Day #3 - Saturday, May 24

We got up on Saturday morning with the idea of going to Cade's Cove for a little while and then taking the children swimming or something else (just relaxing basically). All in all, it should take about 2 hours to go through Cade's Cove if you stop and go in all the cabins (some are a bit off the road and you have to walk to them), and about 45 min - 1 hour to just drive through and look at those that are close to the road (this of course doesn't include hiking any of the trails there). We had no intention of taking all the children walking up to all the cabins and such, so we were only planning on doing the driving tour and going inside the cabins and churches that were close to the road.


WELL, what should have taken less than 1 hour took 6 hours to do. It is a one way dirt road and there are signs everywhere saying "DO NOT STOP IN THE ROAD, USE THE PULL OFFS ON THE SIDE" ...well, needless to say, people obviously can't read!!! People were stopping in the middle of the road to run out into the woods and take pictures of turkey and deer! WHAT IS SO EXCITING ABOUT A TURKEY OR A DEER??? A bear, maybe - and yes, we did get some pictures of a bear, but we used the pull offs to do it, lol ;) but not a turkey!


Anyway, it took 6 hours to get through there because of all the nuts stopping in the road. My husband was about to have a FIT! And I nearly had a stroke because the people in front of us were in a big SUV also and they had a baby (about 10 months old) HANGING out the window in the backseat going on this driving tour. The window was all the way down and the child was out of the window from the waist up...I couldn't pay attention to anything else for fear of that baby falling out and being ran over!


BUT, we did get some great pictures and the children loved all the creeks and rivers that we saw - Madalyn loves rocks, so she was able to get some beautiful ones for her collection.


Here are some photos from our trip up to Cade's Cove:

As I mentioned before, when we were at Cade's Cove we saw a bear! Here are some pictures of it:

That night after we FINALLY made it back home, we had tickets to the Dixie Stampede. This is an awesome dinner show! The food was great and the show was amazing! We all loved it!

After the show that night, the children did some shopping in the gift shop and then we were off to the cabin. It had been another LONG, but FUN day.

Our plans for the next day were to go back to Dollywood and be there when the gates opened. That was OUR plan - obviously, God had other ideas! Find out on Day #4 about our most "hair raising" ride of all - and NO, it wasn't at an amusement park!!!

Day #2 - Friday, May 23

My brother and his family were also in Pigeon Forge at the same time we were on vacation so we were able to spend some time with them. On Friday, we went to Dollywood and spent the entire day. We had so much fun - our family LOVES amusement parks (especially roller coasters :). Here are some pictures of us at the park:


The girls on the tram riding from the parking lot to the entrance of Dollywood.

The boys on the tram riding from the parking lot to the entrance of Dollywood.

The children at Dollywood.

A family photo at Dollywood.

ALL of the children at Dollywood. Back row - Max, Maddy, Sam, Rhett Front row - Brittan, Abby, Maicee, Bailey

Abby "driving" an old car on the Rockin' Roadway

Maddy "driving" Maicee around in an old car

Abigail and Brittan on the Lumberjack Lifts - this was actually pretty tough to do!

Aunt Brandi and Maicee

Rhett and Sam

Mimi and Bailey

My niece Brittan - isn't she adorable?

My "big" brother, Duane

My nephew, Max. He looks just like his dad and he is a royal HOOT - he keeps us all laughing, all the time!

Joey, Maddy, me, and Bailey on the Dizzy Disk - it was so much fun!!!

That day was SO much fun! We all had a good time, got SOAKING wet, and were tee-totally exhausted by the time we left - but I wouldn't trade a second. We all went out to eat that night at TGIF and then went back to the cabin and got in the hot tub (well, the girls did!). The men watched sports on the big screen, the boys played pool and air hockey, and all the girls piled in the hot tub outside on the back porch and had fun. Maicee just thought it was a really warm swimming pool :)

All in all, it was a great day and it was wonderful to be able to share it with my brother and his family - we love them so much. They live across the street from us and they are my children's best friends - so it was cool for the kids to have their "best friends" spend a day at Dollywood with them!

We fell into bed that night and slept like logs! And then of course, it was time to get up and do it again......

My digital scrapbook of day 2:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Vacation Day #1 - Thursday, May 22, 2008

We left home at 4 am so that *hopefully* the children would sleep. HAHA is all I have to say on that front. My dh was driving, I was riding shotgun, Mimi and the 2 boys were on the middle seat, and all 3 girls were in the back - needless to say, we were pretty packed in. The extra boy is another of Mimi's grandchildren, Bailey. Just so you get the total scene here...we have a luggage carrier on top, the back of the Yukon is FULL of food and drinks, the children each have their backpack of stuff (dvd players, ipods, books, drawing stuff, etc) under their seat for easy access - plus each has their own pillow and blanket, I am armed with maps, and Mimi is the child "police" in the backseat - she was the only one who could reach the last row!

So, anyway, we are REALLY Clampettfied at this point, but we are on our way. We were headed on our family vacation that would eventually lead to seven states and a million wonderful memories.

Ok, back to the story, we left at 4 am - having to stop of course for gas, breakfast, and many bathroom breaks. We get to The Lost Sea Adventure in Sweetwater, TN about lunch time (much later than dh would have liked). It was really fun and interesting! We got to take tour of the caves and then ride on a glass bottom boat on the Lost Sea. Here are some pictures:

Then it was off to the cabin in Pigeon Forge, TN. This took a LEEEETLE longer than it should have, because the directions took us up the side of a mountain in the totally WRONG place. We used the address we were given for the cabin to get driving directions through Expedia - but, um...., the address wasn't right...lol :)

That mountain road it took us up had some pretty scary, hair raising twists and turns and NO guard rails (which I found seems to be a prevailing theme in the mountains of TN). Needless to say, we got almost all the way to top before it was obvious we were in the wrong place. We were surrounded by cabins, so we assumed this was the right place...wrong. So, then we had to call the resort and ask again for some specific directions from where we were. Obviously, we did eventually find our cabin - but about 2.5 hours later than we should have!

The cabin was SO nice - as was the entire resort. It was so nice for everyone to have room to spread out, a washer and dryer to do the clothes, a game room, a swimming pool, hot tub, jacuzzi, etc....lol. I wanted to move in and never leave! Here are some pictures of the cabin:

And for the end of day 1, I'll leave you with a picture of what we saw from our "back porch" off the cabin (it was really more like a balcony that hung about 500 feet off the ground on the side of a mountain).

My digital scrapbook of the first day:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook