Story of my Life: September 2011

When the Assembly concluded on Sunday evening we went to the cafeteria and ate with Mom & Dad, the Kaufmans, the Washburns, and the Idaho Smiths while the kids had a blast playing with Jeremiah. Afterward we sat in the rocking chairs on one of the porches for a couple of hours with others joining us here and there, just visiting. It was such a nice relaxing evening.

When the crowed cleared we headed back to our rooms—but of course we ended up sitting on the floor in the hallway playing games for another hour or two.

It felt GREAT to sleep in past 8:00 Monday morning! We got up and got busy sorting and packing and loading. Then we used the luggage carts as scooters (Ssshhhhh! Don’t tell!), headed to Pizza Hut, went to rescue the Charles… only to drive two or three hours and dump him off at the next kennel! Poor Charlie.

It was a beautiful drive from Black Mountain to Pigeon Forge. We stopped at one of the pull-outs along the way and let the kids climb on the rocks for a few minutes.

Brother Dustin thought he'd do some climbing, too.

Of course, he's the only one who fell off the wall...

We got to our three bedroom cabin in Pigeon Forge that afternoon and got all settled in. It was GREAT. Between the three families (and the buy two-nights-get-the-third-for-free deal) it cost us the same amount per night or less than we would have paid at a motel. But we had three bathrooms, a living room, a den, two porches, a kitchen and most importantly: a table at which to play games instead of sitting on the floor in a motel hallway. Ha! The cabin was beautiful and I loved the smell of the wood.

That night we went to the Old Mill, a restaurant Mom & Dad had been to before and recommended to us. We didn't even make it through the front door before the Coupon Queen was gathering up handfulls of brochures. :-)

The restaurant was fantastic, but you’ve got to split a meal with somebody else otherwise you’ll pay way, way too much money and have way, way too much food left over. Mom and Dad were the only ones who had been there before and knew the ropes well enough to pull that off. Live and learn. Now that we see how it goes we would definitely go back and order more wisely. The food was delicious and I would say it was my favorite restaurant of all those we tried there.

Here's the crowd outside, after we'd checked out the little gift shop.

We were all so wiped out from the Assembly that we only got in one game of I Buy that night. “We” being all of the adults except Dad. He was a goner before the game ever started. :-) I loved being with my folks AND good friends on a vacation like this. We never do that and it just made it doubly fun. Dad still had post-Assembly stuff to deal with and spent a decent amount of time on his computer, but was able to pull away and just relax with the rest of us most of the time.

Tuesday was a BLAST. We went to this place called WonderWorks. Mom described it as a suped-up children’s museum. There was tons of really cool educational stuff and hands-on information displays, some physically challenging stuff, some virtual games—oh, just all kinds of stuff. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it was tons better than we could have imagined. And it was especially grand because we pretty much owned the place—there were just a few other people there that day and several of them were other real friendly holiness folks. It was NICE. :-)

Here's the outside of the building. Is that cool, or what???

This is the ceiling when you first walk in--still upside down.

This was one of the first displays. There is a tub of water that is chilled to the same temperature as the water the night the Titanic sank. You're supposed to put your hand in the water and start the timer to see how long you can stand it. I couldn't believe Mom made it past 30 seconds. Your hand starts HURTING (seriously hurting) from the cold way before then. It was challenging, but pretty sobering when you think of all of those people who perished in those waters. What a horrible way to die.

This was an earthquake simulator. It has an audio clip that rehearses some facts and info about earthquakes, then begins shaking and works its way up to a 6.5 quake. Aleah thought it was great. Joe... not so much.

And the hurricane simulator...

HA! This thing was fantastic. It has pedals on it and you're supposed to see if you can pedal hard enough to make it spin all the way around--meaning upside down, then back around to right-side up. At this moment Jamey and I were discussing how our goal was NOT to flip all the way over; our goal was to pedal just enough to make it sway back and forth pendulum style...

And this is once Brother Dustin got on the contraption next to us and my competitive spirit kicked in. Can't be outdone, you know--especially by him!

