Gatlinburg, Tuesday, Day 2

Tuesday morning we decided to head over to the indoor water park. I personally was very nervous about this outing. Neither one of my children can swim, and I wasn't sure if there were toddler friendly areas at the park. (Plus the thought of taking off ALL of the winter gear, and stripping down to our bathing suits was exhausting all in itself without actually performing the task.) It turns out that the water park was very non swimmer friendly. They had two nice size areas that were only about a foot deep. Perfect for my two fish that can't swim. Eli and Hannah had the best time. They splashed, slipped down slides, and lived it up. The neatest part about the water park was the view. The place had windows on both sides, so while we sat in our bathing suits, in warm water, we were also able to enjoy the view of snow fall. Amazing, and a tad bit confusing for the senses.

I'm not sure how long we stayed at the park. My entire sense of time was lost on this trip sense I don't own a working watch and my Iphone was pretty much useless with no signal. I think we stayed a couple of hours. I know we stayed through lunch because I enjoyed one of the best burgers I think I've ever eaten. What can I say? I'm easy to please.

Once back at the condo the "I want to play in the snow!," "Can we go outside, PLEASE?" began. I decided to bring Eli this time since he missed out on then snow play the day before. Here are my two kids standing at the front door begging and pleading to head outside.

Eli's first step in the snow. As you can see he refused to wear gloves. That was a choice he and I both live to regret later.

Here is a glimpse of my next blog entry. We purchased a small, cheap, plastic sled at Wal-mart on Monday. Amy was bound and determined to find a place for the kids to try the sled. Well, either that or Amy just really wanted to sled, but we won't let that secret slip out.

Yes, she hit the fire hydrant. We deemed this spot unsafe. A trip to the hospital wasn't on our list of things to do in Gatlinburg. I'm pretty sure all hospitals are pretty much the same.

Stay tuned for more sledding pictures to come in the next post!

All The Pictures from Gatlinburg

We had three cameras, and lots of pictures (although I expected to have many more pictures.....what can I say, keeping track of 6 children on the side of a mountain distracted my attention a little.) Here are the three link to ALL the pictures in case you want to see everything and not just the few pictures I post in the entries.

Amy' Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40292&id=1639612685&ref=mf

Andrea's Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=1404083437#!/album.php?aid=147771&id=711589606&ref=mf

My Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=52889&id=1404083437&l=50cde35d5a

In Gatlinburg, Monday, Day 1

So Monday morning awoke to the most wonderful snow ever. It was breath taking. Big beautiful flakes that slowly swayed back and forth as they fell to the ground. Simply wonderful. We moms earned a few moments of quiet bliss to look out the window and then the kids got wind of what was going on and the whirl wind began. "Can we go play in the snow?" "When can we go outside in the snow?" "Can we make a snowman?" So the dressing began.

I never realized how difficult it is to get 6 small children ready to go out to play in snow. I applaud all individuals living where it is cold all year round. I am in awe of you. Why? Because I do believe in took about an hour to get all 6 children ready to go. Yes, I am sure we over did it, being true Southerners and all. Hannah was decked out in tights, socks, jeans, long sleeved t-shirt, sweater, rain boots (because I couldn't find her anything else), a hat that wrapped under her chin to keep her ears warm, nylon gloves to keep her hands dry and warm, and her winter coat with hood. (I decided to leave Eli inside this go round.) So after all the older kids were ready to go I headed out the door so they could play in the snow. Sadly it turned out the beautiful snow wasn't really making any head way in accumulating on the ground. There was maybe an inch, but I don't think the kids noticed nor cared. They made snow balls, and snow angels, and had the time of their lives. After about twenty minutes or so the snow play started to create mud and I decided it was time to head inside. The kids were not happy with my decision, but I promised more adventures later. They humphed, but headed inside.
The rest of the morning was filled Andrea and I heading to Wal-Mart to purchase the week's grocery items. Yes, we were on vacation and still planned to cook most meals in order to save some money. We're thrifty like that.

After returning with the food items we decided to find an adventure somewhere. We all dressed and headed to find the Ripley's Mirror Maze. It looked very exciting on the brochure. It wasn't. We ended up waiting for about 10 minutes while the ignorant people in front of us argued with the clerk about anything and everything they could find to complain about. And of course the lobby was set up as a candy shop....I mean anything else just wouldn't make sense. So we spent those 10 minutes saying, "Don't touch that." "No we aren't buying any candy right now." "NO, you may not eat that." Finally we paid our way and headed into the mirror maze. It was cool for about 5 minutes and then it got a little nauseating. As you can imagine it was all mirrors and hallways, but it was also very dark with this crazy red lighting. Pictures weren't even possible. The kids were amazed for a few minutes and then they got a little scared. Eli of course took off running and ran forehead first into a mirror. Not once, but twice. He came out with two big knots. Funny....but as his mother I didn't say that.

So after the flop of the Mirror Maze we walked around a bit looking for other things to do. We were so scared of being ripped off again that we eventually just headed back to the condo and cooked dinner. The kids had a great time playing with each other, and tearing apart the condo. I was surprised how well they got along. I do believe they best part of the trip for some of the kiddos was the huge bath tub. We bathed three at a time and they found that fascinating.

It was a pretty good day, at least I think Eli passing out on the couch would imply it was a good day.

Poor thing just couldn't hang any longer.

Hope he fuels up for tomorrow.

Day 2 coming soon!

