Its that time of year again where the wife and I take off, for our Anniversary and spend a quite vacation away from the kids.  This year we’ve decided to take a romantic las vegas vacation for our anniversary.  Well it might not be so romantic but its sure bound to be packed with fun and excitement.  We went through tons of headaches trying to decided where to go but you can read about that in the link above as my wife wrote about it on another site.  She’s quite nervous as this will be the first time since she was a little girl that she has been on an airplane, but driving for this vacation was out of the question.  I’m not real sure about going out there in August with the extreme temperatures they have but It coincide with a pool tournament that a friend is playing in.  It will be nice to not only spend time together but get to meet up with some friends and cheer them on in their attempts to win the las vegas 8 ball tournement.  I’ll update everyone when we get back.

We were just about to head out on vacation last week when my wife went to find the luggage and discovered the bedroom closet floor was soaked.  We were just hours from leaving as all the things that needed packed were laid out on the bed ready to get loaded.  While she continued on with the packing I went on a mad dash to find out the source of the water that had damaged the closet.  I found that the water heater was leaking out the the bottom and was dripping at a pretty heavy click.  Unfortunately do to the slope of the floor where the leak was located the water didn’t go down the floor drain but promptly headed under the wall and into the bedroom closet.  Since we were heading out for a week long visit to Lake Erie I just shut the water off, called a local plumber and scheduled to have a new water heater installed when we got back.  After getting everything out of the closet and doing some more investigating it appears the leak had been going on for sometime and repairing water damage was going to be a bigger chore than I thought. We would have to not only replace the carpet but there was extensive damage done to the drywall in the closet.  Not wanting mold and mildew to take over and destroy everything in the closet I put a floor fan in to help dry out the area while we were away.  It just never fails when we get ready to go on a big vacation something always happens to put a kink in our plans. Thank goodness we discovered it before we left know telling what it would have looked like when we got back.

After looking for different ideas of places to go with my family during spring break, I’ve decided to head for the hills.   The Smoky Mountains to be exact.  I ran across a site that had a great review of a Smoky Mountain Family Vacation and I like the pictures the author posted showing all the waterfalls in the Smoky Mountains that it convinced me to head their this year.  I’ve never really stayed in that area of Tennessee, North Carolina, or spent any time to speak of in any mountainous area so this should be a great family adventure.  I’d be happy to hear from any of you that have stayed in the Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge area that might have some suggestions on the best place for my family and I to spend our week in the national park.  I’m not overly interested in camping.  A nice mountain cabin or a quality hotel  would probably work best.  I looked at several sites with reviews of accommodations in the Smoky Mountains but many seem to just be rehashed versions of the same thing.  If you’ve been to the Smoky Mountain National Park recently feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments.