Taking Advantage

We had a beautiful weekend forecasted and we took full advantage of it. As soon as we saw the news on Monday morning, we had our weekend mapped out. Its been a pretty cold winter so far and we've had far less nice days than normal, which brings out my winter blues and the kids get a serious case of cabin fever. It doesn't help that they could play outside, swing, and ride bikes in 12 degree weather and not even blink, so the "it's too cold" excuse doesn't really fly well with them. So, after a morning of catching up at work, we picked the kids up fresh from their nap and headed to the zoo. The new weatherwoman (meteorologist is a pretty strong statement here) on our local station predicted possibly a gray day, but a warm one, in the 50's with no rain. We drove the 40 minutes to the zoo under a gray sky, yes, in addition to some pretty serious sprinkles with the temps in the 40's. We kept on trucking though, determined to enjoy some fresh air.

Kendall met one of the few animals that we saw (probably because they were indoors) with a smile.

The only other animals we really saw that weren't birds or swimming were the zebras, the red pandas and the goats. Although I was fairly certain I didn't have anything in my pockets, I was pretty popular in the goat area .

Afterwards, we enjoyed a momentous occasion...the kids' first experience with Olive Garden breadsticks. YUM.

Our plan for Saturday was a hike. The kids really enjoy the mountains in any capacity...picnics, swimming, throwing rocks and even hiking. "Hiking" is a term we use loosely, as we have to scour the hiking guides for anything that says "the easiest of the easy." This is probably the part of the Smoky Mountains we enjoy the most with our kids. When Chip and I were dating, we spent what seemed like every weekend hiking. To raise our children doing the same is proving to be a wise decision. I would reveal where we went on Saturday, but we unknowingly did some pretty serious trespassing, so I'd have to kill you if I told you.

Little River Trail in Elkmont gets the thumbs up from Cooper (oops, did I just say that?)

Cooper's favorite mountain past-time, skipping rocks.

Later we drove home through Gatlinburg and enjoyed lunch and a photo opportunity in the big rocker. We also enjoyed telling Cooper "no, we are not going to the aquarium" about 872 times.

We hope you all had a great weekend, too. If you live in the East TN area, I hope you're on a first-name basis with Noah...you may need his services before the night is through.

My Blood Runs Orange

It's been a wild 24 hours for any Tennessee Volunteer fan. For those of you that do not live in Tennessee, within 300 miles of any SEC school, OR in the state of California (did I cover it all?), you may not have heard that Tennessee's head coach decided to leave for USC yesterday, presumably taking the top 10 recruiting class with him. This less than 14 months after he loudmouth-ed his way into Tennessee declaring that he didn't even like the color orange (I mean, seriously...we didn't see this coming?), raking in a few NCAA violations along the way. I actually did work today, but for some reason could not stay off of the UT sports websites and, mostly, Facebook, to see what the latest information was. After being on Facebook for about 3 minutes, I thought I might actually blog today using mostly direct quotes from my "friends." Some were so humorous they deserved more recognition. Some were rather scary...I would have felt like I was only fueling the fire, and some were so maddening that I changed my mind altogether. I was only moderately confused when I heard that they were actually burning things in the streets of Knoxville (a UT Snuggie people? I truly don't get the point of that).

The low point of my day today was not actually the sinking in of the news from last night (I never liked the guy, ask my husband), but people on facebook who actually got mad at those of us posting UT/Lane Kiffin news as our status updates instead of something about the people in Haiti. To give you an idea of how I feel about this, here is my status update from this morning "My 2 favorite quotes of the past 15 hours have been 'Can Bruce Pearl coach football' and 'Phillip Fulmer for UT AD!' Oh, and just so we're clear, I can be frustrated with UT athletics AND pray for people in Haiti at the same time. I'm a multi-tasker like that."

