Weekend Getaway

Josh and I took our first ever trip without our kids.  We've never had a chance to do it before, reason #117 I wish we lived by family.  His sister has come to live with us for a while, so her first weekend here we took off before she could say no.  We went just for a couple of days, but it was so nice to have some time alone, to be able to sleep in until 10:00, and then not waking up to a kid in my face asking for breakfast.  We headed up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina to a cabin.  We had plans to go to the hot springs but we were so relaxed and cozy in the cabin we got too lazy and didn't go.  We were also going to have a campfire but the weekend was so crazily windy that didn't happen either.  We did get to hike the Appalachian Trail.  We can now check that off our bucket list.  Not that we have one, but if we did, we could  mark it off.  We didn't see any wildlife, but we did see some bear droppings right on the trail.  Lucky us.

Did I mention it was super windy?  I thought I was going to blow off the mountain. 

This is where the cabin was.  The advertising failed to mention that it was located near other houses.  Not a touristy spot at all, which is fine, but not the secluded spot it claimed to be.  It was right by a few houses and a small church.  And the drive there was really freaky.  We passed a bunch of shacks and houses that looked like places you would find psycho killers.  And the fact we were out of cell phone range didn't help either.  The cabin was nice, however, but I feel lucky we left alive.  We laughed a lot about a lot of things this weekend.

The other thing was that there were no restaurants nearby.  Just scary ones I was not about to enter.  We ended up eating at the grocery store deli the first night, that's how bad it was.  Something always seems to go wrong on our vacations, but that's what makes them memorable.  It was a really great weekend!

Sidneyisms

First of all, she's killing us with her pigtails.  Her hair is almost long enough to pull it up all the way.  I'm still mourning the loss of her hair.

She has been saying the sweetest things to me.  About 10 times a day she'll say, "Mom, you're so sweet."

  "Mom, you're so precious." 

"Mom, I love you."
"Mom, you're so cute."

"Mom, you're so funny."

It never gets old.  And along with it I get the cutest smile.  Oh, she kills me!

Pop Century Resort

I did my research to find the best value resort on property.  Everyone said this is the best one for a number of reasons, and I'm so glad I followed the advice.  I'd recommend it to anyone considering the value resorts, although they're opening a new one this year, which looks like fun too.  I think some of our best time was spent at the hotel.  We went back every day to rest for a while.  The restaurant there had a huge selection of food and desserts that we took full advantage of, definitely regretting it by the end of the week, but enjoyed it anyway.

Pop Century is very kid appealing.  There are different buildings representing decades from the 1950's to 1990's.  We were in the '50s area.  The stairs were inside giant bowling pins that the kids loved walking up and down as much as possible.  We spent one evening after dinner walking around the grounds and found all kinds of fun statues.  This was one of my favorite parts of the week, actually.  I think for all of us.  Simply because it was more relaxed, the weather was perfect, and we were all less stressed with less people around.  In fact, the kids both wanted to walk around and take more pictures again, but we never got around to it.

The picture quality is really bad on some of these.  It was dark and the kids were all over the place so I didn't have time to really make adjustments. 

There is a bridge crossing the lake with each decade lining the wall.  We had to take a picture of Josh with his birth year.  And then Jayden wanted to take pictures of every single one. He also took a bunch of pictures of us together.

Look closely and you can see Jayden about halfway up.

Every day we walked down this path to the main building to catch the bus.  We have no idea why, but every time Sidney would say, "Watch out for crocodiles!"  We came to expect it each day from her and she never let us down.  It gave us a good laugh.

We stayed in the building with Tramp.  Sidney liked that it was purple.

Even bedtime is more fun at Disney. 

A bite of tye dye cheesecake. 

Mickey waffles.

Sunset from our room.

On the day we left we were really sad.  Jayden kept saying how fast the week went by.

Jayden wanted to give me a mad face too. 

Despite the puking, the sandbox incident, and the exhaustion, I think our trip was a success.

Here's the shirt Sidney got for free because she threw up.

