For Christmas this year, in lieu of boxes under the tree and in an effort to achieve "experiences and not stuff," we took our family on a vacation to Dollywood Theme Park, our first visit there. We told the children a few weeks before Christmas so they would know not to be making gift requests of us!
New Year's Day arrived and, through great efforts, I had us all packed up and the car loaded on time to deliver John at 8:30 a.m. to serve the 9:00 Mass for the Feast of Mary, Mother of God.
Then it should have been time to grab breakfast and get on the road pronto . . . we might even make it to our destination by early afternoon! However, not one, but two, children decided--against dire maternal warnings and the standard rule for Playing After Mass--to play in the sloppy mud and become coated stem to stern, requiring us to drive home and get new outfits. Then we tried to get breakfast but the first three diners we visited had lines out the door, so we settled on Burger King as it was getting close to lunch by then. One of our children dumped a full drink on the table and then I picked up a kid's chocolate milk to move it to safety and instead dumped it all over myself, which began what became a running theme of Dumping Over as Many Drinks as Possible at Each Meal for the rest of the trip.
As I was clearing our tables to leave, an elderly woman tut-tutted at me, "You have soooo many children! And you have something spilled all the way down your front."
It was a bit of a rough start to our trip, but we soldiered on in cheerfulness!
We then made good time on the road and arrived at the DreamMore resort just in time to drop off our luggage and get to our reserved seating at Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede (dinner theater).
Our family has never taken such a touristy vacation as this, nor stayed at a fancy, full-service resort, and it was really a treat that had all our eyes sparkling.
My fixation on having an orderly shoe area is being absorbed by the children, as seen even when we travel!
The Stampede was a pretty neat experience, it being the first time our family has attended a dinner theater of any time. The establishment serves a set menu of vegetable soup, chicken and pork, corn on the cob, biscuit, a potato, and an apple fritter for dessert--all to be eaten by hand! Thankfully, a friend at church had forewarned me that one is provided no utensils, so I smuggled in plastic forks and spoons with which to eat because the last thing I wanted was for us to get sick (germs hand to mouth) on our trip.
Of course, certain people ate with their bare hands anyway . . .
I held David in my arms almost the whole time and he was One Big Wiggleworm . . .
. . . continually trying to run off on an adventure!
The Stampede involves beautiful horses, theatrics, music, costumes, pyrotechnics, humor, and even the Nativity Story. The costumes are Broadway-quality and (almost entirely) old-fashioned and modest, which meant a lot to our religious family.
I glanced over at little Thomas during the pyrotechnics act and he had his hands clamped firmly over his eyes, so I alerted Daddy that he needed some comforting.
Chris brought the children pendants to wave and, so far, nobody has poked anybody else's eye out, but the sticks came home with us, so who knows what might happen yet.
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