First Family Vacation!

Last week Zach and I took the boys on a relatively last minute trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee.  We drove the 600 miles in about 12 hours, including lots of stops for the boys.  They were shockingly well behaved on the way there! 

I'm going to break up the pictures into a few posts.  Here are our adventures from Day 1 and 2. 

 If you've never been there, Ruby Falls is a tall waterfall deep inside a cave in Lookout Mountain.  You take an elevator down inside the mountain, walk about a 1/2 mile through lighted caves, and then come to a huge, dark cavern where you can hear (but not see) the roaring falls.  Then they turn the lights on and you get to walk all the way around it. 

Isaac was the little explorer of the trip.  The guide gave him his flashlight, so Spike just thought he was big stuff as he hiked, flicking it on to check out each nook and cranny on the way.  Anders, on the other hand, was terrified of the falls.  He will still tell me at random times, "I'm scary of the water fall, Mom.  Momma save me." 

 Ruby Falls!

 The next day we went to see a historical site called Chattanooga Choo Choo, which was a nickname for the line that first connected the north and the south.  There was a model train exhibit there that the boys got a kick out of. 

 After that, we took the Incline Railway up the side of Lookout Mountain.  Unfortunately the weather totally sucked while we were there -- it was in the 50's and drizzly/cloudy the entire time.  Of course the week before it had been sunny and 80! 

 The boys disappearing into the fog at the top of Lookout Mountain

 Riding the Incline Railway back down

Each afternoon we went back to the hotel to nap and play in the pool.  I think the boys liked staying at a hotel just as much as anything we did in Chattanooga.  :) 

I'll post more pictures tomorrow...the best are yet to come!