1-4. Holy Week
Click below to read about our Holy Week:
5. Traveling and Tuesday
For Easter Sunday, I had taught the three- and six-year-olds that the morning exchange is, "He is Risen! He is risen indeed!" So come Easter Monday morning, three-year-old Thomas came downstairs to find me in the kitchen as per usual and greeted me, "You are risen, Mama!"
Holy Week is hectic enough and I was simultaneously planning a family vacation . . . the jury is still out on whether I would take on that extra workload again. We couldn't cancel the children's piano lessons this week because the children have a big audition the following week, so while they were in lessons Monday morning, I was packing up a family of eight. It was a bit (very?) crazy-making, but we successfully got in the van in time for the baby's afternoon nap!
I had given the children a newly released folk music CD called Singsong Pennywhistle and it proved very popular on our drive! This CD was released by two now-adult sisters from a large homeschooling family who sang all the time during their growing-up and who now want to spread the culture of families singing together.
Anything that inspires all my children to enthusiastically harmonize wholesome songs together with their parents is priceless! I highly recommend that all my friends buy this CD. You can listen to samples of all 24 tracks online here.
We stayed at a cabin 15 minutes from Dollywood.
The cabin contained three stories and slept 10 of us with room to spare, but looked deceptively petite.
Siblings holding hands while they walk through the park melts our hearts!
30-second slow-motion video
I tried Dippin' Dots for the first time in its 31 years: unusual but tasty! It was 80 degrees both days we were in the park, which is about 10 degrees higher than perfect. Even with sunscreen and a sunhat, I got a sunburn.
Photographic series of our beloved David (21 months) with a ball his big brother won at the carnival games . . .
Thomas (3) just loves riding the ducks, pigs, and bees! I could watch him that joyful all day.
Photographic series of darling Thomas (3) on the Lemon Twist (teacups) . . .
Chris' parents were able to join us at the cabin by Tuesday evening when we celebrated Dottie's birthday.
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| Thomas (3) refused to be in the photo. |
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| Opening cards and a gift |
The children ended Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the hot tub on the deck overlooking the quiet woods.
6. Wednesday
Due to the upcoming piano audition, we brought our keyboard with us and the oldest two were required to do their practicing each morning before they could go to Dollywood. That was not always fun, but that's how we do it! |
| Wee boys imitating big siblings |
I love how when four of the children rode the pigs together, a ride which was otherwise empty, they all rode in the same pig!
Riding together in the bees as well . . .
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| Pop-Pops and David |
Upon arriving back at the cabin on Wednesday night, at first I was wondering why the cabin was so unreasonably cold. Pretty soon I realized I had fever, chills, and body aches all over. I was just grateful that I didn't come down with it until after our two days at Dollywood!
7. Traveling Home on Thursday
Packing up and closing out the cabin the next morning was tough while being so sick--sore throat and coughing having set in overnight--and I was very grateful to have the additional help of Chris' parents and that our older three children are very competent--especially when required to be!
Chris loaded our 15-passenger van to the gills in the then-pouring rain and then we headed off to breakfast. The family enjoyed the restaurant and I enjoyed curling up in the van to sleep in a feverish, coughing huddle.
Our drive went home actually went quite well overall. On this trip, we listened (not for the first time) to "By the Great Horn Spoon" by Sid Fleischman, which is a super enjoyable historic fiction book about the California Gold Rush. Highly recommend it!
Then we got home and it's a joke in my family that Mama has to unpack luggage immediately upon arriving home. So, even though I was sick--as I would have to be vomiting profusely or dead to leave luggage sitting around--I was directing all the children to unload and unpack. Chris had to leave us to dash to FedEx for a time-sensitive errand. And then . . . IT HAPPENED.
I can still share a dreadful poop story online if the child in question is only three years old, right? Somehow, something got out of control for our normally very competent three-year-old and he was found in the bathroom in what looked like a crime scene from a murder movie . . . except it was not blood but poop! He was covered, it was all over his pants, it was all over the towel he tried to use to clean up, covering the bath mats, the toilet, the tile.
I'm managing the disinfecting and showering off of my innocent, wee boy, there is noise and chaos breaking out elsewhere in the house, the baby is wailing to get to me, and that's the moment when we got contacted by our bank that thieves had stolen money from our account, so we spent the next hour on the phone with the fraud department to shut everything down (while our dear 12-year-old got our permission, "Mama, can I mow the lawn? It needs it.").
So, it all ended in a comedy of errors, but was overall a really joy-filled family trip!
Our last weekday of the Easter octave week has John insisting on attending the 7:00 a.m. Mass (Mama wanted him to sleep in!) and returning to CCE (hybrid school) where he studied ahead to be the volunteer student teacher of Grammar this week (proud English major and former professional editor Mama here), picking up a load of vestments at church to laundry as part of a volunteer ladies' laundry program, and Sick Mama (who will not be leaving the house) unpacking, doing three loads of laundry, placing a grocery order, and writing out lesson plans for four grades of school next week.
For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.
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