Gatlinburg Trip

It has been 12 years since Kevin and I took a trip with just the two of us! If you think about it, that means we have NEVER taken a trip alone since before the girls came home! We decided to start our spring break with a trip to Gatlinburg.

On our way there, we drove through Knoxville where we lived the first year we were married. We decided to swing by our old apartments where we paid only $425 a month. I loved that apartment and everything about it. Maybe it is because that was the first place we lived as a married couple but it was a pretty special place for us!

Here is the hill we drove up many times to get to our apartments.

Our apartments were called Crestridge, and they were at the very top of the hill.

Our apartment was the one in the very middle.

We drove past Thompson-Boling Arena and we took a picture of it to show Elia where she will play basketball one day. :O)

Once we got to Pigeon Forge, we found our condo. Kevin's parents let us stay for free in their time share condo for two nights. They were already booked the 3rd night so we made reservations at a different condo for the last night.

Saturday night, after we found our condo, we made a trip to Kroger and got chips, dips, and a Redbox movie, Footloose. We went back to the condo and enjoyed watching the movie in peace.

We slept in Sunday morning and went shopping at the outlet mall. Kevin was a trooper and hung in the entire day without one complaint! I did take this picture of me with a Justin Beiber cut out and emailed it to the girls. They flipped out at first when they thought he was real.

We were craving pancakes Sunday night so we drove around Pigeon Forge looking for a pancake place to eat dinner. There are pancake places on every corner but none that were open for dinner. We found our way to Cracker Barrel where we finally found some pancakes. Then we went back to the condo and played Word Scramble against each other for the rest of the night.

We woke up Monday morning and checked out. Then we drove to Gatlinburg. We started the day at Ober where we took a tram up the mountain. Here we are waiting to board the tram.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, we took the chair lift even further up the mountain. It had to be 30 degrees up there with at least 30 mph winds. It was SOOOO cold!

Here we are going up the ski lift.

This was the view from the very top of the mountain. I did not want to stay up there for long because I couldn't bear the cold.

Here we are going down the ski lift, and a picture of me looking like a goober with my hood on because it was freezing.

Once we got down from the ski lift, we rode halfway back up so we could ride the Alpine Slide back down again. That was a lot of fun!

After our visit to Ober, we ate lunch at the Mellow Mushroom where I enjoyed a vegetarian pizza.

After lunch we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Here I am rubbing the Buddha's belly for good luck.

I stood next to the statue of the tallest man ever.

Here is Kevin next to the tallest man.

Here is a picture of me sitting in a really big chair (not sure what the record is here).

Once we finished the museum, we went to the Mirror of Mazes. If you get freaked out in closed in spaces, this was not the place for you.

Here is a picture of Kevin as well as his reflection. It would look like another person down a long hall but it was really just your own reflection. I made sure I held on to Kevin the entire time we were in there. I was not about to get lost!

Then we headed to the Aquarium which I highly recommend to anyone going to Gatlinburg. It was amazing!

Here are some beautiful jellyfish we got to see.

We went through a shark tunnel where shark and fish were swimming over our heads. Pretty amazing!

Here is me being silly in the kid area.

More jellyfish:

Here are the stingrays which Kevin stayed away from. LOL!

And we got to see the penguins.

Once we left the Aqaurium, we headed to our condo to rest up and continue shopping some more. When we got there, we realized the cleaning person had not come from the people who stayed there before us. We called the owner and he told us he had a place at the Christmas Inn. We took our chances and drove to that hotel. Now I love Christmas but not in March! The hotel was covered in Christmas decorations, trees, and music. Santa even comes for a visit with cookies. Anyway, we went to our room to discover it was an obvious downgrade from the condo we were supposed to stay in. Since it was already 5:00 and Kevin was about to fall out from all the Nyquil he took for his cold, we decided to head back a night early. I was so disappointed but at least we saved money since the condo owner was going to charge us the same price for this downgrade! We made a promise to ourselves not to wait another 12 years to do something like this again! It was too much fun being with each other!!!

Bedroom Make-Overs

Those of you who know me, know how much I LOVE to clean out and redo rooms in my house. It occurred to me that Elia will turn 10 this year, and she needs a more grown up room. We made a deal with Elia that once she started sleeping in her own bed (she slept with Ava every night since she has a full bed), we would redo her room for her. Ava heard about this and wanted to redo her room as well. We spent an entire night thinking about and shopping for new beds. It eventually hit us that the girls' twin beds were made for a trundle to go underneath. This was a great thing for us to realize for many reasons. The girls' rooms are really too small for a full size bed. Both girls had been sleeping in Ava's full bed in her cramped room for years. We knew a twin would work best in both rooms but they also needed space for friends to spend the night. That is why the trundle beds were a good realization for us! So we were able to use Elia's bed. We sold Ava's full size bed and got her twin bed out of the attic. Then we ordered trundle beds for underneath both twin beds. Now the girls can still sleep together (on the trundles) on the weekends and they can still have friends spend the night with plenty of room.

I took some before and after pictures of both rooms.

Here is Elia's bed before:

Here is Elia's bed after:

Here is Elia's desk area before:

And Elia's desk area after:

Here is a corner of Elia's room before:

And the after:

I LOVE Elia's new "older" room and she loves it too! There are still a few things we need to finish such as knobs for the dresser, possibly a valance above the window, and the trundle bed under the bed.

Ava's room almost went the opposite direction from Elia's. She actually started with a more grown up looking comforter. However, when we got her twin bed, she decided she wanted to use her old comforter from a long time ago. This worked out great for us because we were able to use the pictures from Elia's old room which matched perfectly. I did buy Ava a couple of new things for her "new room" such as her lamp and her magnetic board.

Here is Ava's bed before:

And her bed after (notice all the extra space in her room):

Here is Ava's dresser before:

And after:

Here is Ava's desk area before (It was actually a dollhouse before):

And the after:

Both rooms look so much cleaner and spacious!

I will leave you with this picture of preteen daughter doing what she does best in her new room!

Dr. Seuss, Putt-Putt, and Basketball

It looks like we had another busy weekend. The week actually started with a Dr. Seuss theme at school. Thursday was dress up day so I hit Hobby Lobby to try and find my crafty side. I ended up making our Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3 shirts. I was rather impressed with my craft skills considering I can't even sew a button on a shirt.

Here are some pictures Ava drew during the week. She definitely has an artsy side to her.

Friday night we went to Jake's birthday party at Putt-Putt.

The kids started with Lasertron. Then we went up to the party room for cake and ice cream.

Here is Jake's cute cake:

Here is a picture of Hannah and her friend enjoying the party: HA!

Jake, Austin, and Ava did the ropes course. Ava truly has no fear!

Saturday brought Elia's last basketball game. She played her heart out at that game even though her team lost. Saturday night was the awards banquet for the basketball teams. It was at Hickory Withe Church. They had pizza, desserts, and each player received a basketball and a DVD.

After the banquet, we went to Yogurt Mountain! We love that Arlington now has a Yogurt Mountain, but we go there entirely too much!

Sunday was spent at church as well as cleaning out bedrooms. Elia is getting close to being 10 and we figured it was time to update her bedroom. After all, she has had the same bedding and decorations since she got out of a toddler bed. The sad thing is that the girls are so excited about Elia having a new room, that they are now sleeping in separate beds. While it is a good thing since they are able to fall asleep at a decent hour, I am sad to think they are in their own, separate beds. I guess it is another bittersweet moment of my girls growing up. I will be posting pictures of the complete room soon!