Epcot

We were going to do Animal Kingdom again but changed our minds at the last minute.  Epcot was fun, and I'm glad we went.  The kids were begging us all week, but we had wanted to do Animal Kingdom again because we didn't spend much time there.  We finally gave in.  We didn't take very many photos on this day.  It rained a little bit, and it just felt like a crazy day.

There were a lot more characters.  Part of the fun of Disney is seeing random characters all over the place.  If we had stopped at all the ones we saw, we would have taken all day.  Lonely little Stitch had no line.

This is the outfit Sidney was wearing when she threw up later in the day.  A white shirt and tights of all things. 

Sidney and I went to meet more characters while Josh and Jayden did the big rides.  This made #4 for Minnie and Mickey.

She was a little timid the first couple of times with the characters.  By the end of the week it was like she was seeing old friends.  She ran up and gave hugs freely.  She loved Pluto.  He really got her to laugh a lot. 

Meeting Minnie never got old for her.

One of two Hidden Mickeys I found.  I always have intentions of finding them, but get too busy to do it.  This one was super obvious.  We all loved the Nemo ride and aquarium.

Jayden thought all the rides were really cool.

And now for the puking story.  Let me tell you, it was an awesome way to end the week.  While Jayden and Josh were on Soarin', Sidney and I were sitting in a waiting room to see a show.  She had been complaining about her stomach hurting, but we couldn't figure out what was wrong.  Our plan was to go back to the hotel after the show for our daily rest.  She started saying her tummy was hurting again.  We were sitting on the floor, right by the entrance where everyone was walking in looking at pictures on th camera.  And then she puked.  I have been puked on by the kids before, but nothing like this.  It went everywhere.  All down her white shirt, skirt, her tights, shoes, all over my lap, my sleeve, the camera strap, and the floor.  It would not stop!  And to make it worse, it was orange.  Orange.  It was so disgusting and I had no idea what to do.  Josh had the bag with the wipes and her extra clothes, I had like 5 napkins I had happened to put in my bag a few minutes before from lunch.  When I was pretty sure she was done I pathetically asked the old couple near me if they could go get help.  They were so nice and brought paper towels too.  But even with that, I couldn't possibly clean it all up.  I kept texting Josh, get up here!  His response, We just got buckled up.  It was a 5 minute ride, so I sat there for about 15 minutes.  The show we were waiting for entered the theater, and then more people filed in for the next show.  I wasn't too embarrassed though.  I was at a point where I just didn't really care, and a couple of other moms stopped and asked if I needed help.  Mostly I could feel the stares as I tried to avoid eye contact.  I was just wishing I had sat in a back corner, not right at the door where everyone was walking by.  I told Sidney to sit tight, so she laid down on the floor, and fell asleep.  She would have looked so peaceful were it not for the orange puke covering her from head to foot.  So Josh finally arrived.  If he didn't have her clothes I would have escaped to the bathroom sooner.  The cast member gave us a voucher for Sidney so she could get a new shirt.  That was so nice, so she was able to go and pick one out later.  I should have asked for some new pants.  As I was finishing up changing her in the bathroom an impatient mother was waiting behind me.  I think her daughter had had an accident and she made some comment to me about being frustrated.  I had to keep my thoughts to myself.  She must not have noticed that my entire lap to my knees were soaking wet with nasty grime.  Sidney seemed to be feeling a lot better and said she wanted to stay.  So I started the trek back to the hotel when I got a text from Josh saying she threw up again.  This time he held open an empty compartment of his backpack and let her throw up in there.  Desperate times, people.  So Sidney and I went back to the hotel and got her bathed and rested.  By this time it was late.  She was doing much better.  We think she ate something bad, so she really wanted to go back to Epcot.  We made a quick walk around the world showcase, watched the fireworks, and we were out of there.  What a way to end the week.  I had to throw the white clothes out.  No amount of washing got out the stains.  The sad thing is, when I look back on this trip in 5 years, this will probably stand out more to me than any of the actual fun that we had.

We usually arrived back at the hotel like this at the end of each day.  Jayden was all curled up trying to stay warm.

Favorite part of the day:
Dad: Still haven't asked him.

Mom: Finding Nemo ride and getting puked on!

Jayden: Mission Space and Spaceship Earth

Sidney: Spaceship Earth and Finding Nemo ride