Merry Christmas!

We have been having an exciting day here, but now we are winding down for rest time. During this time I thought I would share a few pictures of our trip to Chattanooga. While there we got to spend time with both of my brothers and their families. The boys had a lot of fun playing with their older cousins.

wrestle-time with Adam

They also had fun being the older cousins with their younger second cousins (my niece's children). In fact, Olivia declared on Sunday that she would rather play with "Jo-Joel" (which she used for both of the boys) than go to church.

tickle-time with Olivia and "Eban"

We mostly just hung out, but we did spend one night walking through the Enchanted Lights at Rock City. If you have ever driven through the southeastern US you have probably seen signs declaring your need to "See Rock City". We had been there before, but the boys hadn't, so they can now cross that off of their to-do list.

The boys got to see Santa at Rock City! They had gotten to see him earlier at Evan's school, but I didn't have any pictures of that. Since Evan had already seen Santa and asked for his Star Wars Wii game, he decided to ask for a toy gun this time. (He didn't get a toy gun.) You can tell that it is almost Christmas because Santa looks kind of sleepy.

You can see this star from below the city. As you drive up to Rock City you can also see a waterfall running behind the star. If you click on the picture you can see some of the lights from the city below and get an idea of where Rock City is on the mountain.

There are some tight spots in Rock City, and this was walking down into Fairy Tale Caverns.

Here we are walking across one of the stone bridges. I believe that this was the point in our tour where 7-year-old Luke declared that he had been walking so long "he felt like he was walking to Jesus." He had previously decided that a lighted stair step looked like a Stairway to Heaven. Later we were walking through a section dubbed "Candyland", and Luke exclaimed. "I'm in heaven!" Evan and Joel picked that phrase up as well.

We had a good trip, but we are glad to be home now. I will post more later on our Christmas Day back at home later. We hope and pray that you are all enjoying Christmas and are celebrating God's love for us through the gift of Jesus!