Grandfather Mountain

I have been to Grandfather Mountain many times in my life, but I have never seen as beautiful a day as this one. After days of rain, this morning's skies were a perfect blue. We decided to skip our plans to go to a children's theme park in favor of going to nature. We simply had to be outside in the gorgeous weather.

Up on Grandfather's rocky crags, we enjoyed 70 degree sunshine, taking pictures of each other on the mile high bridge and the massive rock formations.

Then we went a little further down the mountain to the game preserve. We knew that Olivia would find the animals in their habitats the best part of this vacation, and we were not disappointed. In the bear enclosure, we caught all four bears out by the fake pond, clowning around for the visitors. Livvy loved all the bears instantly and chattered the whole time. She wanted them to get into the pond; once the tourists started throwing peanuts into the pond, they did "take a bath" as Livvy kept saying. We saw some playful otters, bald eagles, deer, and some hawks out in the wild. We saw waterfalls and mountains and lots more things that Livvy learned as new words.

I can't believe that a week has gone by so quickly. We hope to see our extended family tomorrow in Hickory, and then we'll see how the weather holds for tomorrow afternoon. We may make it to the theme park yet.

Lastly, here's a picture of some of the redneck locals :

Just kidding! My niece Sydney was playing with "Billy Bob" teeth the other night when I was babysitting. Seriously, there are areas of these mountains where she probably would fit right in!