After a basically uneventful car ride down (it actually felt SHORTER this time), we were welcomed into Grandma's house by the smell of fresh chicken and dumplins'. Nothing like dumplins' to help you sleep at 11:30 at night! On Thursday, the girls begged to go over to Great Aunt Nettie's house next door, so I went up to visit with Angela and help her clean. Well, she did most of the cleaning; I did most of the visiting. :) Later she took the girls to her house to play with Cameron and Caleb, but Adeladie decided that Scotty was her new arch-enemy. She ran pell-mell from him
through the yard, crying, "SCOTTTTTY! NOOO!! SCOTTTY!" That night we went to the Igloo (a little ice cream and sandwich shop shaped like a real igloo) for a picnic with Papaw and Mamaw, and then we went back to their house for some "woodwalking." All three of the girls love to go out in the woods with Papaw (and withOUT me). That night after they were in bed, I went to hang out at Melanie's, even though the pollen was too bad for us to sit out on her new deck furniture. Friday
On Friday we went to visit Chasity and check out their yard sale. I took over my Japanese food (they don't have sweet Japanese carrots in Ohio, so I have to eat them when I get a chance!) and we sat on the screened porch, newly renovated and SO COOL... I wish we had one! Sadie and Josie got to make their own sign to go up on the wall inside. Sadie made a bunch of flowers with her name and Josie drew a fairy princess in a blue dress. After naptime at Grandma's house, we had a big family supper (which Grandma loves) with Angela, Scotty, Cameron, and Caleb. Later we went
riding around on the golfcart and we checked out the bees and the giant potato patch... Adelaide LOVED riding on the golfcart with Angela and kept saying, "FUN! FUN!" After that, we went back to Grandma's for watermelon and an impromptu birthday party for Josh with Britt, Natasha, Bayleigh, Thomas, Elizabeth, and Josh. Saturday
Tweetsie Day
On Friday night I got a call from Sylvia (aka Mamaw) to let me know that my Daddy (aka Papaw) had come down with a fever, cough, chills, etc. This was NOT good. Not only did we not want him to be sick, but the next morning was TWEETSIE DAY. No one knows how much Sadie and Josie had been looking forward to going, and I just didn't have the heart to tell them that we had to cancel. Mamaw and Papaw decided, in their infinite wisdom, that we should just go without them... they gave me the money for our tickets, lunch, and souveniers (this was their birthday present to all the girls) and sent us on our way. I would definitely need help to corral all 3 kids while in the Old West, so my mom said she would come with us to help out. After a slow start (trying to get breakfast together and running into a silly bird with the car, then stopping to get sunscreen and bottled water), we made it there shortly after opening time. Their motto is "Blast from the Past," and it certainly was for me, since I hadn't been there since I was a child. It was almost exactly the same, though, and we were so excited! Here are some of the highlights:
-Riding the 'horses,' pretending they were Pet and Patty and Bunny from the Little House books
-Riding the train around the mountain, and getting held up by the outlaws and saved by the marshal who cracked Mommy and Grammie up with, "I'm Texas Pete and this here is my sister Tabasca." "Well, looky here, Mr. and Mrs. Sauce."
-They each got to pick out one souvenier... Sadie got a pink cowgirl hat with a sparkly spangly thing on the front, Josie picked out an "Indian set" with a pink feathered headdress, Indian 'braids,' a drum, and a tomahawk, and Adelaide picked out a teeny little real-fur mouse, I am sure with which when I find it eventually at the bottom of my purse I will scare myself to death.
-Grammie and Sadie and Josie rode the chair lifts up to Miners' Mountain, with Grammie screaming all the way; meanwhile, I almost killed myself walking up the steep, 2 mile long, newly graveled trail while trying to push the stroller containing Chubbalaide. I ended up having to make the poor child get out and walk. She followed along behind me, panting, "I comin', I comin'! Mommy! I comin'!"
-When we finally MADE it to the top (much to my surprise), we found Grammie and Sadie and Josie having a fine old time on the playground.
-After working up a thirst on the playground, we all got giant snow cones and Sadie and Josie got their faces painted, then we watched (and danced along with) The Hopper and Porter show, a giant engineer rabbit and conductor tortoise.
-Next, to Sadie's dismay, she found that she was TOO tall for the airplane ride, but Josie wasn't! Then Josie and Adelaide got to ride together in the boat ride with REAL water underneath them... they were very impressed, as this was Adelaide's first "big girl" ride with no grown ups around.
-Then I rode the Tweetsie Twister with Sadie and Josie, which was great fun, especially when they both started screaming like, well, little girls!
-Next, all three of them got to play in the mud when they went panning for gold.
-We went up the hill to the Petting zoo, and we bought ice cream cones full of feed for the animals... a funny emu kept popping his head up at Sadie from behind the fence, trying to steal her cone, and Josie cracked up at a baby goat who nibbled at her fingers.
-Thank goodness, there was a BUS back down the mountain - I was going to brave the chairlift WITH the stroller if there wasn't - and all three girls liked riding the bus. I don't know what it is with them and mass transportation, but they're all about it.
-Back down the hill, we watched the dancing girls in The Can-Can Review, then we watched the Blacksmith and headed over to see the cloggers, one of our favorite parts. The girls got up to clog on stage with the real cloggers, and they had a blast learning a step, "Pretend there's a bee on your toe. Now kick it off, stomp on it, and do it again!"
-After a couple of rides on the Merry-go-round, we decided that we were Tweetsied out. What? After only 7 hours??
We were SO tired, but amazingly, all three of them got their 2nd wind when Cameron and Caleb came down later to Grandma's. We finally had baths and got ready for church the next day.