A lot of blog ideas came to mind today, but when I saw multiple people that seemed disappointed in those that were posting about UT football, I decided I needed to blog about one thing: the passion that is UT football. Although it's borderline embarrassing that people care enough to burn an orange Snuggie (honestly, such a waste!!), the only thing that fueled that fire, no pun intended, is the passion that people feel when we feel like we've been disappointed, or better, duped. Lane Kiffin duped all Tennessee fans into thinking he was exactly what we needed. Everyone fell for "I'm going to turn this program around" not because we're stupid, but because we wanted to believe that Tennessee football was going to be back on top. Everyone that is angry with Lane Kiffin today is angry mostly because he took away an excellent recruiting class. What makes people angry enough that they're burning Kiffin t-shirts and calendars and talking about throwing oranges at his house, is because he obviously didn't buy into the whole Tennessee spirit to begin with. He gave up important, time-honored traditions and Vol fans are entirely too passionate about Tennessee football to simply be okay with that. Take away the importance of the Game Maxims before a game and you're going to have some trouble. And, I repeat, he admitted he didn't like orange. Who was this guy?

Long story, short, I'm okay with Facebook and the nightly news being 90% about Lane Kiffin and UT. It means we're in the news again for something other than weapons and drug charges. It means UT has a better idea of what they don't want in a football coach. Most importantly, it proves our blood truly does runs orange, like we've always been claiming. All I know is, if I were in trouble and needed help or protection, you better believe I'd want a crazed and angry UT fan on my side.

And for the record, I'm still praying for people in Haiti.

GO VOLS

Worst Week

Last year, Chip and I enjoyed the cancelled television sitcom, "Worst Week." It was probably short-lived because of the painful predictability, but Chip and I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was fun to laugh hysterically at the idiocracy of the main character and laugh even more at all the miserable things that continued to happen to him and his family. That is, we used to laugh hysterically. Until it happened to us.

Monday 2AM: Kendall wakes up with a stomach bug. It continues (about 15 times) through the early morning hours until mid-morning, when my stomach bug quickly came on board.

Monday 10AM: I beg my mother via text messages to come and take care of my daughter. I'm going downhill fast and don't think I can care for her. Luckily she's laying on the couch in a dehydrated stupor, slowly sipping water and watching cartoons, sans blinking.

Monday 12PM: I think I may be dying. I'm crying and begging for mercy. The stomach cramps have ensued.

Monday 2:00PM: Thanks to a mix-up with a doctor's appointment, Chip has a few hours free and takes me to the emergency room. I wait for over an hour to even be seen in triage and I am crying in front of all the other patients, staff and volunteers. Not my finest moment. I nearly pass out on the triage nurse. I mean, I had to prove my point somehow.

Monday 6PM: We're home after fluids, demerol and phenegren. I have no idea of the exact time, much less who was caring for my children or even what day it might have been or who is the President of the United States.

Tuesday morning: All is relatively well. I'm still in a drug-induced fog (I don't do well with one of those meds, so two was a little over the top) so Chip quickly dresses the kids for school (Kendall is jumping and skipping through the house, hydrated and begging for her school friends). I sleep until noon. I wake up, even cook dinner for the rest of the family and have a relatively good day...I picked the kids up from school, bathed them by myself and all was good. I sat at the table, had a light dinner and even a snack before going to bed feeling great.

Wednesday 5AM: Repeat "Monday" for Summer. Called my doctor's office and went in for more fluids.Because of my dehydration, they tried 4 times before finding a vein. Good times. While Chip was visiting on his lunch break, my heart starting racing pretty badly. Long story short, doctor called an ambulance. I know, I know. It sounds WAY more dramatic than it was. I felt like a little old man being wheeled out of ETMG. My heart was a lot better by the time I got to the hospital (a side effect of the dehydration, nothing to be concerned with, my Friends!). My nurse there even remembered me, she was the triage nurse I almost fell on top of on Monday. This is SO not a place I want to be recognized. They started me on more fluids and convinced me, kicking and screaming, to spend the night and continue getting fluids until Thursday.

