Kirstin's 1st Birthday

Our Sweet Peach turned ONE on June 29th!  I'm just slow in getting caught up on posting about it (sorry to all those family members who keep asking for pictures from her party...yes, Joel's will be coming soon, too.)

Kirstin's actual birthday we spent the whole day travelling home from our 3 week vacation.  However, we did find a cool ice cream parlor in West Layfette, Indiana to stop for birthday ice cream.  They even had little mini scoops that were her size.

Since we knew we would be in the car on her birthday, we celebrated with the Baughman family 2 days early.  It was extra special because we had celebrated Joel's 1st birthday with the extended Baughman family 3 years earlier.  We even made a cake that all 19 could eat, in other words it was free of dairy, soy, nuts, and chocolate!!  We purred Strawberries to make our frosting pink (and yum)!

The birthday girl with her big brother ready to help blow out the candle.

Cake in both hands!

Angel, my cousin's dog, strategically positioned at Kirstin's feet waiting for clean up.

The cake is gone, but the plate still has some stuck on it.

Joel is amused by the fact that Kirstin has cake on her head.

All done, so I'll make more of a mess.

Cake... everywhere. 

We celebrated Kirstin with our local friends (and Grandma Kris) on Sunday afternoon with a party at our house (for those keeping track, this was less than 48 hours after we returned home from our 3 week trip).

I just checked and I have lots of party pictures, so I'll write about the party in a separate post.  Kirstin Anne is such a joy and blessing to our family that I think it's ok to have 2 posts about her first birthday.  Sorry Aunt Whitney, you have to keep waiting for the party pictures. :-)

Montreat Memories

The last week of our vacation also included 2 different days of visits with Whitney, Jock, and Addison.   Whitney has been my best friend since we were 10.  We've never lived in the same state, but where we live is the only thing that isn't close between us. 

This picture is really special because it's filled with special ladies in my life: My Mom, Grandma, daughter, "niece", and "sister"

Our Traditional Picture (with Brough niece #2)...we have taken a picture similar to this one almost every time we've been together over the last 21 years!  One day we'll make a book of them (if we can find them all, this predates digital people!)

Addison

At the end of the week, we headed over to Montreat!  Montreat is a Presbyterian college and conference center where my brother (Tim), Whitney, and I all attended summer youth conferences throughout high school.  Whit now lives about 10 minutes away.  This particular trip to Montreat was special as Tim and I shared it together and shared it with our families.

Montreat Rock Hopping with our families!!! One of those really special memories that is such a blessing to share with our kids and words can't do it justice.

Joel is hidden between Jim and Trevor, but he is in there.

Kelsie and Kirstin rock hopping, too!

Scoping out the next rock like a pro

Tim's family hiked Lookout Mountain after lunch.  However, the trails have changed since we last hiked many years ago.  The trail that used to take about 2 hours round trip was about 3 hours to the top.  Good thing we were on vacation and could be flexible with plans.

My parents, Jim, Joel, Kirstin, Whitney, and Addison went to the Huckleberry...yummy and inexpensive ice cream!  We would usually go on a daily basis while at Montreat.

Joel sharing his Huckleberry ice cream cone with Addison.

What a great 3 weeks our family had together on vacation.  We are already brainstorming how to pull that off again next year.

More Family Fun

At the Baughman family reunion, the Great Grandkids had a fun little water balloon "fight" the one afternoon.  

What a great week with my family!  I miss them all and can't wait until the next time we are together.

Family, lots of family

I love my family!  I love being with my family.  I even love the sometimes crazy aspects of my family. My extended family is spread out.  My paternal grandparents had 3 children, 5 grandchildren, and now 10 (with one more on the way) great grandchildren.  We live in 9 different states all over the country.  Needless to say we don't get to all be together very often.  We planned to all gather in East Tennessee this summer.  We missed 2 of my cousins and their families!!!  However, the other 19 of us had a great week of adventure together.

We all went on a hike in a National Park (it was part of Gaitlinburg, but we didn't go in the main entrance).  This was a 1 mile hike that all the kids and my Grandma hiked.  A beautiful morning in the Smoky Mountains!

The whole Baughman family present, except Aunt Anne who took the picture!

Kelsie, Joel, and Jim hiking

Eli (who is 3 months younger than Joel), Larry, and Rachel

Melanie and Tim

Kirstin, Myself, and My Mom!

A sampling of the beautiful view on our hike

Joel crossing a river on rocks

Aunt MeMe helping Joel across one of the many foot bridges.

He made it!  He did such a great job hiking.