It was soooooooo much fun! It's only scary before you make the first loop. Once you get past the mental block, it's a BLAST and you want to go again. And again. And again. :-)

There was a climbing wall that our crowd made use of for the longest time...

We were the only ones there for a long, long time, so our kids just kept climbing up to the top, then dropping down and starting over again. It's great when there aren't hordes of other people there waiting for their turn! Isaac was the first to scale to the top, then Katie and Sam decided it wasn't too scary and joined him. Joe never did made it past half-way. Ha! Sam LOVED it though. He climbed all the way to the top 16 times before we finally told him it was time to move on to the next thing.

Next was the ropes course. I'd never seen anything like it before, but it was COOL. Your harness attaches to the frame above you and you can travel a-a-a-a-a-a-all around up there, across tightropes and beams and ladders and all sorts of stuff on three different levels. My kids got all harnessed up but were too scared to actually do anything once they reached the first level! I have had real issues with heights for several years now, but somehow I found this to be so, so, so fun. The harness attached to something above you gives a sense of security, as does the darkness, I think. It helps to not see how far up you are (!), though I wasn't nearly as comfortable up on the third level as I was on the other two! Still, it was great fun. They play Star Wars music in there, so with the dark room and the glow-in-the-dark stuff everywhere you almost feel sort of brave and heroic as you cross the obstacles. Ha!

Crossing paths way up high...

Wa-a-a-a-ay up there...

This cozy little shot was taken in the sound booth. It was less than impressive, but I love the picture.

James playing with the giant bubbles...

Jamey playing with this crazy computer where you could select the sound you wanted, then move your hands within the box (as if playing a harp or something) and it would "play" the music you were making. She found her niche with the "applause" selection. HA!

These things were COOL. It was just a big jumble of metal up on the wall until you push the button that turns the light on and creates the amazing shadow on the wall.

There was a really great section of optical illusions. The picture I am displaying (ha!) contained four images of Leonardo Da Vinci, some obvious, some subtle. I love looking for the hidden things, though I'm not very good at it.

I love this picture of Jamey and Lillie. :-)

And here's the whole crowd (actually roped a stranger into taking a picture of ALL of us) outside before we left. What a great day. :-)

We went to Mama’s Farmhouse (is that what it’s called?) for lunch that day, then back to WonderWorks to complete our tour. By four or five o’clock we headed back to the cabin, totally wiped out. Some more than others.

That night we played Apples to Apples (despite James’ protests), then it was on to I Buy. James was pitifully tired and bailed on us before the game was even over, assuring us that he would only take a little nap and then be ready to go for the next game.

Mom called it a night after I Buy and Brother Dustin spent a considerable amount of time trying to rouse James enough to get another game out of him.

It was a fierce battle, but we finally succeeded. Well, sort of...

It was enough to get through a game of Balderdash—and we ended up with lots of laughs and several keepers, which is the only real way of judging whether the evening was a success or not. I think it was 3:00 before we got to bed. We blame that on James. If he hadn’t fizzled out on us and required so much time to get rollin’ again it would have been much, much earlier.

This is what the boys looked like when we headed down to bed. Joe all balled up with no blanket and Sam hugging Isaac's legs. They'll hate pictures like this some day. :-)

Joe was up bright and early Wednesday morning and open for business.

We headed to Gatlinburg for the day. We really prefer it to Pigeon Forge except for the lack of parking—which means you have to pay for a parking garage. We got there and walked around a bit, checking out a few shops (Katie and I scored some great socks at an all-sock shop: mooses for me and poodles for her!), then met Mom and Dad at an Italian joint where kids eat free. This picture of the boys cracks me up.

After lunch Mom and Dad headed out to do some shopping and go back to the cabin while the rest of us detoured from our original plan and ended up at a putt-putt place. It was fun, but obvious that we were all re-e-e-e-e-e-eally tired. Poor Lillie hadn’t been feeling well and was feverish and groggy, but just followed us from hole to hole, finding a place to sit and wait at each stop. Can’t remember much about the game except, of course, that I won and Brother Dustin lost. And that’s the most important thing to remember. And we did end up with a couple of good pictures. Like this one.

And the girls.

