Dollywood!

At some point when we were planning all this, Craig noticed that Dollywood was right on our way home from Florida.    And, his aunt had just moved to Atlanta, and that wasn't too far out of the way, either.  (Update: Craig claims it was his brother who figured this out.)  So we decided if we were going to be driving all over the southeastern quadrant of the United States, we might as well see everyone and everything that we wanted to see!

So we drove to Atlanta and visited Aunt Lynda and Uncle Greg and got to see their beautiful new home.  (As is often the case, I didn't take any pictures.  Seriously, what is wrong with me???)  We visited for a couple hours and then got back on the road, finishing the drive to Pigeon Forge.

We took turns swapping kids around so my kids (and Craig!) could have a chance to ride in Jason's RV-- this made everyone VERY happy!

What a way to travel!

The kids were EXHAUSTED the next morning!

Dollywood was a lot of fun!  It felt sort of like Disneyland's Frontier Land-- everything was centered on Tennessee industry, such as timber mills and mining.  But it was very clean and family-friendly and we all had a good time!

Craig and Ryder (you can just see the top of his head!) going on the thing that drops you from way high up .  I steered clear of that one...

My favorite ride was the Fire Chaser-- it was a fairly smooth roller coaster, not too intense but fast and fun.  All of our kids could have ridden on it, but the youngest two chose not to (Camille tried it once, but didn't like the part where they have fire-- the roller coaster part didn't bother her at all!)

Lynda, Greg, and Craig ride the carousel together!

Getting ready to ride the Wild Eagle!

Here's most of our group all trying to figure out what to do next

Group hug for Bentley!!!

After getting to drive the go-kart, Bentley was even more excited to try out bumper cars!

Ryder had missed out on some ride, so I hoped the chance to ride on these piggies would cheer him up.  It didn't.

Dollywood has a fabulous eagle sanctuary with 17 bald eagles!

The next day was spent at the water park, Splash Country.  It was lovely, but the water was a bit cold.  We discovered there that when we wear sunglasses and almost matching swimsuits, my niece Kamryn and I are a bit hard to tell apart!  My kids kept calling her Mom-- I thought it was hilarious, and Kamryn was very gracious about the whole thing.  (Craig noted that he needed to be very careful who he tried to put his arms around!)

If my hair had been dry for this shot, our coloring would have been even more similar (although Kamryn has about five times more hair than I have!)

Donna had rented 3 cabanas for all our families, and they were SO NICE to have!  We could leave our stuff (and lock it up!) and not worry about it getting moved or stolen, and they were nice and shady.  And I could send Craig to find food and we had the perfect meeting place.  It was awesome.

Camille living in the lap of luxury

Selfie with Colton

Bored Bentley

I love Colton running towards Camille here

No alcohol is sold at Dollywood, so I'm not sure what these two crazies were imbibing...

The tickets to the park were the same price if you got three-day passes, so that's what Tom had gotten for us.  Little did he realize that we are INSANE so OF COURSE we would go back inside the park for our 3rd day before heading home.  I mean, why NOT???  So our third day we packed up, said good-bye to our hotel room and to Grandma and Grandpa, and met up with the Houston crowd back in the park.  Gotta squeeze a few more hours of fun out of this trip before we drive home!

Waiting to ride the Fire Chaser again

Bentley is one cool dude

Colton took his driving VERY seriously!

Bentley endures a hug from Lindsy

One last cousin picture

We let everyone choose one favorite ride and managed to see the bird show one last time, too.  And then after a late lunch, we finally figured it was time to hit the road.  We left at 3pm, barely stopped for gas and to switch drivers, and were home by 9.  The kids, having already endured so much time in the car, barely batted an eye.  I believe Bentley's exact words were, "Only 6 hours?"

What a great family vacation!