We ate a picnic lunch in the National Park before some of the family headed back home for naps.  Then the rest of us hiked up 2.1 miles to a waterfall (and then back down 2.1 miles).

Trevor (and others) on the way up.  It really was up with this incline for the first 2 miles.  The last .1 of a mile was even more steep down to the falls.

My brother, Tim, and nephew, Trevor at the waterfall

It was just after this moment when Jim realized his phone was going for a swim.  After 3 days in rice to dry out, it revived!!! 

My Kelsie!

Cooling off in the waterfall's fresh mountain water.

That's my brother!!!  (He got ALL of the daring genes and I got NONE)

Sweaty, but enjoying the view!

Another glimpse at God's beautiful creation.

The trip down the mountain was adventurous as my Aunt fell a split her knee pretty close to the top of the mountain.  She then went into shock and passed out with Jim and I catching her.  Fortunately, my cousin, the nurse, was with us.  Her husband, the doctor, was able to put 4 stitches in my Aunt's knee after dinner.

As if that wasn't enough adventure, the next day we headed to the Pigeon River where several in the family started the day ziplining, but I wasn't up for that adventure.  However, after lunch most of us went white water rafting.  Unfortunately, I don't have any cool pictures.  Joel has the best story of the day though.  He went on a raft with his Grandpa, Great Grandma Betty, Great Aunt, and 2nd cousins (ages 3 and 6).  They went on the lower river that was calmer, while the rest of us went on the upper river to experience more rapids.  A few minutes into Joel's trip their raft went backwards into a rock.  This caused Joel to be dumped out of his raft and into the river.  He spent some time floating along until his guide Miss Melinda hoisted him up into a different raft.  Eventually, he was put back into the correct raft.  Grandpa was very concerned for him.  Joel wasn't scared a bit, though.  He was thrilled to tell us the story when we met back up with him.  

We also enjoyed time in the sandbox, local community pool, around the campfire with smores and fireworks.  I look forward to the next time we all decide to get together (and hopefully those that weren't able to join us will be able to the next time).

Peach Park

It doesn't take long being around our family (or reading the title of this blog) to realize that we have a little thing for ice cream.  On vacation, we often try to find new, interesting, unique, and amazingly yummy ice cream places and flavors.  This particular day was a lovely ice cream day.

We started the day in Loxley, Alabama where we went to a farm stand.  We had read in our ice cream book that this farm stand had homemade ice cream.  We thought that sounded like a lovely breakfast.  We were disappointed to find out it wasn't homemade, but decided to try some on top of homemade strawberry cobbler anyway.

Shortly, after lunch (and before kids were asleep for naps) we were driving down the road and saw a sign for Peach Park.  The billboard claimed that it was "1 of 51 top ice cream parlors in the country".  With that kind of a statistic how could we pass it up.  With my husband's wonderful vacation driving skills, we couldn't get off the interstate in time, so we drove 3 miles to the next exit turned around and drove the 3 miles back.  Jim doesn't just get off the interstate for any adventure.  In fact, I often have to plan the adventures and spend lots of time convincing him that it will be fun family time.  However, Peach Park (and the large picture of homemade ice cream) did not take any convincing.

Our Peach is certainly "Sweet as a Peach"

There were pictures of former princesses and queens from a local Peach Festival all around this shop.  There are some of the pictures on the left.  It was interesting to look at the pictures from random dates over the last 30ish years.

Now the good stuff... Peach Ice Cream!!!!  

I had Peach Cheesecake, Jim had Caramel Peach (with pecans), and the kids shared Peach (which happens to be one of Joel's favorite flavors anyway!)

Look at the size of the single scoop!  Kirstin is trying to grab my cone.  She, too, loves ice cream!

I now see why she was so sticky...Joel isn't even watching as he is feeding her.

I love this pic (good job, Jim!)

Kirstin is getting the "Tippy bite".  My grandparents' dog's name was Tippy.  Grandpa would often save the last bite of his ice cream cones to give to her.  So, we call the last bite the "Tippy bite".

The park had some fun things around for you to enjoy while enjoying your yummy ice cream.  They served "grill" type food too, but we just enjoyed the ice cream.

The giant peach!  Yes, Joel is contemplating how to "fly" down the raised area they were standing on for me to take their picture with the peach.

Peach Park was worth the time and distance out of our way on our long day of driving.

We ended that day with ice cream too, but I think that wasn't until we got to my cousin's house at the start of the Baughman family reunion...more to come about the last week of our vacation soon. 

Let me know if there are any wonderful ice cream places that we have to try (anywhere in the country...we travel for fabulous ice cream).