Last minute fun - in Gatlinburg! 11/02-11/04

Sorry I can't flip the image on this - but Grant's reaction was pretty cute, so we thought we'd share anyway. This last Wednesday, I got Grant up from his nap, only to find that he had gotten very sick all over his bed. I picked him up, and he got sick all over me...4 times. So I got us both cleaned up, and spent the rest of the evening in the rocking chair, holding my very sick little boy. He was sick 10 times an hour for a little over 3 hours. Poor little man. White as a sheet and sick as a dog. Friday, Chris got up to go to work, got in to the office, and was immediately sent home because he was throwing up. Great. Well, it ended up not being too bad, because he wanted to go to Gatlinburg. Said he felt pretty good. So we loaded up our bags, and went to Gatlinburg where we had to sit through a time share presentation, but were given $100 and 2 tickets to Ripley's Aquarium in return. The first couple of days were great. He started feeling quite sick again later, but we had so much fun at first. We met Heidi Wyrosodick (Moore) and her hubby and her sister, Carrie, at "The Best Italian," a wonderful restaurant downtown Gatlinburg, for dinner Friday night. And Chris' parents were there with some friends, too, so we got to spend a little bit of time with them. Grant got tired of waiting in our restaurant on Friday - it's a little hole in the wall place with slow service but great food. So I took him outside for a little bit. There was a band outside playing bluegrass country music, and Grant loved them! He went wild. He was dancing like I have never seen him dance before - flapping his arms, and jumping up and down. When I say jumping, I literally mean both feet in the air, which I think is a bit unusual for a child his age. He had this big grin on his face, his hair was flopping in the wind with every jump, and he was squealing. There were all sorts of older people around, and they got a kick out of him. I got a kick out of them! Here's all these old people standing around trying to keep him dancing, so they are flapping their arms and jumping up and down, too. It was so funny to watch them all make total fools of themselves as they delighted in my son. One man pulled out a dollar to put in the tip jar for the band and gave it to Grant to put in the bucket. I helped Grant take it and drop it in the bucket. He turned around, walked right back up to that man and held his hand out for more. The whole crowd was in stitches. So he gave him more, and then other people started giving him money. The band got more tips than they would have had Grant not been there. :-) When people were done giving him money, wouldn't you know but he walked right back up to that bucket, took a big handful of bills and took off running. Again, everyone thought that was so funny! I enjoyed him. Oh to be a child again. For the rest of our time in Gatlinburg, strangers would come up to us and say, "There's my dancing buddy," or something to that effect. He certainly made an impression. Granny and Grandpa actually took Grant for a few hours while mommy and daddy did some Christmas shopping and some hiking one day. It was a nice little break. We enjoyed just being together. We actually found a little trail that led up to an old cemetery. Most of the tombstones were merely stones sticking out of the ground with no names engraved on them, but we did find a few with names and dates - one dating back to the mid-1800's! It was really quite fascinating. We took Grant hiking, later, and he wasn't too keen on it. It actually ended up just frustrating all of us, resulting in a very quick hike. It wasn't quite the peaceful, fun time we had imagined. We'll give him a year. I'm sure it'll go better when he's a bit steadier on his feet! The aquarium, as usual, was wonderful. Grant took everything in, and was anxious to get out of his stroller and run from exhibit to exhibit, squealing and pointing, "Ish! Ish!" ("Fish, fish!"). He sure was excited, and seemed to really enjoy it. We enjoyed watching him. Overall, it was a nice weekend, despite the sickness. It was nice to get away for a bit of fun.