Our Weekend Road Trip

This past Thursday, Andy and I loaded up the Suburban with the kids and left for the beautiful state of Tennessee and headed to Dollywood with some friends of ours.  We love taking trips to the mountains, especially since this is where Andy and I got married.  :-) 

This trip started out very good....

It did not take me long to pack for this trip.  After all of our luggage was in the back of the Suburban, I looked and we had so much room.  I thought to myself we are missing something. 

Wait a minute....I know......we are missing a stroller, lots of toys, extra luggage from extra kids, floats and cooler. 

When you do not have all of this in the back of a car, wow,,,,,,,there is ROOM! 

This is the first trip that we have ever taken away from home that I did not have a stroller.  It was kinda sad!  :-(  My babies are growing up and no longer need a stroller. 

Our trip down to Dollywood was great.  We stopped at K&W Cafeteria for a great dinner!  Everyone eat great and all tummies were full! 

On the road again....it is now around 8:30 at night and we still have 4.5 hours to go.  The boys are busy playing their game boys and Courtney was busy playing on her laptop.  Our trip was going great.  One stop for a bathroom break and one change up in drivers and we were finally arrived.

We stayed at The Wilderness Lodge!!  It was awesome!  Perfect view of some mountains, indoor water park, convenient to lots of shopping!  Wouldn't you know this place has a bunk-bed type bed above a queen bed.  You know it .... the boys were fighting over who was going to have the top bunk.  Well thank God they decided to share and both of them could sleep up there.  Needless to say if Connor would have just give in once Carter got really sleepy he would not want to be there.  You know he wants to be right near his Mommy!  :-0 

Bed time come and Connor and Courtney slept by themselves and Carter with Andy and I.  He is the baby so that is O.K. 

Wake up call on Friday morning.....7:00.  Our friends Amy and Robbie have the sweetest little girl and she is our automatic alarm clock on vacation!  After everyone showered and had few fights, off to Dollywood we went. 

You will never guess who was there......Santa Clause......we eat breakfast at Dollywood and Santa came over to visit the children at our table.  He was dressed in normal clothing and was jolly as ever.  He gave the children a naughty / nice card.  All of them received a nice check mark.  He should have followed us around Dollywood and they would have give him a few reasons to change his mind.

After spending the whole entire day at Dollywood the crew was tired.  We all wanted to crash.  We headed back to the resort and went straight to dinner.  The kids were so excited they could hardly eat.  They sit us right in front of the indoor water park.  Carter says .... this is the life.  All of the kids gazed at the window looking out.  They were so amazed at what they saw and to be honest, I was too. 

Dinner, well lets just say it was a bit expensive for what we got but it was good.  After we all were stuffed Andy and Robbie headed to the Bass Pro and Amy, the 4 little ones and myself headed to make Pottery at the Polka Dot Shop!  Boy did we make some great Christmas presents!  They had to literally run us out of the shop.  We stayed until closing and still did not finish.

Saturday morning, well Amy beat me up.  We had to go finish our pottery and The guys were responsible for feeding the kids.  So now all of the pottery is done and its time for the water park.  This place was amazing.  We got Andy on his first family ride on the water slides.  I don't think he will ever do it again!  I really had to do some talking to get him to go on the slide.  Each time we take a trip to the mountains we get Andy to try a new adventure.  In the fall of last year we got Andy on the "Mystery Mine" his first roller coaster!  He never will get on one again.  The kids enjoyed the park and loved every minute of the water time!

Saturday night we did dinner at the Apple Barn ~ Best food ever.  After that we went over to the outlets shopping for some much needed clothing for the boys.  Then you know it, back to the resort to start packing up for our trip back home.

Well when all of our little House Family laid their heads down, all bags were packed and all luggage was on the luggage cart.  They were prepared to get home and go Trick-r-Treating. 

Sunday morning, we got up had another great meal at the famous Apple Barn then back to the hotel to pick up the pottery that we had made and then we are on our way home.

Now when we go places I do not do much driving....Directions and me = Do not get along!  I start out on the interstate and Andy tells me to stay straight....Well I stayed straight!  Andy wakes up and says where are we.  I said I don't know I tried to wake you up and tell you the GPS was going crazy and wanted me to turn around but you said stay straight.  Needless to say....I did no do anymore driving. 

We made it home safe and happy and we all had FUN!!!