Vacation 2009

Two days after the unfortunate finger-door thing, we left to go on our first extended family vacation in Gatlinburg. This one included Grandma and my sister's family. We rented a house (they like to call them chalets, but you know it's Tennessee and I just can't go there) from my friend Donna. Fortunately it was a big house with plenty of room and even a basement rec room, but by Tuesday I was missing my girls. They were always in the basement playing with their cousins and when we went somewhere they rode with them too (necessary car seat move that just didn't get fixed until the night before we left). I would get them dressed in the morning and read to them at night, but really missed our quality time during the day. Poor Eli was suffering from an pretty severe UTI (103 fever and sometimes severe abdominal pain) but kept giving us intermittent details of the symptoms and, just so you know, medical care is spotty at best in the Garlingurg/Pigeon Forge area. I was missing the Birmingham medical community by Sunday morning! By the time we saw the doctor the unrinalysis showed what the doctor thought was the beginning of the UTI, it was actually the end. If you know Eli, you know that he is pretty darn smart and he has a drinking problem. "Mommy, I sirsty" is the first thing I hear every morning and he'd like to have a cup in hand all day. He quite quickly put together that the more he drank, the more he needed to go and that hurt. So he carried his cup around (we really wanted him to drink now) but it was always full and he started going 12 hours between bathroom visits. We had to bribe him with "Special Special Juice" that only he got. We all survived and even had some fun. We hiked, rafted, visited the national park and Cades Cove, miniature golfed and more. I was a little nervous to have the whole family vacation experience, but I'd do it again.