An Eventful Tennessee Easter

This year we tried out a cabin near Pulaski Tennessee. It looked promising with a lake, shooting range, volleyball net, fishing, paddle boats and hiking. It was a great place to take 10 young boys!! We had a lot of fun, but it turned out to be a little more eventful than we would have liked. We got to the cabin in the late afternoon and got right to playing. We brought Tahoe with us this time and he had a ball running around playing with the kids and exploring. Our first day went well and the boys had a lot of fun! Tanner and Kaden even went into the lake which was pretty chilly!

We spent most of our time down at the lake. Everyone loved the paddle boats. Even Tahoe loved hitching a ride! Tahoe was a little leary of the water at first, but by the end of our stay he was enjoying the water! Tahoe also loved having freedom to run around!

Our boys have never been fishing before and Kaden and Trevor loved it! Kaden had so much excitement that you had to watch him a little closely. He snagged many things including people. Luckily no one was hurt!! Trevor was a little more careful. Although one of the unfortunate events happened while Trevor was fishing. Trevor threw the line out with a little too much force and it carried him into the water. Trevor does know how to swim, but the weather was chilly, so he was fully dressed with heavy clothing. He tried his best to tread water and stay afloat. While this was happening Chad who was on the boat with Devon was coming into the shore. I was reaching for Devon when Chad suddenly whirled around in the opposite direction and said, "Who's in the water?" With that Chad leapt out of the boat and took off to the other side of the lake where Trevor was trying to stay afloat. I don't know how Chad heard Trevor fall in, but I am grateful he did. At the same time Tanner was on a dock closer to Trevor. He saw Trevor fall in and started yelling to us. As he was yelling he ran over to the dock Trevor fell off of. Tanner happened to have a crocquet mallet in his hand and he held it out to Trevor. Tanner was able to hold Trevor above the water until Chad arrived and jumped in to pull Trevor to the shore. It all happened quickly as you can imagine. We are very glad the Lord was watching over Trevor that day. Trevor was a little shaken after it happened, but that didn't last very long. In no time he was back out at the lake - just a little more cautious this time.

One night we all sat around the campfire to roast marshmallows and the catch of the day! The smores were fabulous as usual!! The boys enjoyed cooking the fish they caught earlier in the day. It was funny to watch the boys pick up their fish and put it on a rod to cook it - they were slippery. Then we all had to laugh when Tanner got ready to cook his fish. He looked at his fish (with a sad expression) and said, "I'm sorry fish." After Tanner put the fish in the fire to cook it we noticed that the fish was still moving, so caring Tanner decided to put him back in the water!! Kaden was the bravest one. After his fish was cooked he opened wide and took a big bite. The fish was actually pretty good!

Another unfortunate event during our stay was the weather. Before our trip the forecast showed sunny skies and mid 70's. As our trip got closer the rain clouds started to appear. The first night and second day we got hit with severe weather. The first night I didn't sleep at all. The storm was extremely loud. The second day we were able to play at the lake in the morning, but the storm clouds started forming by the afternoon and a tornado warning was put into effect. We found a key that unlocked the crawl space beneath the cabin. We decided to hang out there during the storm. We had all the boys put on their bike helmets just in case. We heard that a tornado touched down in the town right next us. It was a little unnerving. While we hung out in the crawl space, Chad and Mark kept tabs on the storm. They said they could see the rotation in the wall cloud. A tornado was trying to form right beside us (see picture below). After it was over we found large hailstones from the storm. We thought they were large, but after the storm we kept watching the news and they showed pictures of baseball-sized hail. We were definitely blessed to have missed the large hail and tornados.

Later, on the second day, after the storms had passed, we decided to go for a hike. Tanner didn't really want to go so we told him he could ride a bike during the hike. On our way down to the trailhead Tanner decided to take a little short cut. Unfortunately, he hit a rock that sent him flying in the air. He flipped as the bike flew over his head. He landed face down on the dirt and rocks. Luckily, Tanner was wearing his helmet or it could have been much worse. As Tanner got up we saw that he broke one of his front teeth (adult teeth of course!) and he had many scrapes. We took Tanner back up to the cabin and cleaned him up. Tanner was pretty shaken up. He was very worried about how he looked. He broke his tooth about halfway up, but luckily it didn't hurt the root. We are glad that Tanner came away from the accident with only a broken tooth - another blessing.

Of course, we did have a lot of fun doing Easter activities! We started off with dying easter eggs. The boys had a lot of fun picking out the color they wanted and then dying the eggs. They also enjoyed eating them when the time came! Next, we had the Easter egg hunt. Chad and Mark went down by the lake and hid all of the eggs. When they got back Chad told me it would be a miracle if they found all the eggs - the grass was pretty tall. Well, he wasn't joking. I think that was the longest hardest easter egg hunt I have been to!! Each boy got to find 20 eggs. Kaden and Trevor had the hardest time finding their 20. By the end several people were helping them find their eggs. Amazingly enough everyone found 20 eggs. We had some extras out there just in case and I'm sure they are still out there somewhere!

Easter morning we got ready and attended church in a nearby town. The ward was pretty excited to see us walk in. Several people came over after church to see if we were moving in! Luckily our drive home was very uneventful. We had a fun weekend, but we were glad to be back home.