Rachel's Mother's Day Program

 Rachel's class threw the sweetest Mother's Day program today! She has been talking about this program for literally, weeks. They sang several really cute songs and also they played "It's A Wonderful World" that the kids had illistrated on posters. I cried. Of course. I loved seeing them sing and hearing the songs. So precious and you could tell that they had all worked so hard! We got a hand 'flower' place mat, a gorgeous Mother's plate they had made especially for us, a clay necklace that had been designed, glazed and fired for us, and a pot of 'forever' flowers with their pictures on it. We also received a book that the kids had made personal about their moms with their own answers in -- so, so cute! They got to bring home their ABC books that they had worked on all year as well, that Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Simerly had bound for them. After singing, they served us lemonade, cookies, and Hershey's Kisses. I shared mine with Rachel. I loved every minute of that program. I got several shots of the special Mother's Day art work that had been posted around the room and also several shots of Rachel with her closest friends. Rachel's friend Gracie had illistrated the song lyrics about friends shaking hands and drew her, Rachel and Allison, the girls in the picture - so cute. I know Rachel enjoyed the day and smiled so much. It was a wonderful day!

Clingmans Dome - North Carolina

 We decided on Friday to take the kids up to Clingmans Dome just over the North Carolina/Tennessee border. We hadn't done that trip yet and it was exciting for them to climb up to the observation tower and see all the mountains and how gorgeous it was. The best part of the trip though, I think, was all the bears we saw! It was definitely a good day to be a bear. The weather was beautiful and they were munching, munching, munching away at the leaves in the trees and all the dandilion flowers. We saw a total of 5 bears on our trip. The first one we saw was way up a tree in Metcalf Bottoms on our way up the mountain. This guy was eating and swaying in the breeze. Doug said he must have been about 75 feet up. He was a big one too! We also saw a Mama bear and two cubs on the way up the observation trail. There was some people who were crowding her though, so we moved on through, hoping she would wander back down the mountain away from the people trying to get so close to take pictures. The last little fellow we saw was clearly a cub and he wandered up the side of the ridge to the edge of the road as we were leaving -- We were in the car and I was able to use my zoom to really get some good pictures of him. He was a cute one! The kids were so excited to see him so close up. It was a great trip. We saw gorgeous sights, awesome bears and ended the day with a trip to Corky's BBQ in Pigeon Forge. Yummy.