Cabin week 2018 was filled with a lot of lounging and a few days of adventure. What isn’t pictured here is the 3.5 days straight of rain! On those days we enjoyed a lot of lounging at our cabin, relaxing, and hanging out. Some of us got some good naps 🙂 Later in the afternoon on two of the rainy days we headed to Dollywood, which turned out to be a great choice as there were very few visitors at the park. We were the only ones in the building to see Santa! There were no lines at any of the rides and it was just barely misting so the weather was actually very manageable. Visiting with Santa was our first stop. Reid wasn’t really very enthused to sit with Santa, so Kevin held him (and crouched out of the picture, lol). Griffin enjoyed sharing what he wanted for Christmas (which we really hadn’t even discussed much before our walk to see him). 
This year in the Santa workshop they had a silhouette artist who used scissors and paper to cut out silhouettes! It was fascinating to ask her questions and watch her do one for each Griffin and Reid. She cut two at a time so you get a mirror image. All in all it took her just a few minutes to do each one. I’m going to put one of each of them in their baby books and the other in their new keepsake bins Mom gave me for Christmas. Can you tell which is which?
We enjoyed our traditional visit with Clarice and Abominable. Reid warmed up to them just enough that he didn’t cry. 
We were able to go for a ride on the coal train again this year too. It was a cold ride, but a fun one!
This is one of my favorite pictures of the boys from our trip this year. It’s right upon our arrival at Dollywood :0)
It was actually quite nice to spend some down time on a rainy day on the deck in the hot tub. This was my view for about an hour while I enjoyed the sound of the raindrops in the trees. We took a puzzle with us and Griffin and I were able to get it done in just a few hours! That was a good thing as we had limited counter space! 
I love to get one of these photos each year of Kevin on the couch with the boys. They had some nice snuggles and watched lots of shows. I got snuggles too while I enjoyed my morning coffee and the slow pace of no where to rush out the door to in the morning!
We hit up The Island again and enjoyed lunch and dinner (don’t worry, it was two different days) at Paula Deens Restaurant. It is so yummy! Griffin enjoyed riding some of the rides and doing the adventure course. Reid walked around and also rode in his stroller to take in the sights.
This boy. He does not sit in his chair at the table for longer than 5 minutes without somehow figuring a way to get out. Even when he is clicked in with the straps he somehow manages to be able to stand up. I just don’t get it. He’s a funny one, our Reid. Still not talking a ton, but is awesome at imitating behaviors and is extremely observant. 
Here’s the outside of our Cabin, Almost Heaven. Each year I try to go back and find the name of our cabin and some years I’ve not been good about putting it in the blog – so here you go, Almost Heaven. Several mornings Griffin loved going up into our room to be able to talk to Reid. On more than one occasion we found him in there reading him books and just chatting away.
This year we went to a new adventure, Dolly’s Lumberjack Feud. Griffin enjoyed it and Reid actually sat on my lap and was well entertained. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go so I’m happy it turned out well. We also went to the Dixie Stampede where Griffin was selected to go “chase chickens” again this year. He is one fortunate little boy. He was much more into chasing them this year and actually he and his teammates chased them so well that the chickens were first to cross the line, which resulted in our North Pole winning our first medal of the night. Woohoo!
Here are a few other keepsakes: delicious breakfast at Crockett’s Breakfast Camp, a leaf as big as Griffin’s head, artwork from Griffin’s class at school, and some videos from various things. Enjoy. 
We look forward to this week every year! Yay! It’s our trip to the cabin in Tennessee! But first, a few things to wrap up before we headed out. Griffin and I went out to Bobby E’s after his appointment for his flu shot. Even though the day previous he was diagnosed with Croup, they said he was still fine to receive his flu shot. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast to start the day and then I headed in to work late. That evening I took him to 3 vs 3 soccer that he had been doing this session. We ended up leaving a bit early as his chest was hurting. Probably not the best idea to take him after he’d been diagnosed with Croup; however, he hadn’t had a fever the whole time and seemed to feel up for it. That night he went to bed ok, but the next morning he came in to our room at 6 am and felt SO warm to me. I took his temp and it was 104! Yikes. We promptly put a cool washcloth on his head, gave him a Popsicle, some medicine, and he fell back asleep in our bed. We kept up with the meds every 4 hours and I called in to the doctors office to chat with the nurse. I was concerned giving him the flu vaccine when he was already slightly compromised wasn’t the best idea in hindsight. But as always, our boy is one tough cookie. I stayed home for part of the morning, long enough to feel ok with leaving him with Hannah. His fever hadn’t returned and we kept up with the medicine rotation. Poor kid, had to miss school that day and will be gone all week next week while we’re on vacation! But, his fever did not return and he felt better pretty fast so he was able to go to school on Wednesday. We also got his school pictures this week and his grade card. Though it is hard to read here, I wanted to have it in digital form. He did really well across the board. He has met year-end goals for math and is doing well with sounds and reading though he has a few vowel sounds to work on. We’re proud of our Kindergartner!
The weather was nice this week so Hannah and the boys got in a nice outdoor walk through the neighborhood. Finn rode his bike and Reid enjoyed the ride in his stroller. The bath photo isn’t the best but it captures the fun they have when they take a bubble bath. Clearly, they don’t get them enough – when Griffin asked me if he could have one and I agreed he thanked me profusely and told me how much he loved them. This boy usually gets showers! And yes, I edited out the portion of the video where Reid went under – yikes!
