Just when I was starting to feel like things were coming together and that maybe I would pull most everything off in time for Christmas, Dave decides that we should go on a trip. This is less than two weeks before Christmas, and he wants to leave in a couple of days because that's when his time off starts.... ummmm... ok.
So, we threw together a pretty awesome little trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. We stayed in a cabin in Pigeon Forge, TN, and did a lot of really cool things during our three days there. It was a lot of fun. I'm finally going to post some videos. Dave took a lot of really fun ones. He always takes a lot, I just never get them from him or know where they are to use them when I blog about stuff. So, I hope you enjoy all the little clips :)
Wednesday
We started out with three happy little guys in the van... and they were {pretty much} happy the whole time. Chris wasn't feeling well after the first day, so that kind of stunk, but he was a trooper and didn't complain- was mostly just tired the last day and didn't eat much after the first day.
We did some relaxing at the cabin that we rented...
It was very cozy- very secluded with an awesome view off the screened porch out back.
We got there on Wednesday evening, checked in at the rental office, found our cabin, then headed out to find some good food. And boy did we. We saw this cool steakhouse up on a hill and it was really great. Our server was way nice, despite the fact that Chris could NOT stay sitting down for anything. 
ThursdayThe next day we spent the morning at the cabin, then set out to find something cool to do. After a really great lunch at the Old Mill restaurant (really good home cooking) while perusing some tourist pamphlets, we decided on this cool place called Adventure Quest that looked like a (cartoonish) castle with a dragon coming out the side. They had this Mirror Maze that was insane. You had to really pay attention to what was a mirror and what was a way you could walk. You had to put on these plastic gloves so you didn't get fingerprints on the mirrors, which we thought was kind of annoying when they had us do it, but once we were in there, we totally got it. Fingerprints would have messed up the whole experience. We were surprised that Chris was really cooperative. They both loved their gloves, but especially Chris. He stood totally still while the girl put them on him and kept looking at his hands the whole time. He LOVED to come up to a place like the picture below where he could see himself over and over and he would just look at himself and boogie! There was all this loud music through the maze. It was really cool.
Jon just hung out in his sleepy wrap and loved looking around at everything...
Dancing around some more....
They also had Blacklight Pirate Golf. Ben loved it. Chris didn't really golf much, but Ben sure had fun trying!
Chris just wanted to play on the big pirate ship in the middle of the course. Luckily it was made as part of a hole and you were allowed to climb all over it.
The Great Smoky Mountains are awesome. I forget how much I miss the mountains until I see them again. It's cool to see the fog and clouds around the mountain peaks there. I guess that's maybe how they got their name. After our morning adventure, we drove from Pigeon Forge through the Smokies to Bryson City, NC for our most exciting adventure...
The Polar Express !!!
Here we are, waiting at the station for the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad's Polar Express excursion.
From the first time I heard the story when I was a kid, the Polar Express was one of my Christmas favorites. What a magical tale. When the movie came out, I was so excited to see the story on the screen, and it did not disappoint, especially since Dave and I saw it for the first time in IMAX 3D in Nashville. It was WAY awesome- I highly recommend seeing it that way. So when I heard about these Polar Express rides, I always wanted to go on one- and happened to find one that was only an hour or so from where we wanted to spend our little Christmas vacation. So perfect! Ben loves the story too, and Chris, although not quite into it- thought it was pretty cool (even though he was not feeling well by then).We were able to reserve tickets in the club car so we could sit together at a table rather than the rows. The upgrade included getting our hot chocolate with whipped cream, in big red Polar Express mugs that we got to keep. We figured if we were going to do it, we should go all out!
So they started by playing music from the movie soundtrack, and when the Polar Express song came on, they got the kids up and dancing through the train. Then, when the hot chocolate song started, they brought out our mugs of hot chocolate and chocolate marshmallow Santas ("we ate chocolates with nougat centers as white as snow"). The servers (who were SO great) were wearing the chef hats and shirts like the ones in the book/movie.
Side note: Dave also has PJ's that match, but the weather was rather balmy that week and he was afraid of sweating to death. After the tenth or so comment on how cute we were, he decided he should have at least worn the pants! :)*
Sticky hands...
Ben ate most of his chocolate Santa, then went on to sample each and every type of cookie they had put in the little basket on our table. I didn't really notice until he was on maybe his third or fourth treat and then I told him "whoa!"
So of course the train took us to the *North Pole*. The sweet lady who was in charge of our car told all the kids to watch out the windows for the North Pole and yell out when they saw it. We came up to this little town just decked out in lights everywhere. They told them the first big house was Santa's. Then she told them to yell for Santa when they saw him so he would know to come on the train and see them. He was sitting out on his sleigh and we stopped and they saw Santa board the train up in the car ahead of ours. Here's a video- Ben was so excited:As Santa made his way through the train, we reversed and headed back to the station (there were engines on both ends).
Here's Ben watching Santa talk to the other kids before getting to our table...
When he talked to Santa he was so cute. When Santa asked what he wanted, he didn't know (we don't really focus on any of that), but then after Santa left, he was sad because he didn't get to tell him. But he made up for it by telling the Santa at the mall lots of stuff the next week!
