenger railway, up to the top of Lookout Mountain.
 

After our day in Chattanooga, Janet returned to Clarkston, Rebecca went home to Chicago, and our family met the Delaneys for a few days in the aptly named Cloudland Canyon State Park. Our cabin was just a few minutes' walk from this amazing view of the canyon.

The kids loved having so much time to play and have fun together. We spent a lot of time around the cabin listening to the happy din (and occasional shrieking arguments) of kids running around being kids. One of their favorite activities was playing train with camp chair seats, frisbee steering wheels, and sticks for tickets.

Roasting marshmallows for s'mores was also a big hit! Violet patiently held her marshmallows not-too-close to the fire and waited for perfection on each and every one; even the mildest suggestion of char, ash, or other imperfection relegated the blemished marshmallow to the fire. Juniper enthusiastically and impatiently waved her stick around, burning some marshmallows, nearly hitting people in the face with others, and enjoying the whole process. (Note where the girls' sticks are pointing in this photo.) Hazel slowly and deliberately ate her s'mores with a gourmet's intense relish of a rare and amazing delicacy. Henry enjoyed the evening's activities indiscriminately, with apparently equal glee in the s'mores, plain marshmallows, camp chairs, frisbees, and sticks.

The kids observed mushrooms, frogs, flowers, slugs, lizards, moss, lichen, leaves, and bugs of all sorts.

For the most part, they were really good sports on our longest hike. The most popular part of our hike was probably this area with giant boulders where we stopped for lunch.

But they are still pretty young and small. We set off on a 2.5 mile loop, well stocked with snacks, lunch, and plenty of water. About 1 mile in, we came to an intersection and realized that we should take the easy half mile of road back to our cabin, not the 1.5 miles of trail that we had originally intended. I suppose one mile of trail plus a half mile of paved road isn't bad for two year olds!

All in all, a very fun trip! The girls told me this morning that they would like to go back to Chattanooga and stay in a cabin tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I told them we'd go back sometime, but not today or tomorrow. They agreed that later this week would also be acceptable.

For more photos from the trip, check out this gallery on Aaron's website.