Vacation Day 2

So I finally have all the pictures from the rest of our vacation in order. Below are some of the pictures from the rest of the week that we spent in Tennessee. From now on I'm going to post pictures at www.justinandkitara.myphotoalbum.com and you can go there to look at them. They are the same pictures as in the slideshows you'll see, but you can see them bigger if you would like. Now for the rest of our vacation!

Pictures!!!


So the first day of our vacation was Monday and we posted that 2 posts ago if you want to go back and read that. Tuesday we drove from Knoxville, where we stayed Monday night, to Nashville, Tennessee! We spent all day at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. It was acutally pretty cool to see how country music started and learn about all the country music stars that I grew up with. Justin is new to country so he didn't know too many of the older singers, but he knew a lot of the current ones since country is mainly all we listen to out here in North Carolina (well, country and sports radio!). After spending all day at the museum we met up with our friends Blake and Danielle that lived above us while we were at BYU. We hung out and got settled and then we went over to Danielle's parent's house. We all hung out and talked for a while and then went to another house to watch fireworks. Yes, we watched fireworks on the 3rd of July. I enjoyed them! And Blake and Danielle's dog Cosmo did too! He would bark and every firework that went off! It was pretty funny since Cosmo doesn't really have a bark. Here's a video of him during some of the fireworks. You can kinda see him, but you HAVE to listen to him!

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On to Wednesday! We spent all day on the lake boating! And I do mean ALL day! It was so much fun! We took a 4 hour tour of the lake on a pontoon boat. That was pretty cool. The first couple of hours were really fun, but then everybody wanted to get onto the speedboat! We almost submerged the pontoon boat, which was scary at the time, but pretty funny afterwards. The best part of the day, at least for me, was I learned how to wakeboard! Well, kinda. I posted a video in the previous post. There was a lot of crashing, but a couple of good ones too! It was a blast!

Thursday Justin and I sent the day in Nashville again since Blake had school and Danielle had work. Nashville is the only place in the world that has a life size replica of the Parthenon so we went and saw that for most of the day. It was really cool to see and fun to take pictures of! The main floor inside had a really neat art gallery that we spent quite a while walking around. After that we went upstairs to the main room that had the Athena statue in it. It was huge! I don't remember the exact height, but she was enormous! You can see how big she is in the pictures. Also on the second floor there were replicas of the statues that are found on the outside of the Parthenon up at the top. After the Parthenon we went back to Blake and Danielle's and hung out for a while and played some Wii. It was so much fun! After playing around for a while we met up with Danielle's family and Blake's sister and brother-in-law at Monell's. This restaurant was so good!!! It's like southern family style cooking. They bring out huge bowls of food and you pass the bowls around the table. The restaurant building just happens to be an old jail and the room where we ate was the room where they used to hang people. Crazy! It's the room where you waitress leaves you hanging! Right Danielle? After Monell's, Blake, Danielle, Justin and I had the opportunity to go to the Nashville temple and do some sealings. It was so nice to be able to go to the temple and it felt like old times when we hung out in Utah.

Friday was a great day! It was Danielle's Dad's birthday so we did what he loves best! Spend ALL day on the lake! I loved it! This time we had a big party boat that we hung out on, the pontoon boat from Wednesday and around 4 speedboats. It was a blast! We went tubing and rode a banana behind the party boat. We didn't go very fast, but it was a blast! And it was the only thing Danielle could really do since there's a baby Haines on the way!!! Justin and I got to use the wave runner for a little while, which was a blast! It was Justin's first time on a wave runner! That's crazy! He loved it though, which I'm happy about! After hanging out on the lake we went and saw "Live Free of Die Hard" for Danielle's Dad's b-day. It was such a good movie!

Saturday was our last full day in Tennessee. We spent all morning hanging out at Blake and Danielle's house and then went over to Danielle's parents house again. We all went and saw "Transformers" and even though I complained about not wanting to see it, I have to admit it was a pretty good movie. After the movie we went to a party with Danielle's parents and we happened to see Brittany Cromar's parents (another friend from BYU). THat was pretty random, but kinda cool. We left the party early and the girls went to Old Navy to go shopping while the boys went home and did who knows what. Once everybody was back home we played Settlers!!! I love this game! It was a pretty long game and so that took up the rest of the night.

Sunday was a pretty sad day. We had to say goodbye to Blake and Danielle and drive 7 or so hours home. It was a great vacation and we had a ton of fun!!! Thanks Blake and Danielle!!!!

Wakeboarding!

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Vacation Day 1

Today was the first day on our vacation to Tennessee! We left the house and drove to western North Carolina to some waterfalls outside Asheville, NC. We first went to Bridal Veil Falls. It was supposed to be pretty cool, but this is what we ended up seeing.

It ended up not being so majestic, but it was still pretty. You used to be able to drive under the waterfall, but not anymore. The big rock on the left ended up falling and blocking the road so you can't drive under it, but you can still pull off to the side and walk around it.

After Bridal Veil Falls, we went to Dry Falls. This waterfall was a lot better. You're able to walk behind it to the other side. It was pretty cool! When you walked behind it you got misted, which was actually kinda fun! Here's a picture of us with the whole falls.

After the waterfalls, we randomly stopped in Cherokee, NC. It ended up being pretty fun. We saw a couple of Native Americans perform a dance show that was really interesting! Justin was wearing his Brigham Young University shirt and one of the performers saw it and was telling us that he graduated from there in 1984 (the best football year ever for BYU!). It was kinda cool to meet somebody out here that knows what BYU is, much less went there.

Our next stop along the way was Gatlinburg, TN. This was a very big tourist town, but very cool at the same time! We just walked along and looked at different stores, ate some really good BBQ at Corky's and played mini golf at Hillbilly Golf. The golf course is up on the side of a mountain and you ride a cart up the side of the mountain. It was pretty fun, but not too different from a regular mini golf cart. The first picture is of the golf course, and the second picture is one of the many traps you would see on the course.

After Gatlinburg, TN we finished our drive for the day and we are now resting in Knoxville, TN. I'll try to put more pictures up when I have time. More adventures to come soon!