Side Trip to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg

We left Monterey with all intensions of heading home. When we got over to Knoxville Carlos had me mapquest how close Pigeon Forge, TN was. The reason why was because Kem, Lisa and the kids along with Ken's parents were vacationing in the mountains at Pigeon Forge. They had invited us to stop over but we didn't think we had enough time plus my parents were watching the kids and I knew we had to get back. I found out that we were only 45 minutes away from them so we decided to head over there and have dinner with them. Carlos had never been to this area of Tennesee so I was excited to show him around a little bit. We vacationed there as a child and I had such great memories of this area.

We found the place Ken and Lisa were staying at. Then we all headed out to get something to eat.

Kaitlyn had a surprise for me

She had lost her first tooth while we had been gone in Missouri.

After dinner we decided to walk through the Pigeon Forge strip. My sister Steph and her family vacation here quite often and told us all the fun they have there. We found lots of things for the kids to do.
Most of the rides required an adult to ride if the kids were under 5 so I helped out with Christian.

Ken's mom Celia and Ava

Kaitlyn

We gave Kaitlyn some money for her first tooth. She wanted to win a prize so she played a game with the help of Ken and she won a teddy bear!
By the end of the night the kids were tired . . . On top of Ken and "Papa's" shoulders!

We planned on leaving after this but Ken and Lisa offered to have us stay with them on their pull out couch. I called my mom . . . my dad had to get home for a mayor's meeting . . .she said that was fine. So, we were so excited we were able to stay for another day.