Santa was so great. The message that they played before the trip had told us not to have Santa stop and take pictures with us since he had a lot of boys and girls to see, but he would stop and gather the kids together after talking with them and would say "come on, let's get a picture". He gave each child a silver sleigh bell on a leather string. Of course :)
He picked up little guy and said he had to get one with the babies :) You can see if you look close what Jon is looking at so intently-- it's his bell.
Didn't get the best picture, but oh well. You get what you get!!!
After Santa went to the next car, we sang Christmas carols. She gathered the kids that would come up around her and they sang and did actions and jingled their bells, it was so cute. Ben was all into it.
Here he is doing Jingle Bells!
Friday
The next day was a little drizzly. We had big plans to go to Dollywood! but we found out it didn't open until one, so we had to kill some time in the morning first...
Here's Chris and his sticks. Every time we went outside...
"Fishing" off the porch with their sticks...
Ben chose the Dinosaur Museum for our next adventure. It was pretty cool. They said they had the largest collection in the US? or the world? something like that. There were a lot of dinos and they were mostly huge!
So then we were off to Dollywood! Yes, Dolly Parton's amusement park up there in the Smoky Mountains where she grew up apparently. It's such a cool place. This was my first time (Dave had been a couple times but not in years). We were told that it was just amazing at Christmastime, and it was. The music, the 4 million+ Christmas lights, the smells, the food. Yum. It was just a cool place to be. The kids had fun, we had fun. It was a great day.
There were several huge beautiful Christmas trees not to mention all of the other Christmas displays, lights, and just cute old country style shops and restaurants and everything else there.
We watched a couple of Christmas shows- a concert and a musical, saw a magic act, rode a wood fueled train up the mountain....This is Ben up in the front at this concert we went to. It was in this open air theatre where the stage was designed to look like the back porch of a mountain home. The musicians were the Appalachian String Band (I think) and they were great- it was these four older country dudes and this young girl, Naomi, who was their singer. Well, Naomi called some kids up to help her sing some Christmas carols, and Ben was on his feet in a flash. You didn't have to ask him twice. We were way in the back, so I took him up on the side, and she was gathering the kids up in front of the stage (all three that were brave enough). I pointed Ben towards her and he ran up there and started climbing up the stage, then I had to tell him, no- over there. And he turned around and looked confused, then tried another way up to the stage. Heehee. Everyone thought he was so cute.
Then they started singing Jingle Bells. I had run back to my seat to grab my camera (baby on hip) to snap a picture, but then got back up there with it and she starts putting the microphone up to each kid to sing a line. Well of course Ben has known Jingle Bells since he was a little kid (lol- that was for you Peg ;) but seriously.... since he could talk he could sing it. So here is this tiny little three year old and he just belts it out, perfectly in tune- no fear. The crowd went nuts! I ran back and grabbed Dave's camera to get a video. Unfortunately, he didn't know Rudolph as well, but heck if he didn't try anyway. He had the tune down, just not the words! You can hear everyone giggling and cheering after because they just loved him the first time too. It was so so cute.
So here's the bit of Rudolph for you to experience for yourself. I only wish I had Jingle Bells. It was awesome.
Well, we had sat down in there to wait out some drizzling, and afterwards it was mostly good so we took that train ride and then after the magic show headed down to the rides. The boys loved those. Despite feeling yucky, Chris still wanted to go on them too. He was so cute- a lot of the time looking very serious.
On this one he would sit looking very solemn, then as he came around to us would wave then give a little smile to let us know he was actually enjoying it.
Ben loves to put his face in these things.
Ben's VERY favorite was the elephants I think. He could have gone on this one all day. He loved pushing the button to make it go up and then making us go down really fast too.
Dave's favorite was the spinning teacups. You can just see him loving every second. You can barely see the top of Ben's head here... Dave said he was plastered against the side just laughing and laughing as Dave spun them around fast. You can see another dad in the background who is just as excited spinning his kid around.
The Christmas lights were so pretty. It was just amazing- every building was lined with lights, there were trees wrapped entirely in lights- there was a light show with trees over the water that changed with the music- that was fun to see. You can see in the background of this one there is this giant German pyramid (those wooden things with candles that you light and the propeller thing at the top spins around). It was really cool looking and all lit up.
I thought this tree looked really cool against the dark blue sky...
There was a light parade at night through the park that was really fun too.
I just thought this was funny. The place was just full of really neat old fashioned country sayings and signs, shops, all kinds of stuff. I can't wait to go back and explore the rest. We didn't quite get to everything.
The one thing that was a little disappointing was that they had this 4D Polar Express experience which was like a 20 minute ride in one of those motion theatres where you see some of the key scenes with the 3D as well as feeling the motion in your seat, having the snow fall on you, smelling the hot chocolate, etc. It sounded really cool, but the line was over an hour long (only thing in the park like that!) and we knew that would be too hard for the boys. We couldn't even have strollers in the line to let them have a nap or anything. Someday I want to see that!
Saturday
Well, the next morning we packed up and headed home. We met Jeanne and Steve and kids (Dave's sister) at this really cool children's museum in TN on the way home. It was awesome, the boys loved it. Chris was finally starting to feel back to normal and they had a blast. That will be my next post. This one has taken forEVER so I'll have to work on that one later!
