What's the easiest way to entertain my children? Take them to a motel that has a pool and spend the night!! That is exactly what we did.. My mom and I left around 10:30 on Wednesday morning in the pouring rain and headed for Pigeon Forge to spend two nights at the Red Roof Inn. It is a favorite of ours and we have gone there every Spring Break for the past three years. This year we got the best rate, by far!! The Internet special was $35 per night - you can't beat that!! We spent the morning shopping, with much complaining from Maggie. She use to love to shop, but not so much any more. We finally took a break around 1:00 to go eat lunch and then we decided to try our luck for an early check-in because Molly was tired and grumpy. The girls instantly changed into their bathing suits and were ready to go swimming. Once that was old news, we were back to the every five minute question of "when is Peggy going to be here?". If they asked once, they asked 100 times during the day. They didn't arrive until 8:00, so we were worn out by the time they got there, but the kids got a burst of energy and I feel sorry for anyone staying in a surrounding room. It was after 10:30 by the time we got them to sleep. It was a rough night of sleep because Maggie didn't want to sleep in her sleeping bag and Molly couldn't seem to stay asleep either. It seemed like as soon as I fell sound asleep, Peggy (a.k.a. Goldilocks, thanks to her wig) was up turning the lights on.. I told her that my kids needed more sleep and that she needed to go somewhere else to look for the three bears.
Thursday we went into Gatlinburg and did the "tourist thing".. We walked through all of the shops and played indoor putt-putt because it was chilly outside. That fulfilled Molly's request. That is all she wanted to do was play putt-putt, oh, and go to Dollywood!! We made our way back to Pigeon Forge for a late lunch at O'Charley's and then back to the outlet malls for more shopping!! The girls were sick of shopping to say the least. We had one more stop to make on the way to the motel. Peggy and Jennifer wanted to check out the Christmas store that was right beside our motel. Seems like an uneventful thing to do, right? Wrong, my daughter would soon be traumatized for life!! There were two birds outside of the store that you were allowed to hold. I was totally surprised when Maggie walked right up and let one climb onto her arm.. Not exactly typical of her personality, but I was excited. I took several pictures and of course Molly didn't want to be left out of the excitement, so Maggie let the bird crawl over to Molly's arm. The bird decided it wanted to check out the flavor of Molly's sunglasses, so it started biting at them. It freaked Molly out a little bit, so the guy quickly took the bird back. Maggie wanted the bird back, so he put it back on her arm. I wanted a picture of both girls holding a bird together, so he gave Molly the other bird to hold and as I started to take their pictures, Maggie's bird started moving upward toward her face. As he moved upward, she began to panic and of course, so did I because I could sense the fear in her. She screamed, I screamed and the guy finally got the bird off of her, but he got a little peck in on her lip. She cried and cried for a long time and of course I couldn't quit laughing because in the panic, I still managed to take a picture. Maggie's new thing is "I HATE BIRDS!!". She won't want to hold a bird for a really long time. Needless to say, we went straight back to the motel and let her go swimming because she deserved to do what she wanted to do after that episode!! For dinner, we walked to the Smoky Mountain Brewery and Molly fell asleep on the five minute stroll. We had to wake her up and the five minute power nap was all she needed to keep her awake until 10:30 again.
Friday, we spent the whole day at Dollywood!! Molly was so excited to get back on the rides. She is going to be my wild, adventurous child. She is extremely jealous that Maggie can ride everything and that she can't. She doesn't understand that she isn't tall enough. In her mind she is big!! Molly ended up falling asleep in her stroller for about two hours. During that time, Maggie got really brave and rode the Dizzy Disc and then I was able to convince her to ride Tennessee Tornado. That's the roller coaster that goes upside down. I cannot tell you how proud I was to watch her face her fears and the excitement I had just having her sit beside me on that ride. I love roller coasters and I just hope that she learns to love them. I talked her through the whole ride, but it was a little overwhelming for her.. If it had lasted five more seconds she would have been extremely upset. She felt sick when she got off the ride. I think the gravity issue bothered her because she wasn't able to hold her head back. Maybe one day I will get her back on another one, but I don't think it will be anytime soon!! We played at Dollywood until 5:00 and then we headed home. As we were coming down the Dollywood Parkway, traffic came to a quick stop and someone rear-ended Peggy. She complained of chest pains, so they transported her to the hospital for observation. I ended up taking Jennifer and the girls on home because they were too wild and crazy to sit in the E.R. for very long. Peggy was fine and they let her leave around 9:00.
Today we went to an Easter Egg hunt at the park. The kids got lots and lots of eggs. Then we headed to Townsend to go back to the same farm we went around Christmas. The weather was perfect. The Pack family went with us and we met Libby, Jim, Mary Nale, Dale, the Shriver family and Grandbob & Cacki up there. The kids had a blast just running, playing and being kids. Molly played in the airplane swing for at least 45 minutes. She had a blast!! Afterwards, we went to my parents and hung out, ate some hot dogs (yummy!!) and then Mike brought the kids home so I could do a little shopping. Now it's time for me to go to bed so the Easter Bunny can do his thing!!
Don't miss the sweet little video!! Molly was meant to grow up on a farm. The animals will let her boss them around!!
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