Wednesday, Rest of the Evening: Boredom ensues at Blount Memorial Hospital, but Chip is happy as he can watch the 6 remaining scholarship players for UT play basketball on TV. We laugh at the fact that I am a patient on the Coronary Care floor (the only one without a walker, it appeared). My nurse didn't quite know what to do with me. I literally answered "no" to 6 pages of health history questions geared for heart patients.

Thursday 2AM: Cooper wakes Chip up, throwing up. Repeat "Monday 2AM" to an exact tee, minus the sick adult.

Thursday 6AM: I get a text from Chip updating me. We've ran out of family members to expose to this virus and there probably isn't enough money in the world to pay someone to cross our threshold. Chip decides to cancel patients for the day. The extra staff to cover for me is called and even more patients cancel because of the forecasted snow "storm."

Thursday 1PM: My mother picks me up at the hospital after I wait 4 hours to be released, a process which took 37 seconds and 2 signatures. I come home to Chip, who is exhausted and has a horrible head cold, but is at least not vomiting. Kendall is safe at school and the rest of us nap for a couple of hours.

So far, Friday finds us iced in ("snowed in" is such a strong phrase) and quite happy with that. We have no place to be and no one would want us around them anyway. The kids are bouncing off the walls (what else is new?) and the adults are completely and utterly exhausted. But, no one is ill, no one is in the hospital and life is the best it's been in 5 days, to say the least. Hopefully our "worst week" story ends there. Please pray for Chip, Grammy, Mimi and Grandad who were very much exposed to this horrendous virus. Thank you to all our friends and family who were praying for us and asking to help. Sorry for no pictures...Or, better...you're welcome for no pictures.

Yet Another Christmas Recap

In recapping our Christmas Family Tour, I came across some photos that were some of my favorites, but didn't make the original cut to tell a good story. So, here are some more photos of our holiday!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Christmas Cutie

Cooper jumping out of the garbage bag full of Christmas wrapping.

Cupcakes we made for Baby Jesus.

New PJ's from Kara, Phillip, Kori and Kali and our Christmas hats. I won't go into what I had to bribe them with to get this one.

Serious Sam and his Christmas presents.

Christmas in January

Well, it's better than Christmas in July at least. I'm not sure why, but we've had a little trouble blogging recently. I'll choose to blame it on holiday stress and end-of-year responsibilities at work. While I have plenty of pictures documenting our 6 family Christmas celebrations, I feel very, very confident I've already forgotten every cute comment made by the kids during the past couple of weeks. Here's to trying...

Stop #1, Christmas Eve brought us to Vovo and Eddie's, the first of many stops, so the kids were thrilled to finally start the gift-opening process!

Stop #2, Christmas Eve Night. This is the obligatory Kids-in-PJ's picture. Sam is not pictured here, mainly b/c of a meltdown due to, what I believe to be, a wee bit of overstimulation. Last year's picture required a whole lot of mommies in the photo, too, so this was a nice change!

Stop #3 (sort-of), Christmas Morning. Kendall kept asking for "a pink scooter" from Santa. She already has a pink tricyle and a red, radio flyer scooter. So, Santa didn't think it was necessary to bring her another one. A bike it was! And the scooter was never mentioned again.

Cooper was thrilled with Santa's gifts, but he still got mostly overjoyed with the Hotwheels in his stocking.

Stop #4, Mimi and Grandad's for the Webb gathering.

He's only smiling this well because I told him he could open his present as soon as I got a photo I was happy with!

Stop #5, Grammy and Grandy's Christmas night. This photo needs no explanation.

Oooooh! What a scary monster!

Stop #6, Mimi and Grandad's with Emily, Dave and Sam. Sam got a wagon! Our kids acted like they'd never seen one before (even though we have the same one!).

I'm including this picture because a) it's adorable and b) we gave him the green dinosaur, so I'm partial.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!!

Most importantly, though, HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE PHILLIP!!!!!