Frogs, Locust and a really fun time....

The vacation of the plagues continues….what’s that you ask? What is the vacation of the plagues? That would only describe our doomed trip to Gatlinburg last week…ok so I am being over-dramatic…we actually had moments of pure fun and enjoyment…but we also had more than our fair share of foul-ups, bloops, and blunders….

It all started last Sunday…actually for mom the fun started the night before (and apparently for Faith Anne the day or so before that even! Lol), when she was up sick all night with some sort of horrid stomach virus….thankfully a little over 24 hours later she was almost her old self, so it was only one of those 24 hour bugs, but by then we were well on our way to Gatlinburg….so that was the plague of Sunday and Monday….

Tuesday, when sister and I took our two older nieces for their fun morning at the salon, that is when we discovered that the younger of the two girls had…hold your breath…lice…::scratching my head:: it was slightly mortifying for a hair dresser to tell my sister and I that one of the little girls we had brought to the salon had lice…but at that moment in time, it was so not about us, because it was really upsetting and embarrassing for our niece…she is 9...can you imagine? My heart just broke for her…I know sister’s did too….it was only after the 4 of us were back in the van that the 13 year old told us that our sister had treated the 9 year old’s hair the DAY BEFORE WE LEFT!! Inside my head I was cussing my sister out…I couldn’t help it…I was so furious….as husband would say, if my other sister had been right there, I would have punched her square in the mouth. With one little sentence she could have saved her daughter, her baby daughter, tremendous heart ache and embarrassment….oh my heavens I’m still so angry at her. Something like that, a child never forgets….Bless her baby heart, she’s a drama queen anyway….the scene of us being shown the door at the salon, I’m sure is just going over and over in her mind…..grrrrr

Anyway, so after that fiasco (I also feel so sad for Missy, cuz she had this idea and it was going to be such a special treat for us aunts to take our nieces for some pampering and I know Missy feels bad…but we just didn’t know sis!) anyway, after that, we met up with everyone else at the speed track and the kiddos took off on the various speed tracks…the rest of us kind of hung out and watched the kiddos for a while, then we all packed up and went to lunch.

After lunch, dad and the kids went back to the track (they had all day passes), mom dropped Missy, Faithy, Gracie, and me at the outlet mall, and mom headed off to Walmart to get a couple of lice kits….ok I have to say here that in the middle of being mad at my other sister, and so sad for my neice, I was also highly grossed out! Missy caught me a few times in just a heeby jeeby shiver….blah….anyways, mom had a recurance of her stomach ailment after she left Walmart and so she returned to our resort…I haven’t even told you how absolutely great our resort was, because I’ve been whining!….anyway…mom left us hanging at the outlet mall - there were only like two stores that we even cared to look at and we were done…sister and I are so not die hard shoppers lol…plus…oh my word…Old Navy was crazy ridiculously crowded….you couldn’t turn around without running into someone…and the poor people that worked there just look totally overwhelmed….it literally looked like a cyclone had hit the place…it was a total wreck…somehow in the middle of that, Faithy fell asleep in the shopping cart, so we kept looking at things a little while longer…once we left there, I was so done shopping…but we were kinda stuck there. So I sat on a bench and held Faithy while she continued her nap and sis went to the Disney store with Gracie and got some Easter basket toys…mom finally called to tell us she was on her way to get us…then she called back and said that Isaac was getting sick so we had to jet over to the race track once she picked us up because dad did not have the keys to Missy’s van….bless his heart, Isaac had the stomach virus….so we got the rest of our gang and headed on back to our resort. Mom and Missy (I think) stayed with Isaac the sicky while the rest of us got our swimming gear on and went down to the water park…

I should take this moment to tell ya’ll how cool the resort was…one of the highlights of the trip was definitely the water park! It had two huge water slides and a lazy river and a treehouse and a kiddie area….sister said that it was a lot like Great Wolf except Great Wolf is bigger….it was great fun! My favorite thing to do was float on the lazy river with Faith Anne and sister although the water slide was pretty way cool too….

Well after a couple of hours there, I was ready to go back up…yeah Missy was down there too I think cuz we headed back up to the room together…dad corralled the kiddos and came up shortly after, because the plan was (after 8:00 at night) that mom and dad and the three older kids would get dressed and go to the Hard Rock Café for dinner….well it took them a lot longer to get ready and the later it got, dad and a few others were saying that they didn’t want to go after all…so they finally decided not to go…then all drama broke loose….Isaac was still getting sick in the other room and then the youngest of the three D’s, who incidentally, is prone to panic attacks and near seizures when she gets upset….got upset…she was bawling and inconsolable. She felt like that she had ruined the salon outing by having lice, and she also, for some reason blamed herself for not going to Hard Rock Café, even though several people had said that it was getting too late to do that….so we all (all the adults and her oldest sister) took turns either trying to console her or telling her to snap out of it. Nothing worked….she’s bawling, and then Isaac kept getting sick….it was just a fabulous fun evening! Lol….we finally got her calmed down enough to go to bed…it was just way too much drama for me man! Lol

