Last Day of Vacation :(

Although it was the last day of vacation, the kids were most excellent for these activities. On their list, there were 2 things left they wanted to do: Mining and go carts.

First we were off to find some gems. Mama needs a new ring! ;)

Nothing says fine gems like this place, right?

Laney sifting through her first batch

Ella found a goodie

Dirt? Water? Matthew was in heaven

I love this one!

She kept saying, I found gold, I found gold!

Our treasures 

Matthew and the gem guru looking through his loot. Those are 2 rubies shown.

The girls and their new necklaces

What a great morning!

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After nap time, it was off to the big shebang...go carts!

I believe go carts are a rite of passage in Gatlinburg and although it rained for about 10 minutes just as we were leaving, the course was quickly dried off for us to start racing.

The big course was called The Woody.

As we showed up, the worker said (and I quote),

 "The Big Woody is wet and needs to be dry before you can ride it."

And to think he said this with a straight face!!

But as the Big Woody was drying, we rode the smaller rides :)

Since we were the only ones there (it had just stopped raining),

they let Jason drive a car with Ella.

I was in awe of her....driving like it is her job!

We then let Matthew chose his ride and of course he chose the train.

Laney was happy to ride with Matthew (she is such a good sport!)

Matthew and Laney were then off to the swings

All 3 wanted to ride this ride.

As it was spinning, Jason said that Ella inherited his gene...the "I am going to get sick on these spinny rides" gene.

But she kept asking for it to go faster and faster...she loved it! 

Although she did look like she was going to get sick :)

As the plane went higher and higher and higher, I got more nervous.

I just can't believe that my little man is old enough to ride a ride like this!

And to think he didn't even try to stand up and jump off (which was my biggest concern).

Then it was Laney's turn to drive!

And then, Woody was open.

Ella was so excited to ride it...it went fast, lots of turns, a big hill...yeah, nervous mama was back.

Look at the smile...she was in heaven.

Beating out the competition

At first I didn't think Laney was tall enough to ride and let me tell you, the cry she let out was heart breaking. I am so glad I was wrong because boy was this girl upset.

I think she liked it :)

Then all 3 of my monkeys went in cages for the last ride of choice :)

Laney is in the blue one on the left and Matthew and Ella were in the red one on the right.

Yeah that was FUN!!!!!!!!!

Random Pictures from Vacation

These pictures didn't really have a home except to say "random picture."

Why a picture of peanuts?

Jason bought these as a snack and little did we know that Laney would find such joy in them.

She spent over an hour cracking them open and then of course eating them.

Who knew?

I loved this game as a kid and when I saw it the week before vacation, I thought it would be a fun toy to bring out when we got there. The kids loved watching it pop!

Still doing peanuts....

These units always have big bathtubs which the kids always seem to remember :)

We had been there just a few hours and the kids were in for a huge bubble bath.

Hiking

Day 2 in Gatlinburg lead us to hiking and the Dixie Stampede. The trail we chose was 2 miles ending at a beautiful waterfall. I thought if it was paved maybe we could make it but it wasn't paved, was straight uphill and well, we just didn't make it. At least we got great pictures and there was no crying (from us or the kids).

 

The ladies were ready to go

As I mentioned in an earlier posts Ella's smiles have gotten better and better.

Although blurry (what is up with my camera these days?? I am sure it is not the user, right?),

check out that pose baby.

I swear we did some hiking on this trip and not just pose for pictures :)

What is this? A picture of hiking??

No worries...Ella is still posing.

This was Matthew the rest of the way back.

His allergies are pretty bad this year so his poor eyes were so watery :(

When did my Ella become such a cheese ball?

Love it!

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After we took some rest time......wow, hold on. Rest time? Ok, Matthew took a nap and Jason and I rotated taking the girls to the pool...that is more like it :)

Back to my statement, after rest time, we went to the Dixie Stampede. Jason and I had seen this show before (think horses, pig races, chicken races, etc while you eat your meal). The kids had a great time and were enthralled for the full 1.5 hours!

The girls loved seeing the horses after the show.

Ella said she wanted her picture taken with the girls...no boys :)