Walking In a Winter Wonderland - Christmas 2010

I think that title pretty much sums up our Christmas vacation!!  What a trip... and we almost didn't even make it!  

We were set to leave for Blake's Parent's house up in the mountains either Thursday evening or Friday (Christmas Eve Day).  Well, Wed. the poor kiddies both came down w/ Major GI Bugs that had us held up for two days cleaning up after them with stuff coming out both ends!!  Ohhh, I was so sad for them... and really hoping it wouldn't ruin their Christmas!  Finally Christmas Eve afternoon, we decided to go for it (with towels and barf bags in tow) and made it to the Harts!  We got there late, wrote a letter to Santa, left him some snacks and hit the hay!!  We let the boys sleep together in their new Buzz Lightyear Snuggies from their cousins.  So cute!!

The next morning we awoke to THIS!!!  This is the Hart's backyard view.  Wow, it was beautiful.  A true white Christmas.  For a girl who grew up in San Diego, this was pretty cool :)

We had a great time unwrapping all the gifts... Braden was even sent on a scavenger hunt throughout the whole house, leading him to each piece of his Tae Kwon Do "Sparing Gear" - definitely a favorite!

 Then we hit the SNOW!  It was cold, but fun.  We even tried to to sled and build a little snowman.

 Which got knocked down pretty quickly... b/c isn't that the fun part :)

 Little did we know, the glorious snow was literally "snowing us in"... for the next 2 days.  Around noon we lost power (thank goodness Nana and Papa have a generator).  We still had to keep most of the lights off and got quick little luke warm showers... but it was all part of the memory!  The cousins from Atlanta arrived that night.  Just in time for Christmas Dinner.  We had to get all of the vehicles off the mountain b/c Monday we were going to try and head to TN to the Smokies in the Wilderness Lodge.

On Sunday church was cancelled and they were calling for even more snow.  We decided to stay in town that night at the Holiday Inn so we could get out Monday morning!  Mon. morning we left once the snow had started to melt.  Normally the trip over to Pigeon Forge is about and hour and half!!  Seven hours later we had made.  Icy roads and bumper to bumper traffic made for a crazy trip.  BUT once we got there all was well.  Isn't this place awesome!

The Wilderness at the Smokies is an indoor water park resort!!  The kids had a blast.  It was funny to go from snow gear and boots, to bathing suits and flip flops!!  I loved it though and I was just glad we made it.  My favorite was the indoor outdoor hot tub.  It was HUGE and lead you from an indoor steam bath, to an outdoor hut tub.  So amazing to be in a hot tub w/ snow all around in 20 degree weather.

Bray braved up and tried his hand at body boarding!  Blake almost lost his trunks trying out as well!  The bigger waterslides were even surprisingly very fun.

The wave pool was also a hit!

THANK YOU NANA & PAPA For a wonderful Christmas break.  It was fun to improvise and come up with various back-up plans and versions of back-up plans!!  I'll end with our family picture.  This one almost didn't happen!  It was soooo cold, kiddies were crying and the snow was higher than we thought. We pulled a trashcan into the middle of the street, I set the timer and we got it!  Since it will likely be 2 years before we are ALL together again, I'd say it was worth!!  Love you guys :)