Dollywood - Part 2

After crashing the first night as a result of Dollywood we were going to go and spend the day at a local river park.I heard about this park when Stacy at The Crazy Cotherans vacationed in Cherokee and they spent a day there. It looked so cool and I couldn't wait to try it out. We got up and packed up a lunch, got all the kids ready and hit the road. We got about as far as Gatlinburg when it started raining - I was so sad! Of course the two older boys were complaining the entire time that they didn't want to go to the river - I think they actually said I'd rather die than go to a river so we headed home. Of course their opinions changed about it greatly the next day when we were on our way back to SC and they saw the river park - then it was the coolest thing ever and they wanted to stop.

So we headed back home in the rain and since we had our bathing suits on we hit the hot tub for a little while. Oh how I love me some hot tub!!

We took it easy the rest of the afternoon and played games around the cabin - Yahtzee to be exact because it is by far my favorite! Then we got dressed and headed out to find some rides for the kids and eat some dinner.

My boys live to ride go carts - in fact that was the only thing we had heard out of Caleb since we got there. He wanted to ride go carts!!!!! With all he had going on with his eating at the time I don't think there was much he wasn't going to get to do that he requested. They had some "kiddie" rides at this place too so we got tickets for the older ones and Caleb to ride go carts and for the little ones to ride a few of the other rides.
Lucas rode first on along with David and Caleb. Oh it was priceless!!!! - Caleb loved it and immediately wanted to do it again. Then Jacob got to ride by himself but because of his age he had to ride on a jr rookie track and the cars were very slow. We went and got him another ticket to ride on a faster track with his grandfather on the next one.

I love this picture with both of them in there. Everytime they get on a track they ALWAYS have to race each other.

                                           This "kiddie" ride looks innocent enough, right?

                                                                                   NOT

Do you see Caleb's face - and on top of that look at the girl behind us! I have no clue why they call them "kiddie" rides. It was insane! Allie was horrified - the entire time she was on it she kept crying and saying MaMa - DaDa - No No No. It was horrible! It was all I could do to hang on to her and Caleb across from us at the same time. Nothing kiddie about that ride. When you looked around you saw all the actual "small kids" were mortified!

Then Jacob's track which was much too small for him! Jacob is all about dirt bikes and go carts and he's pretty good so technically he could move up but he's not quite tall enough.

                                                           He's trying to spin him out :)

                                                  All of them on the elevated track.

                                         Yet another "kiddie" ride. Once again not so kiddie.

              It jerked us around the corner so fast the first time I thought it was going to throw us out.

Then I just knew Caleb was going to hit his head on the metal bar when we were going around corners.

See this guys face :) Yep - that's my man! Life is never boring with him around - he always keeps you on your toes.

Look at Allie's face though - this one was a little faster and jerky but at least she wasn't horrified - she had the time of her life on this one.

The last day I wanted to go back the scenic route. My parents left when we did but went straight home and we wanted to go into downtown Gatlinburg to get the kids airbrushed shirts and walk around for a bit. I also wanted to stop at one of the picture taking areas to get a picture of the kids together (you know another attempt) - that was interesting :)

I actually photomerged this picture - it's the first time I've tried it. I took Caleb's face from another picture taken just before it and put it on this one so that they are all actually looking at me. Otherwise I wouldn't have had one with them all looking in my direction. I think I'm going to try and do Lucas too since his eyes are so squinted.