What a weekend, week and another weekend!!
Where do I start?
( In other words brace yourselves)
Well last Friday night (Alexs Birthday) we all RUSHED to the house and (finally) 3.5 hours later (after opening presents, greeting the “pet sitters” (mom and dad), MAKING and cutting a birthday cake and some last minute packing) we finally pilled in the car to head to Gatlinburg!!
The babies were waiting for just ONE piece to drop :)
So after we got all piled in the car, filled up with gas, we were STARVING (for real food)! 
Taco Bell it is- YES, T bell is real food and YES I felt like a horrible lil’ wifey for not going somewhere nice for dinner on Lous birthday but we do love Taco bell :)
Anyway, finally about 3 a.m.- we made it!!
Our cabin was at the top of this windy (awful) road and as we pulled up to the lobby area we began questioning the “hours of operation” for check in….. No, I did not check that on the website before going.
Do people really do that?
Anyway Alex and Andy jump out the car to try their luck and didn’t make it past the door…. “we’re screwed”, I thought!
So they come back, asking why did I not check the “check in times”, Andy near cusses me out as he cracks open a beer and says “I need a fucking beer for this, guess we’re sleeping in the car tonight”…
I think Rachel and I starred at each other for a good 2 minutes speechless, only to later find out we were both thinking “cheap Hotel?”….
Anyway, turns out they were kidding and the kind people of Deer Ridge Resort had left a nice envelope with our key in it :)
This was the view of the Smookies from our balcony…. 
Gorgeous!
So after a lazy morning of sleeping in we made bagel sandwiches and packed chex mix- to head up to the slopes!
I saw this old tram and thought it was so cute and rustic…. Then i looked up and realized (a slightly newer version) would be our mode of transportation taking us to the top of the slopes!
YIKES!
Ofcourse the normal parking area at the top of the slopes were full- which we didn’t find out until 10 minutes of driving up yet another, awful windy road!
Did i mention i don’t do hills, mountains or winds in a road?!?!
Ohh and forgot one more thing, Alex and I are both scared of heights and at this point (of my blog) I’m questioning why i thought a ski trip would be a good idea….
Anyway, the boys put their coping skills to use and decided to fill up their T-bell cups (from the night before birthday dinner) with beer and successfully loaded the Tram!
We made it to land… for now!
It seemed like it took us so long to actually get to Ober that our adrenaline was rushing by the time I finally got my ski’s on and they all got set up with snowboards!
You do a lottttttttt of sitting when learning to snowboard….
So i thought it would be so fun to ride up the ski life for the first time with Alex and they fit four people…
Lou didn’t make it though and before we knew it I ended up on the lift with Andy and rachel and Alex were behind us!
We couldn’t believe it- Alex was able to make it off the ski lift with out falling even after we kept teasing him on how it wasn’t going to stop and wait for him!!
But once he sat down to put on the other boot he couldn’t get up!
We tried to take a “our first skiing trip together” pic but he could not stand up for the life of him while his feet were connected!
No worries though he was happy as could be trying :)
He got it!!
But then was down again…. lets just say I did a lot of waiting…
So we fell in love with the bunny slope while we were there!
It’s a perfect size and height, not too steep, good curves (all 2 of them), and little flat break areas before each curve!
So mean while Alex and I are having the best time going up and down our bunny slope and it’s ski lift when Rachel and Andy (from a different ski lift- higher up) go over my head and yell down “Hey meet us at the top of this slope there's fun ones to do around the back of the mountain”
So in some kind of way I told Alex what they said/meant and after talking with some 10 year old kid waiting at the bottom of that line (to the big ski lift) who talked us into getting in line for it, we decided to hop on board….
Almost instantly we knew: This was a bad decision and it was all the other persons fault!
Some of the things going through our minds/being yelled at the other one half way up were as follows:
1) I’m sorry Lou, this was so stupid but I just knew they were going to be mad at us if they waited and we never came
2) Jen, Andy would have never asked us to go up something this high!
3) Babe, I think this is what a panic attack feels like- don’t look down!
4) What the hell were we thinking and why did we listen to a freaking ten year old kid when the sign clearly said “Experienced skiers only”
5) This was so stupid, this was so stupid, this was so stupid!!
6) Dear God, if you please get me down i will never again get off the bunny slope!
Lets just say it was the worst experience in the world, being afraid of heights and hanging in a little metal crate by a wire over the entire city not being able to see the end of how high up you will be when getting off!! Then getting to the top of the mountain, (where Andy and Rachel were not) and figuring out how to get down…. let’s just say we got really good at braking because we did it the whoooooooole way down!
Looking back yes, maybe a little funny, but at the time i seriously thought the world was going to end!
Safe and sound back on our bunny slope w/ seat belt bar!
We later found Andy and Rachel who explained they meant to meet them at the top of the bunny slope after they got done with the big one!
We forgave them…..
(But i told Andy i wouldn’t have panicked and made an irrational decision if he had not fakely yelled at me the night before for not checking the check in time! I didn’t want to get in trouble- again)
When Rachel saw me and I told her where we went she instantly smiled and said “OMG wasn’t it fun!?!”
You can imagine my response…..
It started getting a bit cold so we decided it was time for a fire and fudge (which I was told before going- “you have to get fudge in Gatlinburg”)
No arguments there!
We were so exhausted but one ting was missing- Mexican!
So i smelled out “No Way Jose’s” and off we went ski clothes and all (which i need to mention that I forgot about what you wear to and from the ski lift –shoe wise- so i wore my cowgirl boots with ski pants… not cute).
Before heading home we realized we never got a group picture: 
So there you have it.
Ha we loved it! Rachel and I had said the whole weekend we wanted to go to one of those old fashion photo studios and ended up making our own upon accident when the boys requested we not smile in the picture! :)
We had a great time with only 3 regrets…. going up the big ski lift, having to come down the big ski lift and not staying longer!
Bye Gatlinburg! 
After some pancakes (which is the other most important thing, besides fudge, you –apparently- have to do in Gatlinburg eat at a pancakes house or “Flap Jacks”).
We didn’t argue with that notion either.
Eventually it was time to head home to relieve the baby sitters and celebrate one of the baby sitters birthday!!
Yup, it was my mamas birthday on Monday! 
We stuffed down some Key Lime pie and tried out a new restaurant, Franco’s, which we loved within walking distance of our house -before they had to leave to go back to Tennessee!
Thanks mom and dad and Happy Brthday mama!
You know we like Birthdays in this household!! So don’t hate when I tell you we stretched Lou’s birthday out another week and his party was not even a part of this blog!
But I am done for now and you may be pictured out, so we will leave that for another day….
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For those of you who are not “pictured out” click below for the leftovers that didn’t make the cut.
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