Wednesday was a much more pleasant day, with the exception of right before we all headed out for the day, we had to scold all the kids! Lol…except for maybe Gracie….but then we all took off to catch the trolley to Gatlinburg…I love Gatlinburg…the actual town Gatlinburg…don’t get me wrong, there are a few things that I really like about Pigeon Forge…but it is such a tourist trap…Gatlinburg is touristy too…but it’s also much more quaint…but we only got to look in a few shops and then we had lunch at Hard Rock Café…mom and I took turns embarrassing the kids…I was head banging and mom was dancing to an oldies song or Getting Jiggy With it…oh, um, I was dancing to that one a little bit too…then the YMCA came up and some of the waitresses got up and tables and several people in the restaurant did the YMCA….the kids later said that that was a fun point of the trip….Isaac was feeling some what better…but he slept through lunch…that boy lives to eat, ya know he’s sick when he sleeps through lunch! Bless his baby heart!

After that we hopped back on a trolley back to our resort….the kids got ready to go down to the water park and we went and bought tickets…oh…wait…I have to back up….with the room, we were entitled to only four free passes to the water park. Since there were ten of us in total, we obviously had to purchase a few extra ones. So I had paid for my pass with a credit card. At Hard Rock Café, I was looking for that same credit card, but it wasn’t in my wallet. I figured that I must have left it in my bag that I took to the pool. So when we got back to the cabin, I looked in my pool bag for the card….not there…so then I began tearing my stuff apart looking for the card….it was nowhere to be found! AGHH!!! It was my turn to be the drama queen….mom was trying to tell me a different place to look for the card and I totally bit her head off…I was outta control!! I knew the last place I used the card was at the pool so sister called down there and they had it! Thank heavens!! I apologized to everyone for being so snotty and then I called husband…I told him what I had just done and he told me a funny story too…he thought he had forgotten to turn off the stove that morning when he left for work so he’d had the neighbor go into our house to make sure the stove was off…it was….aren’t you glad I told you that story too? I’m sorry, I’m probably boring you with the details…lol

Anyways….so then we went down and bought tickets to the Black Bear Jamboree…dad and mom and the kiddos went to the water park and sister and I went shopping and to pick up the tickets. We all met up later at the Black Bear Jamboree…mom and dad and sister and her kids and me, we’d all been there before. But the three D’s (our nieces and nephew’s names are Desmond - 13, Darnell - 10, and Dru - 9, so we call them the three D’s) (also, don’t quote me on the two younger kids’ ages!) anyway, the three D’s hadn’t been to the Black Bear Jamboree. It was so much fun watching them enjoy the show…and they talked about it all the way back to the cottage too…that was really another special highlight of the trip….

That night - our last night there - Gracie didn’t sleep a bit! And sister really didn’t sleep much cuz she was up and down with Gracie and although I slept some, I was awake every now and then worrying about sister not sleeping. Oh that was the other plague…sister’s back went out on the Friday before our trip and bless her heart, she had trouble and pain the whole trip…I felt so sorry for her! I wished I could just make it go away! But we all helped pick up things and stuff for her…I just wish she didn’t hurt…poor thing….

So anyway, the three of us in our room (Gracie, Missy and me) were finally all sleeping when at 7:00 a.m.ish Missy’s cell phone rings….it was Scott to tell Missy that he’d been up all night sick to his stomach. And what was Missy to do about that at 7:00 a.m.?? lol

Sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday I noticed a strange rash forming on my arm…Here’s something you all may not know about me…lol…I’m sort of a hypochondriac. I recognize this too…and so do the people that love me….so not a lot of attention is given when I have an “ailment”….I even really question myself about things, because I know me…I’m a little nutty….on the way home on Thursday, my rash started leaking….and growing…and spreading…I went to the doctor today…I have impetigo….it’s a bacterial infection that‘s also very contagious…. I blame the water park…we were all complaining of itchy skin after our first go around down there…but really I probably could have picked it up anywhere…

So there’s a recap of our plagued (but very fun) vacation….I think actually, the plagues make it an even funnier memory….except for the whole embarrassment of my nieces that my sister Janice could have totally prevented….what the heck!! Grr….I’m still mad about that….

Husband met us along the road on Thursday so they didn’t have to bring me all the way home. We all had dinner at Fazolis…and then I spent Friday and Saturday in blissful peace and quiet….although Friday night husband and I did go see Blades of Glory….hilarious movie! And then we had free HBO this weekend so Saturday night we watched the Lake House…man, that movie…while it had a cool premise…it was a snoozer…there were several blocks of dialog that they could have totally done without…but it was a sweet movie.

Sunday morning, we got up very early and went to our community sunrise service and breakfast…the service was outside - cold!- so it was short and sweet…I just love an Easter Sunrise service though…it really just makes it feel like Easter to me.

After that we headed to Ohio to have dinner with my family and then to grandma’s to watch all the little ones hunt Easter eggs….

And today was back to work…my boss is out til Wednesday though so I’m easing back into reality….

And this is officially a longgggg entry so I’ll leave it at that…hope you all have a great week! And watch out for a swarming cloud of locust…that will be our family trying to go on another trip….lol!! Toodles….