On the Road Again...

On Wednesday July 12th, the kids and I and Nana hit the road for Virginia. We decided to take 3 days to get there so we could have some fun!

ChickFilA Catastrophe

Day 1 was stormy, and very standard East Texas/Lousiana nothing. So we needed something to shake things up a bit! An hour or two before we stopped in Tuscaloosa for the night, we found a nice ChickFilA just off the freeway in Meridian Louisiana. Kids were hungry and anxious to stretch their legs. Things were going smoothly until Millie came bursting out of the playroom covered in poop! She had taken Noah down the slide, who was apparently leaking poop which smeared on the slide and on Millie as she scooted down behind him. Rodna took Noah to the bathroom, while I cleaned up the slide and then grabbed my keys to go get Millie a change of clothes. Before I even made it out to the car, Simon came waddling out of the play area, with poop running down his legs. Seriously?? So I dragged him out to the car. Wiped him down and changed him, grabbed shorts for Millie, new clothes and more wipes for Noah. What a disaster! We left immediately after cleanup, trying not to look at anyone in the eyes, because I am sure with all the ruckus we caused, it was pretty obvious what was going on!! Thank goodness we did make it to the hotel in Tuscaloosa AL in time for the kids to swim in the pool.

GoodTimes in Gatlinburg

The next day, Rodna and I decided to be adventurous and plotted our course through the Smokey Mountain National Park in Tennessee. We stopped at the Ocoee River Center after watching tons of river rafters going down the really beautiful and quite exciting looking river. Then we headed into the National Forest as we passed a neat little town of Cherokee. The river at the bottom of the mountains was really cool and misty, had this sort of rolling fog that was constantly there. As we drove the little scenic route, and climbed up the Smokies, we noticed the misty smoke-like fog rising up out of the mountains, hence its name "The Smokey Mountains". It was really pretty and unique. As we pulled off the scenic route, we drove right into the town of Gatlinburg. We had no idea this place existed, and we were immediately enticed by the adorable authentic Tennessee charm of this quaint little tourist town. There was live music and entertainment along the main street, a barbershop quintet, several bluegrass bands, and a few little girls clogging in their costumes, which is probably what drew us in. Even though we had four crazy couped up kids with us, we decided to take a walk down mainstreet and get treats and enjoy the festive atmosphere for an hour or two.

After dancing to bluegrass and enjoying a funnel cake we pulled out of Gatlinburg. We passed through a town called Pigeon Forge, which was also a surprisingly fun little town, with crazy family activity centers lining the streets. We probably passed 20 go-cart/miniature golf places! We had to keep going though, because it was getting late and we didn't get to our hotel until almost midnight anyway.

"Home" at Last

The last day we slept in and finally made it to Vienna around 7pm. And our Daddy and Papa were happy to see us!! As we pulled up to the house...our driveway is rather long and steep...we headed up the hill toward a gorgeous two story stone faced brand new home with a garage, and then curved sharply to the right into our humble blacktop driveway next to our little old "fixer-upper" that has a tiny bit of charm peaking through its double-paned cobweb filled windows. And then I heard Millie cry out from the back "Awwwww...I thought that one was our house!!" (pointing to the house nextdoor.)

Awesome....we are definitely not in California anymore....

NO MORE PICTURES MOM!!!