Gatlinburg!

This past weekend we went to Gatlinburg to just have some relaxing fun time with the kids and go to Dollywood! To make a long story short... it wasn't exactly the trip I had in mind! We went a day early to not be "rushed" because my whole entire life is a big rush ha. We planned on leaving early that day, which of course didn't happen because I had a million things to do before we left. I was really sad about leaving Frankie, so against Chris's will, he finally gave in and let him go! Yayy! :) The ride down was good, we even stopped and got some ice cream...

When we got there we had to find a "pet friendly" hotel until we could check into our cabin the next day. This was a task... finding a pet friendly hotel in Gatlinburg that was NOT on the bed bug registry! This brings me to my next point... if you don't know about the bed bug registry then you need to! It is awesome. You can search any city or hotel and see if it pops up on the registry of any cases of bed bugs and you can read people's reviews. It is awesome. I don't travel without it anymore lol.
Frankie wasn't sure about the hotel, ha this was his special spot...

We rode go carts....

Ate Dinner at Chris's favorite place... it was pretty good I will admit, even though I'm usually not a fan of "country cooking" ha I would recommend going there though if you're in Pigeon Forge.

The next day we shopped at the outlets and messed around for Father's Day! We ate at our favorite pizza place in Gatlinburg for Father's Day dinner... The Best Pizzeria!

Happy Father's Day :)

In the midst of the fun, on this very hot weekend... the AC went out on my car! :( Oh No! If you know me you know I don't do well when I am hot haha (I think I get that from my Mamaw lol) So this was not good. It was Sunday and we were in Gatlinburg... pretty sure there are no dealerships there... so I google and stumble upon what seems to be a well known mechanic and pretty credible auto shop. We call, they are open on Sundays... SCORE! We drive there, it sure seems like its out in the boonies... keep driving... keep driving... pull up and see this....

Not a joke people. This was it. Ha. I mean no dis-respect to these kind gentlemen who were basically wearing Budweiser for cologne ... but this was not going to work lol. We were there all of 10 minutes. Long story short, we toughed out the no AC until we got back to Lex and took it in to get fixed the next day :) 

So our last day we were off to Dollywood!

I am a huge fan of Dolly.... love her.... how could you not? She is amaze. And so was Dollywood. It was so nice, the scenery, the flowers, the grounds were so clean, it was hands down the best park I've ever been to. So much to do, the kids had a blast and so did Chris and I lol.

 Only problemo with this day was we never got our cabin (too long of story to tell ha) so we had to check out of our hotel at 11am that morning... which means... nothing to do with Frankie :( Poor Baby!! Lucky for him his mom is so smart and got online and googled for somewhere to him to stay and look what I found....

Yes that is right friends... Dolly thought of it ALL! They had Doggywood right there in Dollywood, perfect place to leave your fur-kids in their own little cabin while you are enjoying the park!

Here is his sweet little bed in his cabin... :) I left his blankie in case he got sad. But I'm pretty sure he liked it.

So back to the day, we had a blast! We took a million pictures but here are a few of my faves...

These little potted people were sooo cute! Jake loved this one (even though its the wrong team ha) so Whitney... this one is for you ;) hahahaha

I love this! Have never read this before... it was next to a beautiful Dogwood Tree. So good!

I can not begin to tell you how many of these we saw... what are these things? I'm sorry if anyone reading this has these but I just think they are gross haha. They freak me out. Why do you need shoes with toes in them? I don't get it I guess.

Needless to say we came home with this hat and gun ha. How cute is that pic?

We rode the train that went on a 5 mile journey around Dollywood... too fun!

Chris & Ella rode all the crazy rides!

This is funny to me... sorry babe... love you though hahaha.

Loved this old church you could walk in and leave prayer requests...it was so cute :)

Three little owls after getting drenched on a water ride!

This is hysterical. I saw this coffin and said Jake.. go stand next to it and take your picture... he ran over and did this little pose! HAHAHA I was dying, everyone around was cracking up. I said how did you know you're supposed to do that in a coffin? And he said... "from Scooby Doo, silly!" LOL pretty smart.

Love the light in this picture... looks so pretty!

Lastly... the kids all wanted to try the big log, water ride, where you all get in and then it goes up the hill and straight down into water and it splashes everywhere up over a bridge.. do you know what I'm talking about? Well I was a little nervous Jake would get scared but he was so big boy and decided he wanted to do it! We all got in the same log and took off... went through some dark tunnels, around some curves, nothing too crazy... yet! When we got to the top of the hill and started to tip over to plunge down, I literally almost peed my pants! But it was a blast. And they even captured this picture for us... brace yourself... LOL 

Let me give you a closer look ....

Too funny! We laughed so hard when we saw this! Definitely a framer!

Aside from all the cabin/car drama, we had such a good time! We will for sure be going back! :)