Dollywood, Because a picture equals a thousand words

I love my life! I really do, I have everything that I could ever want. I have the greatest family ever! I love waking up to my two boys every day! We get to spend a few hours together every morning. We make breakfast, read scriptures, and then play together until the boys go to sleep (Chris for the day, and Stephan for a nap) that is how my day starts every day... how can you beat that?

So, earlier this year, we bought season passes to dollywood. We pick one place each year, and buy passes. That is out entertainment for the year. for the past few years we have bought passes to cataloochee, however they keep raising their prices and limiting the amount of time we can board. So we decided to not go with that, and I sold my snowboard to pay off debt (we are selling everything we can to pay off anything we can.... we will be debt free one day! ... as a side note, we paid off an extra 500 this month!). So, this year some friends of ours, the burrows and Carrie, were buying dollywood passes. We decided to get passes there as well, and then we talked my parents and another friend to buy passes. So, now we have a great place to hang out with all of our friends and family all summer. I've already been three times this summer, and I know we will go again soon. The first time was with the burrows, here are a few pictures of that

After this trip Stephan and I went with mom and dad. I forgot my camera that day though. We watched Imagine, which was a circus type thing. Stephan loved it! He was really good the whole time even though he was sleepy. Then we went over to the carousel, he was unsure at first, but once we stared moving he liked it. next up was a kiddie play area where water spurted out of the ground. He wanted to play in it, but it scared him. he would reach out, then the water would spray and he would almost cry, but then he would stick his hand out again. He was really watching the other kids.

This last trip was interesting. We had originally planned to go with Tracy, one of Chris's friends from her work and her daughter Madison. Friday night, Tracy called saying that she could not go because of a funeral. We debated about whether we were going to go. The next morning Chris was talking to DJ on facebook, we set it up to meet up with them there. I was ecstatic! Renee use to live across from us in the dorm, she was out RA. We quickly became friends. i really miss being able to walk across the hall just to chit chat. they live about an hour and a half away in Marion, we try to meet up whenever we can which is never enough. I was so excited to get to see them again! While we were on our way to meet up with Renee and DJ, Tracy called and said that they were not going to the funeral, and that they were on their way. We ended up hanging out with everyone together for awhile, spilt off with Tracy, came back together, and Renee and DJ and to leave because it was Noah's bed time. Noah is three months younger than Stephan, and soon they will have little boy in August. here are a few pictures of our boys playing

I love this picture, even though it is blurry because Stephan looks like he is running so fast!

They have a great kids play area, including the little stream made for the little kids above

This was outside one of the coasters, Stephan loved it, and man did he draw some attention sitting there.

While we were there we rode the train. Chris is a sucker for trains, and I believe that Stephan will be one day too. Both of my boys were excited to ride the train, here is a picture of that

And here is just a random picture of me and Stephan that I like

Gosh I love that boy!!

Ok. so my favorite time at a theme park is the last 30 minutes because there is NO lines. this is the best time ever to ride a roller coaster! We road thunderhead about 6 or 7 seven times between all of us (two would ride while two had Stephan). Since there was no wait, we rode the front of the coaster, It is so much fun to ride the front! Chris wanted to take a video of us riding the coaster, so here it is....

The video is just the first part of that coaster because the camera froze up at that point. we are going to try again whenever we get the chance.... maybe next weekend... and the next... and the next... did I mention that I really like season passes!