We finally made it to the Ripley’s Aquarium (which was our pre-lunch plan to begin with) at 2:00 or later. Our family had been there once before, but it was the first time for the Hays. It’s a really great aquarium and we enjoyed it, but I’m sure we would have enjoyed it more had we been there in the morning when we were fresh instead of in the afternoon when the post-IYC/Assembly fatigue combined with the 3:00 bedtime from the night before were hitting us hard. Brother Dustin even took a nap during the stingray show. Pitiful. Still, we had a good time and got some great pictures. Here we are when we finally got our tickets and made it in the door. Can you see the enthusiasm?

James and Aleah enjoying the splash from the waterfall.

This seahorse followed Sam wherever he would go around the tank. I couldn't pick a favorite picture, so I posted both.

This aquarium has a really cool tunnel--longer than the one at the Georgia Aquarium, I think. And bendy. That makes it cooler. :-)

Did I mention we were all a little tired?

I'M... NOT... CRABBY!!!!!

They added this penguin exhibit since the last time we were there. The kids thought it was pretty cool. And apparently Brother Dustin did, too.

Gotta love this shot. The Red Bellied Piranhas...

And here's the crowd outside, with only the sunshine keeping us awake.

We left the aquarium sometime after 5:00 and had one last stop to make: a candy store. James always wants to get fudge or white chocolate turtles or freshly pulled taffy or something like that. We headed back to Pigeon Forge and stopped at the first candy shop we saw. Bad mistake. We should have taken the time (and summoned the energy) to walk back up the street in Gatlinburg to that fantastic smelling caramel shop we had passed earlier. The taffy we got was very fresh and quite good, but the fudge and turtles were terrible.

Mom had put a pork roast in the crock pot before we left the cabin that morning and when we got back that night she had it all shredded and ready to make into barbeque sandwiches. They were excellent. The kids had been dying to get in the hot tub so we fed the boys dinner while the girls took their turn, then switched out and fed the girls while the boys played in the hot tub. We watched the new Mission DVD for our devotions that night and it was a blessing, as always. I think we actually got the kids to bed by 9:00 that night (the first time in weeks) and it was early enough to rope Dad into playing a few games with us before he hit the sack himself. It was GREAT. I love playing games with my Dad. My Mom hates it. That’s probably what makes it so fun. :-) We started with Pictionary, in which the girls whipped around the board in record time while the guys griped and complained and never even made it to the half-way mark. You know--the usual guys vs. girls Pictionary game. Then it was on to Guesstures, a game most of us hadn’t played in many years. The guys had us right where they wanted us and then Brother Dustin blew the whole game on the last round, thrusting us into an unexpected and especially amusing win. He has a special knack. I love it. :-) We then played a couple of rounds of Catch Phrase before we lost Dad for the night. The remaining five of us played Apples to Apples and enjoyed some good laughs, then broke out the Rook cards for another round of I Buy. We lost Mom after that and the foursome played Balderdash. I still can’t believe we were with the Hays for nearly two weeks in all but never busted out the Balderdash board until the final two nights! Crazy. We had a great time and probably a greater percentage of additions to the “keepers” stack than we’ve experienced in a long, long time. We made it to bed just after 1:00 that night.

The next morning we got up, sorted, packed, loaded, then cleaned the cabin up a bit. We all decided to try one of the dozens of pancake joints in town, Mom and Dad in the lead, the Hays following them, and us following the Hays. Brother Dustin isn’t a very good follower apparently (did he just not LIKE the joint Mom and Dad stopped at???) and soon enough he was in the lead and Mom and Dad were bringing up the rear. He stopped at the Broken Egg, another pancake place further down the road. We were all seated at our table for 12 (in the usual positions we’d had every time we’d been out) when we started checking out the food on the buffet and the prices. We weren’t impressed with either so we did that super embarrassing thing where we all got up and walked out! We then remembered the discount card Brother Will had given us to the Red Rooster and how highly he and Brother Ridlespurge had praised it, so that’s where we ended up. It was a good choice. :-)

We said our goodbyes from there and split up three different directions: Tennessee, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. I hate goodbyes.