more vacation pics

Vacation 2010

Don't get me wrong--I love vacation! I look forward to it, I plan it, I love it--but at the same time, I always feel like I deserve a Red Badge of Courage when I have survived it! This year was a whirlwind of activity. We went to Dollywood Splash Country. This is a huge waterpark. The kids loved it, but I must admit, the clientele is interesting. I decided that I should write a memoir of Southern Life and the title will be: "If you can't lose it, decorate it with as much ink as possible, so know one will notice!". I honestly could not believe the way some of these women walked around that water park. As someone who was once extremely heavy set, I can say that bikinis should not be made in that size!!!! I have never seen so many tattoos on people. At one point, a lady bent over in front of Shawn and I and we just looked at each other and I finally said to my husband that, in my opinion, if your tramp stamp has its own zip code, it probably shouldn't be there!!!! Anyway--we all had a great time. The next big event of the week was my incident. I thought I would be all good on vacation and get up every morning before everyone else and go for my jog. The first day everything went fine, but on the second morning, for some reason, I fell. I had made it all the way down the mountain our chalet was on and was running on a flat, straight sidewalk, and I just went down. My knee and elbow are still suffering. I had to spend the rest of vacation hobbling around with huge band-aids on me! To add insult to injury, my brother, CJ, decided that he thought it would be great fun to "imitate" my limp as we walked around all week. However, I think he was just using this as an excuse for his own "chafing"--our family definitely has the curse of thighs that were not meant to walk around all day in extreme heat! Drew's favorite part of the week was the helicopter rides we went on. This was hardest on me. We could only go 3 or 4 at a time, so I had to let the girls go up first with CJ and Cassie. It was excruciating to see their little faces in the helicopter windows and watch it go up in the sky. Next went Shawn, me, Dax, and Drake. They loved it, of course, and finally Mom and Dad took Drew. I was glad when everyone was safely back on the ground! We went to see "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat". I had explained the Bible Story to the kids before we went, even though the older kids knew it already and the younger ones at least recognized the "Veggie Tales" version of it. I also knew enough to explain that there would be some artistic license taken with the story. I still don't think I prepared the kids enough for the acid trip it was! Oh well--this was Delaney's favorite event of the week--she loved that the Pharaoh was portrayed by Elvis! Good friends of ours were in town the same week so this was one of the events we did with them which added to the fun! Shawn rented a boat and a giant hot dog to take out to a lake in the area for a few hours. This was the highlight of the week for Dawsyn and my Dad. We all got extremely hot, sunburned, and sweaty--especially Drake--everyone kept commenting that surely he is my Grandpa Jim reincarnated! The kids would not get off the hot dog--Dax must have rode that thing for hours! We also spent time at the arcade where Dax got his favorite memento of the trip-- his stuffed snake he named Steve. The kids got to ride a camel, race go-carts, go to a dinner theater, eat our annual Pancake Breakfast on the last morning, go geo-caching, play putt-putt, and visit Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. So, we had a very full vacation. When we pulled in the driveway yesterday, Dawsyn very dramatically announced that she wasn't sure she remembered which bedroom was hers! So glad she didn't accidentally leave her drama in Gatlinburg!

School's out, schools out...

... the teachers have definitely let the monkeys out and they have all landed at my house--well at least 5 of them have, anyway! We have been keeping ourselves busy with the usual--parades with Dawsyn, soccer camp for Drew (he made a select soccer team and will be keeping us quite busy traveling to tournaments), gymnastics, t-ball, etc, etc... Plus our new family hobby--geocaching! We have found 8 already! The kids are totally addicted and love traveling around with our GPS looking for hidden objects and signing the logs saying we had been there--and, of course, our name is "Seventhheaven"! Even though we are busy, we still find time for those childhood moments of summer--the other morning, Delaney and Dawsyn got up super early and went outside to catch the first morning bugs--apparently these are the best--who knew? Anyway, they had only been out there for a few minutes when Delaney came running in the house screaming and holding up a little plastic glow-in-the-dark star. She was jumping up and down excitedly and said, "MOM! It must have fallen from the sky in the middle of the night! We HAVE to get it back up to it's family!" I love those moments of pure innocence!!! The look on her face was irreplaceable. The kids ended the school year on a positive note--Drew won a big award that was only given to one kid in his class for following rules and being a positive role model. Dawsyn also brought home an excellent report card and Delaney graduated from preschool--with Mommy's eyes full of tears. Now my focus is to slow the summer down as much as possible!!! ;)