Tennessee and Flat Hailey

My brother recently moved to Tennessee, making him within a reasonable driving distance for a weekend visit. It is really great to have him live relatively close after having him live in Korea for 4 years. The girls adore their Uncle Clint, and love any chance we get to see him. Chris had a free weekend, so we decided to take a quick trip to go check out his new house. We had a wonderful visit.

A new angle that made our trip extra special was the addition of Flat Hailey. My niece Hailey is currently doing a Flat Stanley unit in her class at school. -If you are not familiar with Flat Stanley, you can learn about him here.- For a different spin on this story, Hailey's teacher had the students make flat themselves to send off in the mail. Flat Hailey arrived the morning of our trip, so we just took her along with us for an adventure in Tennessee. It really was a lot of fun coming up with different pictures to take with Flat Hailey. Even though it was just a piece of paper, it was sort of like having a bit of the actual Hailey with us on our trip. Thanks for visiting us Flat Hailey!

Road Trippin'! Kate did quite well in the car despite the 5 hour drive. It is amazing what a difference having two helpers in the back makes...Morgan and Rachael both took turns playing with Kate for me, freeing me up to visit with Chris. They were still able to relax and watch a movie too. Pretty much the best of both worlds...

Flat Hailey in front of the Tennessee welcome sign.

Rachael showing off her Magna-Doodle skills.

Kate rocking out on one of Uncle Clint's drum sets. I say one of because he has three set up in his basement. The girls all had fun playing with his drums. It was really sweet of him to let them play them.

Of course Flat Hailey had to have a turn on the drums as well...

Rachael drummin'. The picture is kind of blurry, but it is the only one that I have that shows the sheer size of this drum set. It is difficult to tell, but the set is made out of maple and is really quite beautiful.

Uncle Clint with Flat Hailey in front of a speed limit sign. Speed Limit 24 mph? What?!? Have you ever seen that before? We sure hadn't...

Morgan and Flat Hailey at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Couldn't resist the Flat Hailey sized guitar. How cool is that?

On our way home, we made a few historical stops in Kentucky. First, we stopped by the monument to Jefferson Davis. He was the president of the Confederate States during the Civil War. -This one we came upon by accident. We missed an exit and ended up on a state road in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. We noticed signs indicating an upcoming historical site in honor of Jefferson Davis. Neither of us recognized the name, so we didn't think much of it. The next thing we knew, we saw a rather large obelisk right in front of us. 351 ft. tall, right there in the middle of nowhere. Of course then we had to google this guy to find out who he was. (Oh, that Jefferson Davis...) It turns out he was born the same year as Abraham Lincoln, in the same state, just about 100 miles away. Go figure.

Flat Hailey needed her picture taken in front of this monument for sure. It is not every day you happen upon a 351 ft. obelisk in the middle of nowhere Kentucky.

Our last stop on the way home was at the Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. This was actually really cool. We watched a 15 minute little video about the young Abe and checked out a replica cabin to the one he was born in. The monument is located on the spot where the original cabin once resided, and there are 56 steps leading up to the monument; one for each year of his life. It is a beautiful monument.

Rachael and Morgan at our last stop. They have learned about Abraham Lincoln in school, so this was a neat stop for them to make. Completely worth the time it added to our trip home.

Flat Hailey in front of the monument. Rachael and Morgan are in the background, having just climbed the 56 steps for the picture.