Pigeon Forge, Marriage Retreat, and Sailing on the Titanic

Creig and I have been in Pigeon Forge, TN for the past few days for the Great Smoky Mountain Marriage Retreat!  It has been fantastic!  Creig and I honeymooned in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area almost 6 years ago, so it was nice to come back for a few days!

We arrived Wednesday around 2:30 pm and checked into our hotel.  After picking up some things at Walmart and having dinner at ChickfilA, we headed to the Sevierville Church of Christ for their evening services at 7pm.  What a nice and welcoming group of people!  We truly enjoyed worshipping with them.    Excitingly, when I happened to turn around during the bible class I saw Brian and Amy Steel walk in.  They are from Missouri, and Creig actually went to high school with them.  We hadn't seen them in a couple of years, so we were all so excited to see each other!  Here are a few pictures of the views we saw on our way into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

Beautiful!  I still have some of the pictures we took on our honeymoon in these same exact locations!  We  took pictures of each other out in this beautiful scenery!  Here is our attempt at one together...of course, there was no one else around to take a picture of us, so we did the best we could!

The Marriage Retreat is planned and facilitated by the Jacksonville Church of Christ, and they did a wonderful job!  We met another couple at the retreat from Florida and they told us they came for the first time in 2005.  They said in 2005 there were only 20 couples.  This year there were 900 people in attendance!  The schedule for the retreat is planned so that the couples in attendance not only get to attend the seminars but, that they also get to spend a lot of time together.

On Thursday, the sessions were at 7pm and 8pm, so we had all day Thursday to do whatever we wanted to!  Creig and I woke up around 7am and headed to the exercise room at the hotel to work out together.  It was nice, because we never get to workout together at home.  Afterwards we went to breakfast at the Applewood Grill at the Apple Barn and Cider Mill....AWESOME place!  The breakfast was fantastic!
We then spent a few hours walking around at Books A Million and the Tanger Outlets.  We bought Meredith a few surprises or as we like to call it a "searcy".  My parents always called our surprises a searcy and I tend to do this with Meredith too!  After our sessions on Thursday night we were pretty tired.

Today, the sessions started at 9:30 am and ended at 3pm.  We had breakfast at Louie's Grille inside our hotel before heading downstairs to the convention center for the retreat.  We had lunch with Brian and Amy Steel, and were excited to be able to see Jerry and Bonnie Prince.  Creig has known them for years, and Bonnie actually helped give me my bridal shower in Missouri.  They moved to Alabama a few years ago.  Jerry and Bonnie were in Pigeon Forge with a group of teens for WinterFest.  It was great to see them and catch up a little.

Since the Marriage Retreat ended at 3pm we were able to go out to eat dinner tonight.  Creig took me to Red Lobster and then surprised me by offering to go to the Titanic Museum. I think he was tired of hearing me talk about it!  It was far better than I had imagined!  We had a wonderful time, and spent hours in there!  This museum was was done by the man who actually found the Titanic in his ocean voyage in the 1980's.  They had all the original artifacts, stories, etc.  They even had the Titanic staircase rebuilt exactly the way it was on the original ship.  I love history...and I was in history heaven!

Unfortunately, they did not allow anyone visiting to use cameras or have their cellphones on in the museum, but I did get this picture of the outside.  We were able to touch a live growing iceburg inside, and touch 28 degree ocean water (the temperature of the water the night the Titanic sank).  It was frigid!
We were able to get a picture of each other outside in front of one of the Titanic anchors.  It was huge!

Tomorrow morning we will head home!  We have had a wonderful time, but we both agree that we have missed our Meredith.  Can't wait to see her and give her a searcy.  We definitely plan to make this trip again next year!