Hello From Tennessee

As many have seen that recently visited our family blog, Trevor's Destination Imagination team won the regional and state competitions earlier this spring. Part of winning state means that his team gets to participate at the global finals currently underway in Tennessee at the University of Tennessee. Well, we finally made it here (after a lot of fundraising and donations, 3 plane rides and 4 hour in a car from Atlanta). Jennifer is being a good sport and holding down the fort while me and 3 other DI coaches/fathers (Matt, Robb, Jared) hang out with the kids and do the DI thing. Of course, inquiring moms want to know what the heck is going on with all their kids (I include myself in that group) all the time and so I thought I would do a little recap of the last 36 hours. For the blogging world out there- I'm sorry for the travelogue that will follow, please feel free to skip over and read about Jackson's tortilla chip eating habits!

Babe- here you go (some of the highlights):

Exhausted in the airport in Denver after our 3 am wake up call.

Excitement of finally arriving at Atlanta

This mornings big adventure was the Smoky Mountain Zipline Canopy Tour. Here's the whole group pausing for a photo after the trip with our two guides: Bodie and Cornbread (that's right I said cornbread):

On the way up the mountain:

Trevor in action

Check out Trev shooting down the cable from behind. Does that look fun or what?

Matt getting stuck before landing on the platform

A few of the little zippers

The whole zipline tour lasted almost 4 hours and left everyone ready for some good ol' southern BBQ. We stopped off at a place in Pigeon Forge that was recommended by one of our guides. Called:

If you look closely, you'll see Robb acting a little goofy inside the window.

As soon as we got back to Knoxville, Trevor and the team was dying to get out in the courtyard to do pin trading, a very big deal here at DI. I send some pen photos tomorrow.

That lead up to dinner in the student dining hall and then the global grand opening here at the University of Tennessee. A few things we saw.

We decided that we would rather stay up late and get up late rather than adapt our bodies to East coast time, so the kids headed on down to the swimming pool after the opening ceremony to "cool off" (it's in the mid 80's and a little humid).

We are all running on a little more than 6-7 hours of sleep over the last two days, so I am thinking that we will crash hard tonight in our luxurious accomodations. Only one day here and already its looking like the college dorm room that it is.

More to come tomorrow. Miss everyone.