Day 4- She's somewhere in the Smokey Mountain Rain

We stayed in a hotel in the Smokey Mountain Resort.

The plan was to go to Dollywood.

But it was rainy and severely cold.

So we went here instead.

So did everybody else.

 Ethan was a little afraid of going into an upside down building.

 They had a lot of fun stuff to do inside-most of it was educational.

But it got so busy you could barely move.

I would love to go again another time but here is my advise:

Go on a sunny day so that everyone and their stuffed bunny don't show up at the same time.

Don't go with young children.  There were some fun things for them but they had a lot more for older kids that we couldn't go on.  I would love to go back and try those things another time.

Here is a virtual thing ethan tried.

 Giant bubble maker

 This was interesting but a little boring for the kids.

 This pricked a little... Kels and I both tried it.

 This was just cute.

 Flying airplanes

 Matt is a pretty good pitcher.

Ethan and Kelsey are not.

Last night we had a dining disaster.  Do not trust the idiot on Diners Drive Ins and Dives.  We are not going to talk about last night.

So I chose this place.

Applewood Farmhouse.

It was my favorite dining place EVER.

Amazing food, great atmosphere, cozy fire, free apple fritters.

If you are ever in the smokey mountains you HAVE to eat here.

 After lunch we headed on our way. 

We FINALLY reached our destination.

I will blog more about our new house later.

Day 3

We headed out from Mississippi and headed to Alabama.

The food place Matt chose this time was completely opposite from the Jamaican place.

It was a place called Saw's BBQ.  It was a small restaurant on the street of the nicest area in Burmingham, Alabama.  Everything looked so ritzy.  The restaurant was so crouded you could barely move and there was a long long line to order.  It was like a fast food place but I noticed that every single person there was wearing business clothes (they were obviously on their lunch break), except for us and a couple of college boys.  This was the BEST BBQ pork I have ever had.  I can still remember how juicy the sandwhich was. Yum!

We planned on going to a science museum, but Juliet was feeling so miserable and she had had a fever for a couple of days so we ended up here.

It was a fairly short wait, we were only there for an hour.

Then we came here for a while to wait for the prescription.  Ended up Jules had a bad ear infection.

We didn't have time to drive across town to go to the museum so the pharmacist recommended a nearby park that she said was great.

Another customer in there was an old man who felt bad for us and wanted to make sure we found the park so he offered to let us follow him to show us where it was at.

The park was AMAZING.  Burmingham AL is a nice place.  Nice people. I would move there in a heartbeat.  This is the awesome park.

Ethan called this the "roller coaster swing" because it had straps that went above your head and buckled between your legs.

Cute toddler area.  Jules was feeling better now that she had some ear numbing drops.

Thanks for reading.

Day two

Day Two:  New Orleans

We left Lake Charles, LA and drove a short way to New Orleans.  Matt picked this Jamaican place to eat.  It was in the slums of New Orleans and looked like a warehouse.  I was not too thrilled.  When we went inside I changed my mind.  It was decorated nice and was clean and the only other people who were dining there were a couple of police officers, so I felt ok:)

 This backdrop against the wall made it look like we ate right on the beach.

But no, it was just the backdrop.  We all ordered the lunch buffet so we tried all kinds of different foods.  It was good and Matt especially loved it because he served his mission in Jamaica.  He talked to the owner about Jamaica for about twenty minutes.

After lunch we went to the zoo.

Cute elephant fountain

The real elephants

I couldn't resist adding these cute photos of Kelsey.  She loves to pose for the camera

Ethan is resting in the play area.

Jules knows how to relax and put her foot up

This was my favorite part of the zoo because we could go to a zoo almost anywhere but this made it unique to the area

Alligators

Big front porch rocking chairs

Digging

After the zoo we found this cute ice cream place called the Creole Creamery

The kids loved these ice cream clowns

We still like Leatherby's better, but this is the second best place we have ever found for ice cream-and we look everywhere for good ice cream.

Even Jules got a little taste

We then headed to Meridian, Mississippi.

When we got to the hotel we went swimming.

All of the kids have new swimming suits and they were happy to use them.



See Ya tomarrow.

Back to Blogging

So, it has been a long and tiring adventure moving to Virginia.  It has been a while since I have been able to blog... so to make up for it I am going to [try] to write a blog every day for a while.  I am going to start with the vacation-y part of the move.  We took four days to get from Texas to Virginia so I am going to approach this by blogging about it just one day at a time.

Day one:

The day started out well.  We had stayed at a hotel the night before because all of our house was packed and on its way (I love that we didn't have to lift a finger or pack a box. Celanese hired people for that).  Matt purchased a Nintendo DS for each child.  I was against that at the first, but as the trip progressed I was kinda glad because it made it so I could sit back and read Fablehaven:)



The kids did quite a bit of this (playing DS)

And a little of this

We stopped at our favorite stop that is in between Corpus and Houston.  It boasts "Restrooms Mom will like" and it is just a fun place.  Here a few pics.

When we reached Beaumont Texas we stopped here to let the kids play.  It was inexpensive and fun.

After bounce bounce bouncing, we were hungry.  Matt is obsessed with finding obscure places to eat when you are on vacation and he picked to eat here:

 We all tried fried alligator for the first time.

This is Kelsey thinking "I can't believe I just ate that!"

We continued on to Lake Charles, Louisana where we stayed the night - and I will have more for you tomorrow.

Valentines and Virginia

I was reading everyone's valentines posts and I decided to share a little about our valentines day this year.  I am too tired to upload the pictures, so that will be for another time.

Last week my neighbor offered last week to watch the kids on valentines since her husband was working that night.  I was so excited because we havn't been on an official date in a while.  Well, monday morning she texted me and said her kids were sick and she could no longer watch them. 

Crushed.

But I was determined to not let it ruin my day.  I thought, "oh well, it's not her fault.  We will just have to take the kids out to eat with us-again-this year.
But then...

My amazing visiting teacher came over with some flowers!  Really pretty orange roses.  Her children are all grown up and moved out.  She said, "Do you have someone to watch the kids tonight?"  I told her my story about the neighbor plans.  She replied, "Well, we are having valentines lunch, so if you want to go out with your husband for dinner I would love to watch your kids."

Hooray!!!

She even watched Juliet and it was the first date Matt and I have been on with NO KIDS since Jules was born last July.  I felt so happy, like a little kid at Christmas.

Matt came home from work with beautiful pink roses for me.  I love them.

We went to Waterstreet Grill and had VIP treatment.  We got to sit upstairs by their best window with the best view.  The room was decorated with flowers and candlelight.  Romantic music playing.  It was so nice.

And we got to talk about our new plans to move.

Matt got a new position at the chemical plant in Virginia.  They called us that day and said they wanted Matt to be working there by March 14.  That means we have to move in 3 weeks. AHHHHHHH!

Excited. 

When we moved here we always said that if we had the chance to make it to the Virginia location that we would go.  So we are happy, I just wish we didn't have to move so suddenly.  Oh well, we will still take it.  So there you go- If I don't blog for a while you will know why.