Our first couple nights this year we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express that had a fun pool area with a few waterslides. We all enjoyed a lot of time in the water and also some nap time before we headed out for dinner at our traditional first stop to Smoky Mountain Brewery for pizza and brew.
On Sunday we decided to head to Cade’s Cove at Smoky Mountain National Park. We typically go during the week so it is less crowded, but the weather was a sunny and warm day so we decided to take our chances and go on Sunday. There was definitely a lot of people there but we had a great time and snapped some of our traditional pics of the boys in the open field with the mountains in the back. We always let Griffin help drive through the park and this year Reid was able to as well. They loved it. 
We love this trip for many reasons, one of which is we go with no agenda other than to relax and hit up some of our usual spots and perhaps find something new too. We spend lots of time together lounging and being silly. Check out Finn wearing my pj’s! We eat out for some meals and stay at the cabin and made dinners and lunches at home too. It’s a nice combination 🙂
Seems hard to believe this year is moving along at such a fast pace and it is already leading up to Labor Day weekend. We had a pretty normal week with work, school, swimming and soccer. On Thursday evening Kevin and I were sitting in the loft talking about weekend plans and he threw out a last minute plan to go to Chicago for the weekend. I was instantly like, “that’s a terrible idea!”. I mean it was like 9 pm Thursday night! We didn’t talk much more about it but I gave it more thought and when I woke up Friday morning I asked Kevin if he’d thought about the dogs and what we would do with them! Oopsy, we didn’t have a plan for that if we were to make a spontaneous trip. I talked with Hannah and she was working over the weekend at Starbucks and she wasn’t able to. During the day I got a text from Kevin that he thought he found someone – the daughter of one of his team members. I was a bit uneasy leaving Friday and not having a chance to be there for her to meet Brutus and Lily and be sure she was up for it – so we decided to have her over Friday night after she was finished working so that she could see our house, meet the dogs, and we could let her know about their routine. So Lori and her daughter Sarah came over and met Brutus and Lily. As predicted, Brutus was a jumping bean of energy, racing around the house and then laying on the floor and wanting all the attention. Thankfully Sarah loves dogs and was happy to watch them for a couple days.
Griffin took a few selfies in the car on the way to Chi-town :). 
Kevin had researched family-friendly things to do in the city and learned about Maggie Daley Park, which is really close to Millenium Park. I think it was built in 2013 or thereabouts, so it wasn’t there the last time we were in Chicago (2013 when Finn was 3 months old) or at least we didn’t have a kid old enough to enjoy it! It is a HUGE park, filled with tons of different areas of activities. There are climbing walls, scooter areas, mini-golf, tons of playsets (that are huge), small areas for kids (that are labeled with signs that indicate age-appropriate kids). We were really impressed and spent a lot of time playing there. It was a 10-12 minute walk from our hotel so we had an easy trip there and back. 
On Sunday morning we woke up and had breakfast in our room – complete with Stan’s donuts and Starbucks coffee that Kevin and Finn had ventured out for first thing. Afterwards we drove to Navy Pier (it would have been a 30 min walk, so we drove instead) and got rock star parking and then explored the Pier before things even opened up. We were early in line to ride the Ferris Wheel (a tradition of sorts) and Griffin drove the boats around for a short bit. We then headed to Ohio Street beach for a few hours of fun. Griffin played football with us in the water, the boys played in the sand, Reid got in a short nap, and we enjoyed a perfect warm and sunny day. Next up, we headed to the Fountains to have more fun (and rinse off the sand, ha!) before we had a tasty lunch at Giordano’s Pizza. Yummers. 
On Monday morning we woke up and headed back to Maggie Daley Park for a few more hours of fun before heading home. We walked through Millenium Park and stopped at the Bean on our way. Griffin had won “3 free rounds” of Mini Golf the day before, so Griffin and Kevin played mini-golf one more time and then we rented scooters for them and they rode around the track.
Google put this together for me and I thought it was cute. Finn three years ago and then this weekend in Chicago. 
And here are a couple others from our week. Lindsay started Nannying for us this week (I was incorrect in the previous blog post – guess that’s what happens when you’re so far behind in writing them!) and we ventured to Library Park and a few other places to show her some of our favorite play spots in Powell. 
This boy. He is all sports all the time. Football is probably his favorite all time if you ask him. He is always throwing the ball to himself and catching it, play calling the entire time. Teams are playing each other and he gives us regular updates on what the score is, who the teams are, and who is winning (or won). He’s imaginative and energetic. And he sweats. A lot. His red face is after soccer one night. It was a warm one and they were doing tons of running and speed work/races for fun. There is a video below you can watch. I took several but only posted one. Griffin was on fire this day. He came in first nearly every time. At the end of practice we go out onto the “field” and Reid runs around and kicks the ball. His coach, Steve, who is also the owner and former Ivy League Coach told me that Griffin has great athleticism. He was very kind in giving many compliments about Finn and said to just continue letting him have fun and not worry about competition and skill work at this age. He said with his athletic ability he is going to do great and just keep it fun for now. That’s what I love about Locker Soccer, they have a great philosophy about kids. 
And we’re still working on puzzles here. Finn has put this one together and taken it apart numerous times and he’s also done the doggy one that he’s had for years but never really played with until now. 
At school Griffin is learning about “Lips the Fish” which helps remind the kids to look at the pictures and use your LIPS (and tongue) to help pronounce the words. This week they used water colors to do some painting at school. 
