Mountains, Jerry, Mountains!

OK. See if Starbucks delivers, this one's gonna take a while to get through. Mountains, Jerry, mountains she said. Well, we did go to the mountains and we had a wonderful time. Our first New Year's eve as a family of four was spent in the Great Smokey Mountains. We decided to take Lily for an outing to see how she would handle a vacation, so Connie booked a cabin in the Smokies for New Year’s eve. Since this was Lily Grace's first trip, we got a chance to see how she reacts to being somewhere different when bedtime comes. We didn't tell her that just near here, Smokey howls every Saturday afternoon. Didn't want to scare the wits out of her.

It was fun being away for a weekend, even though it was noisy in the mountains with all the New Year’s eve festivities. Fireworks and college kids having a good time make for a lot of noise.We had such a wonderful time, mainly just taking it easy and taking in the sights and sounds of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on a New Year's eve. Lily had even gone fast asleep well before midnight was announced by a chorus of fireworks that sounded like the Confederates were rising again in the mountains (is this Pigeon Forge or Valley Forge for crying out loud!). It woke everyone up, but Lily wasn't scared, just wanted to know what that sound was!

Our short vacation to the mountains held a magical surprise for both Lily Grace and Austin (not to mention the proud parents). When we got to Sevierville, TN, we were surprised to find a Chinese Theatre that presented a real, live Chinese acrobat show. We had visited a Chinese Theatre in Beijing, but that was before Lily had officially become a part of our family. So she didn’t get to see that one. We were also very tired from our 18 hr flight and so didn’t fully appreciate the elegance and grace of the Chinese acrobats in Beijing (one of us fell asleep in the theatre and I'm not telling who, but her initials are CJG). So, another opportunity in Gatlinburg! We jumped on it and got seats on the front row. Lily really was captivated by the acrobats, even occassionally warning them out loud "eh, gonna fa aall."














During the performance, a Chinese comedian decided that he needed Austin to help him with his act – check out the photos! Austin was doing his best to look “cool,” but the Chinese comedian was too much for him to overcome. Hilarious. The comedian gave Austin a set of Chinese chopsticks for his participation. Of course, Lily immediately snatched them from Austin when he returned to his seat. "Gimme those, clearly they were meant for me! Hmm, these things make for excellent band director utinsels!"








We all enjoyed the show very much. Lily really enjoyed the show (all two hours of it), sitting quietly except for the occasional “Wow!” I wondered if she felt any connection to the acrobats. Probably not. But she was certainly mesmerized by their performances. Some of the acrobats were very young, 12 and 13 years old, but were very talented. After the performance, we stayed and met the director and the acrobats and got a group photo and autographs with the acrobat company. The acrobats were every bit as cordial and elegant as the people we remembered from our China visit last year. It was wonderful to get to see their performance and we would recommend it to anyone planning to visit the Smokies.

OK, the being somewhere different at bedtime part? Not a problem. Move over Mama, Pamba and I are moving in! Daddy, you go sleep with Austin and leave the upstairs in this fancy cabin to me and Mama. Oh, but first, would you draw my bath in the jacuzzi and bring me something cool to drink. Mama might like something too! Bath, bath!!

We also saw Ripley's Aquarium, where Lily tried to dive into the stingray pond. This girl's not scared of anything! She wanted to touch the stingrays so bad that we had to hold onto her feet as she tried to crawl over into the pond when the stingrays would swim by. Austin and Lily were like two kids on Christmas morning running from exhibit to exhibit with Lily squealing and Austin filming.

We also went to the Black Bear Jamboree's Christmas Spectacular. This was a dinner show complete with live music, animated bears, and more talented singers and actors than you could imagine. It even snowed on us inside the building at one point during the show. But everything that had happened, every skit, song, and act became lost in the last moments of the show. Wow, they had spent two hours capturing our every thought, our attention. Our focus was definitely on the presentation, even Lily Grace had sat silently for two hours watching. And then, boom! The actors, dancers, singers, who had been wowing us with their talents, presented the Gospel of Jesus Christ like I have never before seen it. They applied their talents and the efforts that they had made to grasp our attention to the greatest story ever told and the audience was simply stunned, me included. Angels floating in mid air singing Oh Holy Night over a stunningly beautiful nativity seen complete with all the cast of that wonderful night! Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, Wise men and kings, shepherds and animals, they were all a part of it. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend for us. If you have a chance to see this, Go! It gave a whole new meaning to the hymn "Go Tell It on the Mountain!" God is so awesome!

Of course, no trip to Pigeon Forge would be complete without carpet golf and go karts, so Austin and I completed that part of the mission while the ladies relaxed back at the cabin, probably in fine fashion with a cool drink and a hot tub! And for the record, Austin won the race and the round of golf.

Well, Happy New Year, so long from the mountains, and remember "Go Tell It on the Mountain, Over the Hills, ..."

Love,
Jerry, Connie, Austin, and Lily Grace