Highlights From Visiting Alabama

This is the first time I ever saw fields of cotton. I know about the cotton flying through the air from the Cottonwood trees at home, but I have never seen cotton on the bush. I've been here so many times but we've never been in October (harvest season for cotton) and we rarely visit the rural areas when we do visit. Just kind of interesting.
The second day we visited Tate Farms; it was filled with so many fun things to do for kids. Here they are on top of huge tires for climbing.
Here is an overexposed picture of Papa, Nana, Jackson, Frank, and Gavin on the wagon ride out to the Pumpkin Patch.
This is a super-long tube that you can slide down. Camberlyn would only go down on my lap. Gavin and Jackson could have spent hours going down this. They loved it.
The kids also loved playing in these big pits of corn kernels. They would bury each other and also jump off the sides into the pile. This part was shaded and therefore, mom and dad's favorite part as well.
These huge wagons were filled with freshly-picked cotton. So soft and fluffy, but kind of dusty so the kids didn't stay in there long.
Here is the whole family with the Ninja turtles. They had random characters throughout the whole area. Kind of fun for pictures.
The third day we headed up to the Smoky Mountains-5 hours away. Look how gorgeous it is driving through. So many trees.
Here is nearing the top of the Smokies. Here you can see why they are named what they are. Smoke (a mixture of pollution created from the trees in the mountains and fog) that lingers across the whole range. It's beautiful. The best time to see most of the "smoke" is in the morning and as the day goes on it dissipates.
We are at Clingsman Dome, the highest point in the Smokies. It's gorgeous. I couldn't get over the beauty and difference there is from the Wasatch mountains. Not any more beautiful, just different.
When we came back from our weekend in the Smokies we carved pumpkins. Here are the kids creations.
While we were gone on our weekend adventure we stopped in a little town ran by Cherokee indians. The boys picked up these awesome slingshots and nana got them to work slinging hickory nuts down into the ditch.
This is the bridge in the backyard that crosses a ditch. This is the boys favorite thing to do: explore the ditch, look for rocks, snakes, and Cicada shells, all the while trying to keep your eye our for poison ivy. Good times.