no hurricanes for us

every labor day we go to the outer banks for a week. this year that was out of the question since i am too pregnant to be that far from my dr. and home hospital. the timing was divine considering a hurricane would have surely ruined at least the first part of our beach trip. so we were very happy to be in the NC mountains instead, where it was cool and close to home. it's not labor day without the webster's and we had a truly amazing weekend with the 6 of us, and mom and bill.

as soon as we arrived on thursday we took buxton fishing at a trout farm. 10 minutes and $45 later we had 6 fish. this is the kind of fishing buxton's attention span needs right now, however we won't be spending that much money for 10 minutes of fishing again.

beautiful butterflies at the trout farm:

thursday was ben and i's 3rd wedding anniversary. it was the first anniversary we celebrated in the same place we got married (hound ears) and the first time we actually went to dinner on the day of our anniversary. mom and bill kept buxton while we went to dinner at the game keeper. i had some tasty elk and ben got the ostrich. my iron deficiency is to blame for me being so daring in the meat dept., but that was a good thing since whats the point in going to the game keeper if you don't try something out of the ordinary.

the webster's arrived friday afternoon, just in time for a little swim and a yummy dinner at home. mom made banana pudding and grandma and jimmy were able to join us too.

saturday morning we headed to tweetsie, which was buxton and wynnie's first trip to this fun-filled place. i'll spare you all the iphone pics on the kiddie rides, but i love this one of buxton on the train.

and here we are being silly on the fake horses:

the weather was so amazing that we were outside as much as possible. here we are in hound ears at the little swing set where their ski slope used to be (and where i learned to ski 28 years ago).

you don't even notice wynn's chewed up chips in this pic cause her eyes are so amazing:

sweet sweet girl

she loved feeding buxton:

on sunday we drove a few minutes up the road to check out this trail that went through foscoe that jenn did with stephanie awhile back. we drove around for a bit, but eventually found it. it is called tanawha, and is the best trail i've ever been on in nc. it has grassy fields, streams, beautiful bridges, lakes, and probably so much more beauty that we didn't see since we only covered part of it. the kids had the best time and were very impressive little hikers.

i mean what kid wouldn't be in heaven running through this beautiful field:

we found an apple tree and buxton was very happy to eat an apple that he picked:

our little hikers, after 3 hours on the trail:

we all can't wait to do the rest of tanawha. and i have no idea how we didn't know about this trail in college, considering it was so close to where we lived for 4+ years.

being in cooler weather, with great friends and family for 4 days really recharged me and i have felt surprisingly good this week. i am so thankful for this because i really want to enjoy the last few weeks before baby girl's arrival. oh and we can officially refer to baby girl as elin frances smith now. she has a name!