We all enjoyed the waterslide at the pool. Emily started off sliding with a parent. Then one trip down, Robby came alone, and Emily then followed. She loved sliding! She would head right out of the pool to do it again. The other people and kids were really good to wait for her to take her time. She preferred a parent to “catch” her at the bottom, but it was just to pull her out of the way before the next person came down the slide. She wanted to hit the water on her own.

Julia watched the people coming off the slide and decided that she wanted to try. She ran off to the slide and started to climb the stairs. I took her to the top and let her look down and she would just point at the slide. I had her ride down on my lap and when we got to the bottom she got plenty wet. Her response to the ride was to point at the slide to do it again. When given the opportunity, she would walk over to the slide and go up the stairs. She loved the ride.

We tried to swim early or late in the afternoon when both the sun was less harsh and when there were less people in the pool. This worked pretty well for us. Ultimately, we would leave the pool when they got too tired or cold. I think the only thing we wished for on our little trip was one more day at the pool.

We played a little putt-putt golf on our vacation. It was completely non-competitive for the big people. The theme of the golf course was Old McDonald and the girls loved to look at the display decorations and listen to what the different animals were saying. We let a lot of other people play through while the girls were mesmerized by the fun cows, pigs, ducks, guard dogs, and fishermen.

Emily didn’t have much strength behind her putts and it caused her to have a lot of trouble on the holes with uphills. She did much better with the downhill holes. She didn’t want much help, and she didn’t want to follow any normal way to stand and hold the putter. Despite the perspective on the game, she had a fun time. She wanted to get her ball in the hole each time.

Julia loved to carry her putter and ball. She had no desire to touch the putter to the ball. Instead she would walk up to the hole and drop her ball in by herself. She would then pick her ball back up and carry it on the next hole. She seemed to understand that we took turns and waited for her turn or a time no one was playing to take her turn. At one point we couldn’t locate her ball and had to fetch a spare for her to keep up with. Who knows where she put it. She seemed to be happy with her game too. The only times she wouldn’t drop the ball in a hole was when it didn’t have a bottom.

I worried that the girls wouldn’t want to loose their balls at the end, but they had a cool ride for the balls to take them back inside. We watched our balls make the trip from the last hole to the building and then maybe a dozen other peoples balls also make that trip. We finished with a ride on a little carousel and then headed off for ice cream.

We spent the long weekend away on a mini-vacation. We joked that we ran away to play as a family. Robby has been putting in a lot of hours at work and he hasn’t gotten much of a chance to play with the girls lately. He has also missed out on all of the swimming the girls have done so far this year. So, we found a hotel with a fun pool and stayed the weekend.

I thought the photo of Emily was pretty cute with her next to the depth marker of 3. She is more than happy to inform people that she is three years old when asked.

Julia loved floating around in the pool on her own with her floaties. She still isn’t using words, so she invented a sign for swimming. It consists of bending her arm away from her body and pointing at the spot where her floaties go. She has been so fearless in the pool, we felt that she would have more fun, and we would worry less about her with them on. She still loves to put her face in the water and floating on her belly. She discovered that she could lay her head back into the water. After she got used to it, she would float on her back in the pool and just relax.

Joy, joy, joy – Blueberries!

Blueberries are little round blue wonders of so much joy. These four girls just ate and ate blueberries. They ate them from their buckets, from the bushes, and probably from the ground. They also picked a few blackberries. Emily had blackberry juice stains on her chin, shirt, fingers, and legs. The pig-tailed girls all enjoyed being out in the sun on a pleasant sunny afternoon and being together.

The girls and I visited Dollywood again. This time we tried to drive up during naptime and then visit the park in the afternoon and evening. The schedule worked great and we had a great time. The only problem with this schedule is that the park closes at the girls bedtime and by the time we get home it is rather late.

Again I set low expectations for what we would try to do, so that we could just be free to have a good time. This time the new things we did were ride the steam locomotive train, eat dinner, play in the splash pad, and explore the children’s rope course. We also did the things we did last time. If I was to guess, I would think Julia’s favorite thing was riding the carousel twice. She spotted it from the train car and pointed it out for our next activity. Emily started to learn this visit that she could ask to do things and to ask what a ride was. All rides fall into one of two categories, an Emily ride or a Mommy ride. She informed me that we needed to bring Daddy back with us so that I could ride some of the Mommy rides.

Both girls enjoyed playing at the splash pad. Julia was very unsure of the water that sometimes came out and then stopped. She watched for a while, but after she was willing to venture close and try to grab the water she had a blast. Emily was willing to run in right away, but got a little chilly as she got wet.

Emily loved reading the map as we would go around the park. I would show her where we were and where we were going. She followed our trip around the park and enjoyed looking at all of the symbols. She can recognize the restroom symbol and enjoyed looking to see where they were. I guess instead of ‘Where’s Waldo’ she was playing ‘Where’s the Potty’. I love to see this trait in her because both of her parents love looking at maps too.

I would have loved a photo with the girls looking at camera, but that never is a guarantee these days. They were very facinated with all the little clover flowers hidden in the grass. It was sweet to watch their discovery of the blooming treasures.

This is a classic and wonderful story, enjoy! On our way home from Cades Cove, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. Our first stop inside was the restroom. On the way I gave Emily some verbal directions to the bathroom. I told her to find the flashing stoplight on the back wall and the bathroom door would be below it. Half way back to the bathroom, Emily stopped walking and I asked her why, after all, we were staring right at the entrance and she knew where she was going. She told me the stoplight was red and that meant we had to stop. Everyone standing around up had huge smiles! Because the light was never going to change to green, I gave her permission to continue on. I’m glad our first lesson on the rules of the road have taken so well.