Great Smokey Mountains

This weekend was my mom and step dad's 11th anniversary. They decided they wanted to go to Pigeon Forge, TN to celebrate. They headed up Thursday after playing a round of golf here in town. They invited me and Maddy up for the weekend. I was trying to keep it a surprise for Maddy, but come Wednesday I just couldn't contain my excitement any more. I told her we were going on a small vacation. Her eyes lit up and she excitedly asked, "To the beach?!?!?!" I told her we were going to the mountains. I took a video of her with my phone to send to my mom and step dad...

I actually got myself up Friday morning at 5:17 a.m. so I wouldn't have to work until 10 p.m. and drive 2 hours. We didn't get on the road until 10 p.m. because I still had to pack me and get the car packed and then get Manny taken care of. When we got to the cabin Maddy was so excited to look around. I took some pictures of the cabin on our last day, so the beds weren't made. It had four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. It was so pretty!!!

Maddy loved to play the balls. More than anything though she enjoyed going up and down the stairs. Forget the stair master...just go with Maddy somewhere there are stairs and you will be toned up in no time! We didn't get into bed until 1:50 a.m. We got a rude awakening at 7 a.m. from the alarm. That thing drove me crazy! We finally got up at 7:30 a.m. and were so tired but yet so excited to go ride rides. That alarm did not have a power button so I just unplugged it lol. We headed to the Log Cabin Pancake House. Maddy had a banana and I had biscuits n gravy.

 Maddy was already starting to get quite moody by this point. After breakfast we hit OshKosh for tax free weekend and got Maddy some clothes.

After shopping we headed back to the cabin to get ready for Splash Country...only Maddy fell asleep on the way there and we ended up sitting in the truck outside the cabin for an hour or so. Maddy woke up crying and saying no and she was very frustrated. We waited for her to let us know when she was ready and out of no where she said, "I'm ready to go Pops." We asked her if she wanted to ride rides or go play in the water and of coarse she wanted to ride rides. We decided to skip Splash Country and go to Dollywood. Weather wise that was a great move. When we got to Dollywood we headed straight for the kiddie rides. Our first ride was the carousel.

Then we hit the rest of the kiddie rides.

We tried to catch the train several times but two times it was full and then when we finally were able to sit and wait for it they closed it down because there was lightning in the area. Before long the bottom dropped out. We made it to what was supposed to be a singing show (we thought it was the bird show) and five minutes before it was supposed to start they said they were not going to have the show due to the storm. We decided to just leave the park and go eat dinner. We ate at this amazing restaurant called the Bull Fish grill. I got the slow roasted prime rib and oh my gosh...it was just amazing. Maddy was not in any mood to eat. She just kept crawling under the table and trying to touch the people behind us and banging on the window and jumping on the seat...it was just such fun lol. On the way to the cabin Maddy was starting to fuss and I did something to her my grandmother used to do to me. I asked her what was on her shoulder and pretended like something was there, then I grabbed it and said got it! She just looked at me and I said I got grumpy now I need to get gripey. I started on her other shoulder and all of a sudden she started saying, "GET IT, GET IT,GET IT!!!" She thought there was a bug on her and she hates bugs! She's in a very literal stage right now and I wasn't thinking about that when I did that...oops. After dinner we just chilled at the cabin. Maddy played with her baby and her "mountain" and of coarse with the balls.

We got to bed by 9 p.m. and got to sleep in until 8:30 a.m. We had to be checked out by 10.

 I had no idea what the plan was for the day, so I was quite surprised when we turned around and went right back to Dollywood. We ate at a place called Aunt Granny's in the park and the food there was also really good. It's a buffet line and has true southern cooking there.

We went to ride the elephants and the teacups then the carousel again.

 We decided to go catch the bird show and the stunt dog show. I didn't get any pics of the bird show..my mom did and I will post when I get them and the dog show didn't allow flash photography but it was a really neat show. I highly recommend it. Maddy was so interested because they start out with like a black light type show and all you see are the lights and the frisbee's they use have lights in them so it was really neat. All the dogs were adopted from the human society and they trained them using clickers and toys. Just goes to show it's never too late to train a dog.

 After the stunt dog show we were able to catch the train. We decided it was time to go after the train because Maddy was real tired and it was fixing to rain. Me and my stepdad and Maddy rode the tram back to the car and right before we got to our car it was just sheets of rain pouring down. It was so cold and miserable. I carried Maddy and ran to the car and even though the car was just a few feet away we were drenched. Maddy laughed as we ran but once she got in the car she was quite upset she got soaked. We didn't even make it 1 minute before she was passed out asleep. We got some food at Sonic and headed to Cades Cove. We saw horses and deer and turkey. After that it was time to go home.