Weekend in Knoxville.

In celebration of our Anniversary, we decided to take a weekend trip to Knoxville, TN. We used to do glass/bead shows here, so were familiar with some of the fun things Knoxville has to offer. The glass shows were held in the Jacob building of Chilhowee Park, and the Knoxville Zoo is right across the parking lot.



Here we are in front of Black bear falls. Some of the exhibits here are really nice.

The kids were able to get right up to black bears, and see them up close. The bears used the tunnels to get out of the sun, they couldn't see us.

The Elephants had a really nice outside area, although they were very far away. Inside we were able to see just how big an elephant really is! They are Huge! It was neat to see them so upclose!

This zoo had so much for the kids to do! There was traveling indoor exhibit called Wee PlayZoo.
It was really neat! The kids had so much fun working in the pizza shop, dressing up, working in the vet clinic and becoming zoo workers for the day! It was really fun for them and the air conditioning was a nice break from the outside!

The zoo also had a huge children's area called Kids cove. There was a petting zoo, giant sandbox, indoor climbing structures, a carousel and this frog pond.

After the zoo we headed to the hotel. It had a pool and hot tub that we all enjoyed!



On Monday we went back to Chilowee park to check out the Discovery Center (it's on our museum passport). It really wasn't all that exciting, it was very small...so we didn't stay long. Afterwards we took a walk around the duck pond. The Discovery center is the white building in the background.

The we headed downtown to the World's Fair Park. We started off at the Kid's fort oplayground. It was way too warm to play for long though, so we headed to the Splash pad.

The kids love this! We spent most of the day here playing in the water.

Before leaving we checked out the Sunsphere. You can take an elevator up to observation deck. These are some pictures of the park from the Sunsphere.

We had a great weekend, it was lots of fun for everyone. i took way too many pictures as usual and you can see more here if you'd like.