Home Again

For those of you who didn't know, we've been in the Smokies since Sunday. We rented a cabin way up on a mountain for the week. It was beautiful, the weather was gorgeous, and we had a fabulous time. Once we got through the first night, things went smoothly. But let me tell you about the first night.

Seth put Carter to bed in his own room upstairs. We were so pleased with how well he went down in a strange bed. We went downstairs to watch some t.v. and put Maggie to bed. Our bedroom was downstairs, so once we got Mags to sleep, we went to bed, too. The fun started about 1:30, when the light came on and Seth said, "Do you hear that?" How could I not? It was the world's loudest cricket. I was still half asleep when I felt the THUD! "Did you kill it?" I asked. Nope, but he had killed a wasp that was on his pillow. I was awake now. The cricket sounded like it was on the wall above our heads, specifically in this heart-shaped wall decoration made of twigs. Next thing I knew, Seth is standing up in the bed with a book in his hand, telling the invisible cricket, "You're going down!!" The problem was, the cricket wouldn't show himself. But I'm telling you, he was the loudest bug I've ever heard. This went on for a while before Seth looked at me and said, "You're going to blog about this, aren't you?" Oh yeah.

The cricket got quiet for a few minutes, but then Carter woke up crying around 2:00. Seth headed upstairs to check on him and ended up sleeping with him the rest of the night. And I use the term sleeping loosely. Apparently Carter flops around the bed like a fish when he sleeps. Meanwhile, I was still downstairs battling the cricket. He was a tricky little fellow. He would get quiet until I got settled down in bed, and then he'd start up again. As soon as I would turn the light on and get out of bed again, he would be quiet again. I guess he finally got tired of the game and let me sleep after a while. But then at 5:30, Maggie decided that not only did she want to eat, but she wanted to play, too. Finally, about 6:30, I turned on the t.v., and that seemed to lull both of us back to sleep.

Even after a crazy first night (and no, the cricket never made another appearance the entire trip), we had a great time the next day. We went to Dollywood and discovered that Carter is a little daredevil at a theme park. He rode everything that he was tall enough to get on and loved every minute of it - even the little roller coaster and the big ferris wheel!

The rest of the week was fun, too. We went to the aquarium, the Dixie Stampede dinner show, a science museum, and a petting zoo. Carter loooved the goats. Literally. He ran around the pen until he had hugged almost every goat.

By today, I think we were all tired and ready to come home. I like to get away for a while, but I love to come back home even more.