Trailer park dinosaurs and trout fishing.

Seth's first week of terminal leave was idyllic, and featured lots of backyard hangout time and evening card games and lots of never-taken-for-granted downtime to enjoy our kids. 

It also included torrential downpours and tornado warnings, during which I was summoned to DC to work and made an insane 24 hour trip in terrible weather.

Still, it was nice not to have worry about last-minute kid arrangements and whether they would forgive me for being gone. (Instead, I came home to nutella smeared on literally every fabric surface in the house and tired, happy kids who had become feral in a single day and had also been introduced to the Davy Crockett movie of my childhood. They did not miss me one bit.)

We made an early Saturday morning haul out to the Appalachian mountains in Tennessee, because I can't say no and had promised my old boss and sergeant major I would finally make one of their reunions at a fishing camp on the Watauga River. It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. F+F are finally big enough to play cabin board games,

not throw one another in the fire,

and get a huge kick out of lofted bunkbeds.

They were also delighted about a fleeting mountain snowstorm and the opportunity to fish with Dad,

basically their favorite thing ever.

Thanks to the snowfall, the water was running (so the trout weren't)

 

but that didn't stop us from playing tourist,

discovering (terrifyingly) that icicles are the perfect weapon,

and spending an unexpectedly warm Sunday casting on Wilbur Lake anyway.

Because we never let a tacky roadside adventure go unexplored, we also discovered this- no kidding- completely wild trailer park dinosaur attraction 

(a seriously bizarre hit and if you're ever in the far northeast corner of Tennessee you shouldn't miss it.)

Our roadtrip got us in late as usual on Sunday, so this Monday we're recovering- by which we mean doing literally mountains of laundry- and (apparently) supervising kitchen makeovers. Poor Ford.

Although he scored the photo of the week, after falling prey to Appalachian imperatives and toting around his popgun and this random cabin Bible all weekend. Which was both apropos and hilarious.