Somewhere over the Rainbows: No Place Like Home

We made it home yesterday. We had an amazing time! The babies were fantastic travelers. The did great!

We got into Pigeon Forge on Thursday evening, about 8:00 pm. While I got the girls settled in, Larry and Aidan left to get some food. We had Krystal burgers...sliders... I was happy. We decided that we weren't going to eat anything that was available around home. After we ate and bathed all the kids, we all crashed. Woke up the next morning, and met my great aunt and uncle for breakfast. Such a coincidence that they were also in town! They live about 3 hours from here, and Aidan has only seen my aunt once that he's big enough to remember. She came to see my grandma, her sister, about 2 weeks ago, and they came over here. Aidan fell in love with her. Her name's Velma, and he calls her "Molma". When we walked into the restaurant, and he saw her, he went outside of his mind. He was so happy! When he got calmed down, he asked, "Where Dellie at?" (He calls my Momaw "Dellie".) That tickled aunt Velma.

After breakfast, we drove over the mountain into Cherokee, but stopped at the top to change diapers, feed babies, and let Aidan see it all. So beautiful up there! My aunt and uncle were also up there, sight seeing, so he got to see his "Molma" again. We took some pictures and enjoyed each others' company for a while, then went our separate ways.

In Cherokee, we went to two different feed-the-live-bears places, and bought a ton of food trays so bubba could feed them. The girls just rode in their stroller, and were so good. We attracted a lot of attention. It was so fun, and,as always, I was so proud of my kids.

The first bear place also has goats, monkeys, lemurs, and even a tiger. There were some teeny, tiny baby goats. So little, in fact, that one squeezed out of the fence and took up with Aidan. He loved it, wanted to bring it home!! It was so little that when I texted a picture of Aidan and the goat to my grandma's phone, she thought it was a cat!

That night, we went to a bar-b-que place for supper. I went up to the salad bar to fix a salad for Aidan and me, and when I got back, Larry was telling the waitress about Landon. I tell about him a lot more than Larry does. She was so sweet, and told us that she had lost a little girl at just 29 days. It sucks to meet others who know that pain, but it's also a blessing, to know that I'm not alone. To meet someone who doesn't look away, look at their shoes, change the subject, who actually asks questions about him, rather than pretending he didn't exist. I got a little teary talking about him, but that's ok. Everyone in that place could look at us, and know that we have 3 kids. She was the only one who knew we actually had 4.

I know when we go out to eat, all 5 of us, people's first thought is, "Oh,crap, I hope they don't sit THEM by us!" But, know what? My kids are pretty good. Aidan does really well in public places, and the girls are so mellow nowadays. They don't disturb anyone. Rebekah did take a crying spell, but I was able to comfort her pretty quickly.

We also ran into a WalMart that night. We can't NOT go to WalMart, we're the PEOPLE of WalMart!

The next day was sort of a lazy day, I took Aidan swimming in the indoor pool, while Larry chilled with the girls. I wanted to take them swimming, but for an indoor pool, the water was awfully cold.

That night, we went to a CiCi's pizza. I really wish that all of ours around here hadn't closed down. We all love it. Then we took the kids to a go-cart track/amusement park. That was so much fun! Larry took him twice on a go-cart, and I took him twice on bumper boats. We had a blast, and a kid who was nearly asleep before we even hit the hotel!

We got up yesterday morning, packed all of our stuff, and headed home. The weather all weekend was gorgeous! I'm so thankful for such a fun, nice, beautiful trip. Grateful for our safety while traveling, and just thankful for the ability to do that.

Since we got home, I've been working on laundry. It's amazing how much laundry can accumulate in 3 days with no washer and dryer! It is almost done, but it keeps piling up! Never ending!!