Hooray for DollyWood!

Chip and I have always thought we were pretty decent parents. I mean, sure, sometimes we laugh when our kids burp at the dinner table or shake their booty in public places. We maybe buy Cooper too many superhero t-shirts and let Kendall watch one too many Dora the Explorer episodes when I want to get some more laundry done. Overall though, we feel we do a pretty good job...we insist on "please" and "thank you" and talking in well-mannered, kind voices. We teach manners and respect for grown-ups and sharing with what we believe to be amazing vigilence. Alas, apparently we had nothing on any other parents in the East Tennessee region until a couple of weeks ago. We've gone the whole life of our 5 year old without one single trip to Dollywood. GASP!

All it took was a little visit from Cousin Kali and we had our whole day planned in the DW. We brought along Grammy so our child to adult ratio was a perfect 1:1 and there couldn't have been a better decision made. What we assumed would be several hours turned into all day. We arrived before 11AM and didn't leave until 7PM. And by golly, not a single Dolly sighting the entire day.

We haven't been to Dollywood in about 8 years. So, we walked what seemed to be a few miles to the "new part" where we found the Best Ride Ever. I don't remember the proper name, but we call them "The Shooting Boats" which is exactly what they did.

Hopefully you can properly see the damage in the photo. And, hopefully you'll come to my house to protect me if my mother comes to shoot me for posting this. But, they are D-R-E-N-C-H-E-D. And it was hilarious.

So, we're in the kids' section and we are walking past the roller coaster and Kendall says "Hey! I wanna go on that!" Um. Ok, sure. And Chip and I exchange looks that say "you wanna place bets on how long it takes her to start screaming?" But she never did. She LOVED it and wanted to keep going back. She also enjoyed the flying elephants, the Raging River Rampage, and begged to ride the Mountain Slidewinder and the gigantic loop-de-loop "grown-up" roller coasters. Go figure.

Can you see the joy and excitement on Cooper's face? He got to ride so many car-related rides that day I thought we would never get him to leave.

Luckily Kendall had Kali to ride with her on all the smaller rides because Cooper was too busy begging for bumper cars to worry about that stuff.
This was our first "ride." I am not sure I've seen such joy on my son's face as I did at that moment. I mean, he's 5, obsessed (seriously) with cars and he actually got to DRIVE.

Don't worry, Dolly, we'll be back sometime this weekend and you can catch us then.

A Milestone

As with any parent, we've witnessed a lot of milestones in our lives so far. In the past 5 years we've seen many...crawling, walking, talking as well as the first time we've heard our children sing, dance and laugh. All have been equally amazing for Chip and I both.

For the kids, though? Not so much. I don't think they really care that the first time they recited a bible verse brought tears to our eyes or the first time they ever danced made us risk life and limb to get a video camera. No, they care more about the important things in life, like earning something out of the treasure box or using their piggy bank money to buy a new toy. However, they recently reached another milestone in their little lives and they couldn't have been more excited about it...they received their very first trophy!

GO BRAVES!

We owe such a huge thanks to Coach Tommy (left) and Coach Bartley (right) for teaching our kids what it means to have fun in organized sports. Our little bitty Alcoa Wee Ball league got a little out of hand with some of the other teams and coaches. We were amazingly disappointed in many of the adults that were involved with the other teams, but Coach Tommy handled himself in such a mature manner that we are very proud we were part of his Braves!

Put To Shame

Life has been a little wild and crazy lately and to be honest, blogging has been far from my mind. Well, don't get me wrong, much like I see photography opportunities as I drive down the road everyday, I also "see" blogs in my funny little brain everyday as we go about our mundane activities. However, with Vacation Recovery that took over a week, a visit from our favorite Wilbourn Girls, and a little straggling niece that decided to skip the annoying carride home with her mother and sister...life has been, well, busy. And interesting. And a tiny bit of fun. And...consisting mostly of cleaning up after 3 children while entertaining 3 children, trying to get 3 children to and from said entertainment, fixing breakfast, lunch and dinner for 3 children, doing laundry for 3 children...you following me???

Lots of fun and exciting things have happened and are more than blog-worthy. That's why, when I started seeing my blog-friends posting blogs before me, and multiple times after, I felt an increasing feeling of crazy shame. I mean, no offense dear Painters or my sister-in-law, but when you don't post a blog for 6 months, I'm not going to be happy when you beat me to my next post after a mere 3 weeks.

So, while I'm editing a massive amount of photos from the previous 3 weeks, preparing to say goodbye to Grandad for another mission trip to Africa, settling in for my last weekday off with my kids before fulltime daycare and kindergarten starts, and getting through the 12 inche pile of mail and to-do lists I have...here is a sneak peak at what we've been up to.

Don't worry, Kendall is 3 and gets in free. We didn't forget to get her one.

See you soon!