Don't ask for more towels!

Hola… what up journal pals… I must admit I haven’t really had an oppurtunity to blog or lurk too much since we’ve gotten home from vacation… let me just say one word and those of you that have also just discovered it will relate… Facebook… I get on there and click and click and click and click lol…. Last night I discovered Lil Green Patch and that’s way addictive too… it just keeps giving you messages about other peoples gardens that need help… lol… click click click… and the quizzes and the flair… it’s fun! Not to mention all the people you can find on there that ya lost… pretty neato…

Anyways… we had a great time on vacation. October 15 is when we’ll hear something more about what will happen with the girls. We asked the social worker how it all goes down when grandma is approved and she said that she’d give us at least a weeks notice. They generally don’t just take the girls automatically. Grandma has been kinda draggin her feet in doing what she is supposed to do to be approved so I’m thinking nothing will happen in October either. I could be wrong though…

So I have to tell ya’ll something funny…. the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, Jimmie changed his first poopie diaper… yeah he’s spoiled, we’ve had a baby in diapers since March and he just had to change his first poopie diaper… I wasn’t home because I was working late to get things all tidy before I left for vaca. And thank heavens he had it all cleaned up before I got home… during changing the diaper, he threw up all over the bathroom… what a woose (how do ya spell that word anyways?)!! I just laughed and I still laugh every time I think about it. I got home from choir practice last night, passed Aniya’s bedtime, and she was still up… she had a poopie diaper. He didn’t even try to change it! lol… So I changed her diaper and gave her a bath and put her to bed.

To be fair, he was working on the project that we began on Sunday – putting laminate wood flooring in the kitchen. He finally got the hang of it but at first it was hard. I was going to try and do that project myself with him supervising, kinda telling me what to do next, but I do not have the patience for it… he is doing a much better job than I would have done. It’s gonna be pretty… I’ll be sure to post pictures!

We’ve already started practicing our Christmas cantata at church… it’s going to be another pretty one. I’m excited about it!

Well, I suppose I’ll tell you all about Family Reunion and vacation. We actually almost didn’t make it for the big get together on Sunday. All I can say is, don’t ask for more towels if you stay at the Days Inn in Somerset.

I guess I should explain that…. I’ll start at the beginning….

Me and Jimmie and the girls arrived in Somerset at the Days Inn at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Saturday (of Labor Day weekend). I went to the office to check in. However, the office door was locked. Needless to say, I was a little confused. I waited approximately ten minutes until a woman arrived with a key to the door. She stated that she had been at the pool running someone off. I empathized with her and she proceeded to check us in.

We unloaded most all of our gear as we intended to stay for 2 nights. We went ahead and made up the crib for the Aniya and a small toddler bed for Mayce because we knew we’d be arriving back at the room late with tired little ones. We did notice that we only had 2 towels and we made a mental note to ask for more towels when we got back to the room.

When we arrived back at the hotel that same evening, as we were pulling into the parking lot, I realized that I had forgotten the diaper bag back at the reunion site. So Jimmie dropped off the girls and I at the hotel and went back to the reunion site, about a 10 minute drive outside of Somerset. It was approximately 9:45.

The girls were sleepy but in need of baths so I ran a bath for them and got them in the tub. As they were in the tub, I realized that we were going to need more towels because we only had two and Jimmie and I were both going to want to shower that evening as well. So, with the girls in the tub, I called to the front desk to ask for more towels. I explained that I was alone and had two small children in the bathtub and could not leave the room however, the woman on the other end of the phone was insistent that I would have to come down and get the towels or send someone to get them. I said, sarcastically, umm ok and hung up the phone.

When Jimmie got back with the diaper bag I told him about the phone conversation. He was just as miffed about the conversation as I was so he went down to the front desk to try to get us some more towels. When he came back, with no towels, he said we had two options: we could leave and go stay somewhere else or we could leave and go home. He was not a happy camper. He also mentioned that the lady at the front desk had threatened to call the cops on him. So I questioned him about what went on when he went down to the desk. I’ve seen my husband at his very worst and if I didn’t know him to be all fluff and bark, I’d probably call the police on him too. But he said, although he did have an attitude when he talked with her, he neither cursed at her nor did he threaten her in anyway. He did mention that his wife had called to ask for towels and couldn’t leave two little girls alone to come get them. He did not however give his room number and she never asked what room he was in. (Those 2 little facts will be important later – as well as the fact that later that same night we saw several people leaving the front desk area with extra towels for their rooms, while we were told there were none… are we really getting into it over towels??? It was actually a little surreal). So I got him calmed down. The girls were settling into their beds and Jimmie put on his pajamas and went to bed. I was getting ready to take a shower when the phone rang. It was front desk lady. She asked if I was the woman who came down and asked for towels earlier. I said no, my husband did though. She said ok and hung up. I wondered if she was taking a poll… Then there was a knock on the door…. I opened the door, two officers stepped in and asked what was going on. Jimmie told his side of the story about asking for towels, he even told the officers that he had an attitude when he went down there. The officers said that front desk lady had called her manager and the manager advised that she ask us to leave. Jimmie loved that suggestion. He told the officer that he told me the same thing when he came back to the room. So while I packed up things Jimmie began hauling all our gear back down to the truck. We hadn’t a clue where we were gonna go or even if we were just going to go home. If I’d thought about it I would have taken both girls in my arms to the lobby in their pj’s, one sucking on a bottle, and turned in our room keys but I didn’t. What I did hate was for the girls, in their little traumatized lives, to have to see yet another pair of officers being the “bad guys”. But thankfully, they seemed unaffected by the whole incident and went right to sleep once the truck started moving.

