Every year we spend Thanksgiving with my mom’s side of the family.  It is always an interesting time.  This year we had it in Sanford, NC.  With turkey, potatoes, stuffing and plenty of other items.  The highlight would be my mom’s pecan pie. Yummmm!

As normal the topic of conversation is varied.  From politics, medications (the family is getting older), ailments (from arthritis, back pains, feet problems, physical therapy, etc) and the typical spatting amongst the sisters.

As usual it was a good time.  I have done this for the past 36 years and look forward to it every year.  For some reason I didn’t take hardly any pictures.

Friday night we went to Zachary’s first Cub Scout Pack meeting of the year.  He received several new badges.  He has been in Scouts since first grade.  We played bingo that night and both kids won small prices.

Saturday we spent most of the day at the WNC Team Challenge Chess Tournament held at our kids school Veritas Christian Academy.  Both Zachary and Carson played in the tournament.  Zachary has been playing chess since he was in first grade and Carson started this year (kindergarten).  Neither is overly serious about it but seem to have fun playing.

Zachary’s team got 3rd place in the K-5 division and Carson’s team got Most Unique Team Name.  They both had a great time playing in between the matches.  Afterward we went out to eat with the Youngblood family to unwind.

Sunday has been a pretty lazy day.  This afternoon we decided to cook something that I have been wanting to try for a while now.  We live in the south and while we don’t eat as much fried foods as most southerners I did have a craving for “Fried Pickles”.  I love pickles so why not fry them.  So we mixed up the batter and went to frying.  I must say they were very good.  We dipped them in shrimp sauce (that white sauce you get at japanese restaruants), ranch dressing and my wife mixed up a spicy sauce.  If you have never had fried pickles I suggest you give it a try.

Since our Key West trip I have wanted to start purging our home of all that junk we have been holding on to for years.  If you have read Our Story you will see how I have started to feel about “stuff”.  So one day I had enough and said “this crap has to go”.

My wife is very supportive but I knew it wasn’t going to be very easy since a lot of this stuff was hers or things that she has not wanted to get rid of.  Probably the biggest is old baby stuff.  I think she would like to hang on to the old baby clothes and toys in an attempt to keep the memory of the kids being babies.  But I have spent a lot of time trying to convience her that we need to make new memories and this stuff was just stuff.  I told her that if it really meant a lot to her then we can “take a picture” of it and then she could enjoy it whenever she wanted.  I will admit, I got the “evil” eye when I said that.

So over a period of a week or so we spent several days home taking a first pass through the house and getting rid of everything we haven’t used in a year or so.  It is absolutely amazing how things pile up.  We had stuff that I could not believe we had and could not remember why we purchased.  As we got going I was very proud of my wife as she was doing very well and getting rid of things I never thought she would.  She even put a large dent in the baby stuff we had been keeping.

The first pass of our home has led to over 5 truck loads of stuff which we moved to our warehouse for sale or donations.  It feels so good to clean out and I know this will save us a lot of time later when we get closer to possibly selling the house.

Pigeon Forge, TN is about 2 miles from our home.  We go there typically at least twice a year.  This year we have only been able to go once since we have taken trips to other places.  The drive from Fletcher, NC to Pigeon Forge is absolutely beautiful.  Especially given the fall season and the leaves changing.

We stayed at the River Plantation RV Park in Serverville, TN which is right beside Pigeon Forge, TN.  It was a nice RV park with internet connection.  It was pretty quite since most kids are back in school now.

As luck would have it we forgot our camera.  Therefore we were not able to take any pictures except with our mobile phone.  This was one of the few times we have gone camping and hardly left the site.  We left once to get a few things and then came right back.  We were trying to spend as much time in the park and at the camper as we could to see how it would be traveling

We started camping at Yogi in the Smokies  located in Cherokee, NC in 2001 when we only had a two person tent and have continued staying there at least once a year. Our first trip to Yogi in the Smokies and our family consisted of me, Brian and Zachary who was an energetic 2 year old.  The entire park is centered around the cartoon series staring Yogi the Bear.  Yogi, Boo-boo, Ranger Smith and other characters from the cartoon series.  There are hayrides, games, arts and crafts to keep the younger group busy.

This trip was one of our last trips of the season and we had three days out of school for Labor Day.  We arrived on a Thursday afternoon and left on Monday. We did not leave the park once we arrived even though we did have to purchase a few things from the camp store such as bread, ham, cheese, pasta and eggs. We decided that it was easier to shop at the camp store than to go into Cherokee for the few things that we needed. The boys played water games, took several hay rides and enjoyed playing in the pool and river.  There were several hay rides with Yogi the Bear but the favorite ride included water guns used to spray fellow campers who were urged to throw buckets of water at the riders on the wagon (no hay or Yogi were included on this ride).  The boys and myself arrived back at camp completely soaked and a little cold (some fellow campers threw water with ice) but ready to ride again the next day. During the day we enjoyed playing in the cold river until Carson got so cold his lips started turning blue (we call this Carson’s “blue meter”).  Bella even enjoyed the river taking her first real swim since joining our family.  Zachary enjoyed some freedom riding his bike to the theater (in the park) to watch the Yogi Bear movies.  Brian enjoyed his normal camping naps and cooking  on the grill such foods as pancakes, grilled cheese and hamburgers.  I enjoyed time to catching up on some reading and doing an occasional word search puzzle. Overall this was a nice relaxing family trip!