First days of vay-cay!

The Howard's are officially on vacation! We're currently up in a cabin in beautiful East Tennessee (Sevierville specifically). 

We rented the most adorable little cabin - can you believe this is all ours? It's two stories with a big bedroom upstairs and porches all over the place!

The front has mountain views while the back is completely secluded up in the trees.

The view from our the deck off our bedroom

The back porch (also has a hot tub)

Shortly after we arrived and unpacked, I hopped in the shower. When I came out and started toweling off my hair in the bedroom, I noticed what I thought to be a very odd looking knot in the wood in top corner of the bedroom ceiling. Being paranoid, I had Branch come take a look.  Turns out, it wasn't a knot in the wood. It was a bat. A real live bat. That when hit with towels, shoes and hats, would hiss at us then fly back and forth across the room. #freakingout

It's blurry because it's zoomed in since the ceilings are so high but you can see it just to the right of the smoke detector.

We called the owner, who is a school teacher living in Florida, who sent out her cleaning crew while we were at dinner. 

Speaking of dinner, we went to the Dixie Stampede!! We lucked out with some awesome seats! For those of you who haven't been, it's basically a dinner theater and all the entertainment is done on horseback.

There were buffalos, rings of fire, trick riders, and the story of America told through the rose colored glasses of a Southern Plantation owner...

The grand finale included a lot of christmas lights, American flags and Dolly Parton singing. I about died.

My inner redneck was in heaven.

The second day of the trip we took it easy. We went to the nearby outlet malls and walked around then came home and lounged around, reading and playing with Easton.  Speaking of books, I finished this one in a day and highly recommend it! It's a series of short stories loosely based on actual events in early America. I couldn't put it down!

Today we're headed to downtown Gatlinburg and tomorrow all my girlhood dreams come true when I finally get to visit DOLLYWOOD!

Love y'all!