I was so mad – I still am. In the middle of the night, if I’d been able to put my hands on some stationary and a pen, I’d have written one heck of a letter. I still intend to write a letter to the hotel manager. It gets worse though. Because the next day most of my family said something about the incident as they were checking out… in fact, anyone who mentioned it got a discount! That’s a good thing though! But the bad part is, they also were told more of the front desk ladies’ side of the story and it was all false. She says she thought Jimmie was alone. The manager said they would have never thrown someone out in the middle of the night who had two small children with them. False – front desk lady knew Jimmie was my husband because I told her so on the phone. She also knew that we had two small children because again, I told her so on the phone….

Argh… I better stop typing about that, I’ll get mad all over again….

Anyway, we drove around for a bit. We came upon the Comfort Inn… they were full… then we saw a Budget Inn… we checked in… the little front desk guy was so nice. He even offered to help unload stuff into our room. We got the girls all settled and then we crashed too… the room was actually a little nicer than the Days Inn room. See that’s the thing too… I mean, obviously we aren’t talking about the Hilton here… the Days Inn is a dive and we’ve only stayed there because the rest of the family stays there and it’s fun to be where everyone else is. Plus although the place is run down, things are usually clean. However, my sister and her husband have gotten the mildew room the last two years they stayed there… So anyway, now we have an excuse not to ever stay there again… and I’m actually pretty happy about that! Lol

I’m also happy that we didn’t decide to go home that night… because the girls had sooo much fun getting absolutely filthy at family reunion the next day. If you’ve ever been to Somerset you know that it’s in the part of Kentucky where the soil is mostly clay and therefore rather than brown dirt, the dirt is red and for some reason, red dirt is just more fun to play in! We just had so much fun watching the girls run and play with all the other kiddos…

So then Monday it was off the Gatlinburg… we had lots of fun there too... Mom and Dad also brought Faith Anne, which was so nice to have here there too! I’m not going to do a day by day recap of that but I’ll put in the highlights. The resort we stay in has a fabulous water park and the girls of course loved that… they are little water bugs…

Umm… then we went to the upside down house… Wonderworks… If you haven’t seen it, it’s this building that is built to look as if it’s upside down. When Mayce saw it she said that she needed to find a big stick to turn that house over. It was way fun inside… all this hands on science stuff.

We had this problem of indecision on this trip which kind of drove everyone crazy but none of us would make a decision about what we wanted to do… we did manage to come up with things to do but it was like pulling teeth to get to that point…
Tuesday evening Jimmie, me and the girls hopped on the trolley to downtown Gatlinburg where we walked around for a bit and had dinner….

Wednesday we met up with Mandy and Steve, Chelle, Uncle Ronnie, and Aunt Joanne, and all their kiddos and went through the aquarium together… I just love that place… the girls really loved it too… however, Aniya’s nap time, we discovered, is not to be tampered with, and she became a cranky camper. As soon as we got back on the trolley she went right to sleep though… when we got back to the resort most all of us took naps… Jimmie went downtown Pigeon Forge to look at cars. We had tickets that evening to Dixie Stampede. I originally thought I’d like to take the girls to the Black Bear Jamboree but I realized Jimmie would not enjoy that at all because of all the singing. So we chose Dixie Stampede instead, which was a little more expensive but oh my heavens I’m glad we went there! Aniya just kept squealing and yelling and pointing and laughing… these little girls LOVE animals of all kinds… so that was totally the right show to take them to. Jimmie really enjoyed it too… and we went on his birthday and if we’d had tennis shoes on Mayce instead of sandals, she could have chased the chickens! She was really sad about that and kept saying she wanted to go chase the chickens for daddy.

So by Thursday I’d had enough of the indecisiveness and really, I’d been to Lil Dollies and a show and the aquarium and the water park so I’d done everything I set out to do… so we packed up and went home.

Jimmie and Mayce went to tractor pulls on Friday and Saturday and me and Aniya just chilled at home. She caught up on her sleep and recovered from having to be in the car (she does not like to ride in the car very much). On Sunday I started ripping the carpet up in the kitchen and me and Jimmie started attempting to lay that flooring… he stuck with it and it’s over halfway done! By the weekend I’ll be laying trim… it’s gonna be so purty! I’m sooo excited!

I’ve journaled lots and lots and there’s still more to tell… Monday brought fresh new events but I’m tired of typing so I’m going to end this blog entry on this note… The girls and I have been listening to Nicole C. Mullins’ cd “Talk About It” a lot in the car lately and there’s a song on there called Baby Girl and ya know what… I’m dedicating that song to all my journal goddesses today… the chorus goes like this:

Baby Girl get a hold of yourself
Baby Girl don’t you know you’re wealth
You’re a diamond hiding on the shelf

Baby Girl don’t you know who you are
God has made you shining star
A little light is brighter than the dark

Have a blessed day baby girls!