on to tennessee!

well after a long drive..i believe it took us about 10 hours to get there we finally saw this sign.

woo hoo. we made it to Tennessee!
when we got there, garran immediately had to leave to go to a lecture and i ran to the store to get some food to keep in the apartment that the university had put us up in. i decided that since we had traveled all day on poor B's birthday, i would get her a little treat!she does not look all that excited, however right after she sang, she dove into the cake with both hands. we cleaned her up and cut her a piece. she did like it. it's just not that obvious from this picture.i wanted to put this in. this was sunset the night we got there. BEAUTIFUL!
Friday, garran was gone all day with B. Lyons. he was going to lectures, getting to see the school, having all kind of fun!!
Saturday was just our day. we did some house hunting in case garran decides to go there. we wanted to know which areas we like and which to avoid. then we decided to just have some fun.
we drove around campus. here is one of the Tennessee signs for campus. it is not the best picture, but you get the idea.here is just one shot of the campus which was gorgeous. i hate to sound bias because Dekalb was nice, but Knoxville was just so pretty!
after we left campus, we just took a little drive.this is a view we found while driving. it was just breath taking. the river with the mountains in the background. love it.
after this..we headed to downtown.here are the boys welcoming us to downtown!we thought the kids might think the sun sphere was fun. you got to ride up in an elevator and go up into the globe part. it was all glass and you could see the entire city.here are garran, the kids, and aunt silara (she came along on our trip) having fun. you do not see me because I have a horrible fear of heights. for some reason i had the worst reaction ever when we were hear. I could not step away from the wall. If i looked down i would get super nauseous, hot, and my knees would go week. so i just took pictures and hung out by the wall. here is on of the views. you can see part of campus and the mountains. as long as i did not look down, it was great!
after the sphere we headed down by the water. i wanted to get a family picture since i rarely have another set of hands so that i can be in it. we took a bunch. this one made me laugh. i have given up a long time ago on getting a picture with everyone looking and smiling. I take what i can get. it seems more like real life to me.
after we got the pictures we decided to walk around for a little while. on our walk we found these. i thought they were so cool. they have a huge children's hospital in Knoxville. these were all tiles made by children cancer survivors. i wish i would have gotten some close ups, but i just did not think about it then. they were all very cute and had little messages written on them.
after we walked around for a while we found a little treasure.everything in this little store was made there. they had lollipops and chocolates, rock candy...all sorts of fun things. we each picked one thing to try.kael and cullan picked lollipops.garran sampling some of the chocolates that we got. im glad we each only picked on because while they were super yummy, they were super rich!
we played some more in downtown and then headed back to the apartment to pack for our long drive home the next day.I had to get a picture as we were leaving of the mountains. I just love driving through them. so pretty. the kids did really well throughout the whole trip. it is always hard to have to sit for that long, but we are grateful it went as well as it did. we really enjoyed our little mini vacation and are excited to make a decision sometime soon.