The Wilderness Lodge

                                            Abbie and Matt in the wave pool (Sophie and Aunt Leia are in the background).

                                         Paw-paw Tom, Sophie and Matt after riding one of the slides

                                            Abbie and Sophie in the loft-neither one of them ended up sleeping up there.  I was willing to let Sophie give it a try but not Abbie.  She's too young!

                                               Abbie on the teeter totter

 Sophie on the teeter totter

On Friday afternoon and Saturday we had a wonderful time at the Wilderness Lodge.  Matt's parents and his sister, Leia, arrived a little while after we did on Friday afternoon.  We had reserved a suite that would sleep up to 10 people.  It was great!  There were two separate adjoining rooms.  One of the rooms had a nice kitchen, living room/bedroom area and bath and the other one had a bedroom and bathroom.  The girls were so excited about the loft.  Abbie kept trying to sneak up there without any help and that was a little scary.  Sophie thought she might want to sleep up there but when the time came, she didn't want to anymore.  I should have taken more pictures at the water park but we were too busy having fun and trying to keep up with everybody.  The indoor area had a wave pool which both girls loved, a kiddie area with swings, a small slide, and the teeter totter, etc, another big kiddie area with spray play areas, fountains, and smaller slides, and then several big slides that were so much fun!  They also have a big hot tub area and a couple of outdoor pool areas.  The outdoor pool area had a lazy river. 

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park

                                                              the girls are ready to go

                                                Paula, Sophie and Abbie at the grist mill

                                                                   Sophie

                                                                    Abbie

On the Thursday before Memorial Day we headed to Gatlinburg, TN. The girls were so excited about our trip and ready to go. Our hotel in Gatlinburg for Thursday night was fine but Abbie decided to wake up at about 4:30 central time. This is not our chosen time to get up! She would not go back to sleep so we ended up all being awake shortly after and we were eating breakfast by 6:30 eastern at our hotel (unheard of for us). Once we were all awake I had told Matt that we might as well just get up and do something. Friday morning started off a little rainy but it cleared off into a pleasant day. After we ate breakfast, we drove around the Smoky Mountain National Park some. We were able to spot several deer, a bunch of wild turkeys and a BEAR! We saw a whole bunch of cars pulled off the main drive through the park and there were 2 park rangers. We thought it looked like a bear over in the field but since we were just sort of driving through, Matt asked and it was! The girls got a kick out of it at our hotel because on the elevator sign for the capacity, it said 10 people and then someone had written in "plus one bear). =)

It was a beautiful drive through the park but it made me kind of sleepy since we had woken up so early. One bad thing was that Abbie needed frequent bathroom stops on our trip. She can usually wait for a few minutes. As we were driving through the National Park though, we weren't really seeing any bathrooms for a long time. I told her that when I was growing up sometimes you would just have to pull off the side of the road (on the interstate) and find a tree or something to go behind. That was going to be my last resort for Abbie though. Well, Matt finally found a little visitors station that had a bathroom. As we pulled up, Matt and I were relieved but Abbie said with gusto, "I wanted to pee pee behind a tree." We just laughed. Abbie is such a character and she constantly keeps you on your toes.

The drive was not very exciting for the girls but they enjoyed seeing the animals. We also took them to a working grist mill in Cades Cove as we were driving around. The girls were able to feel the corn meal because they were demonstrating how the grist mill works, etc. They seemed to really enjoy this part of the tour.

After this, we drove over to Sevierville and checked into the Wilderness Lodge. Matt had decided to pay a little extra for an early check-in. Matt's parents and Leia were meeting us there but they didn't arrive until a little later.