The Road Trip to Gatlinburg

When my friend Amy first suggested a week vacation to Gatlinburg I was ecstatic. Yep, ecstatic. A week's vacation in a place I've been dying to go, during a time when it will probably snow...sounded like fun to me. Then my more logical side started mulling this over. A 10 hour car ride with my two children. By myself. Hmmm. Now, don't get me wrong. Crazy Hannah and Demon Child Eli are actually quite well behaved on road trips. We've made enough trips to Memphis and back, not to mention all the trips to Metairie and back, that as long as they have their DVD player going they really aren't much of a bother. BUT, the trip to Memphis is only about 6 hours, maybe 6 and a half on a bad day. That is a hop, skip, and a jump compared to a 10 or 11 hour drive. My logical side got the best of me, and I suggested that my kids and I would drive to Memphis on Saturday, stay with my parents for a day, and then head to Gatlinburg on Monday, arriving Monday evening. Yes, it would add about 200 miles to the trip, and Yes, we would miss a couple of days in Gatlinburg, but it breaks the drive up into two equal days of about 6 hours of driving. My kids can handle that no problem. Well, my two best friends were not hearing any of it. They chastised and said that the road trip was part of the fun.....and I gave in. I'm such a sucker for peer pressure.

So at 10:30am on Valentine's morning we started the trek to Gatlinburg. After many stops including one to Wal-Mart so that Amy could purchase another DVD player for the four kids in her van, it was about 8 hours into the drive when Eli had a breakdown. Please click http://kreemerkids.blogspot.com/2010/02/funny-quote-from-our-trip.html for details on that. My energy was down to almost nil. You see, when it gets dark my body believes it is time to sleep....not drive. Finally we stopped at Cracker Barrel. I was scared out of my skin at the thought of the disaster ahead of us with three exhausted mommies and six overly hyper children who have been sitting in car seats for 9 hours. My spidey senses screamed DANGER, DANGER, but I went along and smiled. After potty trips and a lot of "No, don't touch that!" in the store we were finally seated. The kids were behaving and probably would have done well if it hadn't taken the waitress about 15 minutes to take our drink orders. Yes, 15 minutes. We had a few mishaps at dinner, but to my surprise nothing major, and we headed down the road once again. The kids behaved pretty well. We finally arrived at the resort to check in. Amy ran inside to get the keys, information, etc. while we all waited outside. I thought wow, that wasn't that bad...and then Eli started to cry......and cough. Andrea got out of the van and came to my window to see how I was doing. I looked at her and said, "Eli is going throw up." (You see, whenever he cries too much, and then coughs on top of that...he throws up.) She stepped to his window I believe to try to calm him down, and he threw up. All over him and his car seat. Yep. And to think we almost made it without any major issues. Almost.

So finally Amy comes back, and the man in the golf cart leads us to our condo. The man in the golf cart then proceeds to take Amy inside and explain everything in the room. A process which took FOREVER!! The entire time Eli was screaming. Finally Amy came out. We decided the best course of action was to leave Eli in is car seat and take the entire thing inside and put it in the shower. So Eli received a chariot ride into the condo. Keep in mind that he was pant less because his diaper had leaked on his pants and it was about 30 degrees outside.....so he cried some more. In fact, I don't think he stopped crying until we got him into the tub filled with water. Then he was happy. While Eli hung out I went about the business of cleaning the car seat and getting all of our crap into the house. (I brought WAY too much crap!!) During my trips to the car and back my son, I guess not believing that a nice dose of throwing up wasn't enough to prove how unhappy he was about being in the car for 12 hours, decides to poop in the bathtub. Yep. Poop. I do believe that the next time my logical side puts forth a plan of action....I won't let peer pressure persuade me, and I will do as my logical side says. I finally got to bed at about 1:30am in the morning, exhausted, and ready to find a house in Gatlinburg because there was no way in hell I was going to make the trip home.

I woke up the next morning to the most beautiful snow fall I have ever seen, and it was completely worth the disaster of the previous night. I ran straight to the bedroom, grabbed Amy, dragged her to the window, and told her it was so worth it! Andrea agreed with that sentiment.

Funny Quote From Our Trip

Sometime during our trip (I can't remember what day, where we were going, or what we were doing, but I remember the words perfectly) Andrea gave me a sucker for Eli because he was acting a fool. And by "a fool" I mean crying and screaming as if someone was trying to rip his arm off of his body. I don't usually give in to charming the children with candy, but I was ready to give him a bath in ice cream if it would make him stop crying, so I was grateful to Andrea for having a sucker in her purse. Well, we arrived at our destination, where ever we were going, and some how, some way during the drive Eli's sucker attached its self to Hannah's pants leg. Don't ask me, I really don't know. Hannah gets out of the car, pulls the sucker from her pants leg and says, "This is NOT my perfect style." I couldn't contain the laughter.

OH, OH, I remember now!! It was the drive up to Gatlinburg. It was about 6pm and Eli was in the backseat just crying. Of course it was dark so I couldn't see, and of course Eli doesn't talk so as I'm asking questions, "Do you want gold fish?," "Do you want a cup?," etc. I can't see if he is shaking his head no, or if he is doing is his sign for Yes. Finally I called Andrea and asked to pull over. We did. I never did figure out what was wrong with Eli, but the sucker calmed his nerves, we got back on the road only to stop a short time later at Cracker Barrel where Hannah climbed out of the car and the notorious sucker was stuck to her pants!!!

Yay me! Maybe I'm not truly losing all of my marbles, just misplacing them! So, if you find any of my marbles, please return them! Thanks!