Each visit to Dollywood we find new things to try out. We still did all the old favorites and then squeezed a few more in. It was interesting to watch Emily with the rides. She has been pretty courageous, but this visit she was more apprehensive to try rides. The rides that raised her into the air seemed to leave her unsettled. Julia on the other hand was willing to try all sorts of things without fear. The only thing that really scared Julia for the day was the bear mascot. She watched Emily from a distance interact with the big guy.

Emily backed out of the flying elephant ride, but was willing to ride the Veggie Tales roller coaster with me. She consented to ride in the flying bumble bee ride with Julia, but could not be convinced to try the River Rampage with Granddaddy and Mommy. I don’t think she liked the idea of getting wet.

The new things we rode were the flying elephant (Mommy and Julia rode), a bug themed playground, and the 60’s car ride. For the car ride, Emily rode with Grammy and Julia rode with Mommy. Both girls got to be the drivers of their cars. Emily gave Grammy a smooth ride, but Julia’s ride was a little bumpy. Every time we bumped into the guide bar Julia would let go of the handle bar and quit steering generally making us bump a little more. In the photo of Julia driving the car in the background is Emily’s car.

Emily loved the rope course and didn’t want to move on from it. She was responsive to try different techiques to cross each element. It was a lot of fun to watch her learn and love it.

We look forward to our next trip. Emily kept announcing that “next time she was going to go by herself. I will go with Mommy, Daddy, and sister.” I like how that is by herself.

Grammy and Granddaddy joined us this week when we visited Dollywood. The girls were so excited to go with them and show them the things they like. As usual they requested the carousel first. Emily asked Grammy to ride in an elephant ride together, but backed out when it came time to get on. The two of them rode in the old 60’s car ride together. Grandaddy, Grammy, and Julia rode in the lemon twist/teacup ride together. Grammy took Julia through the kids’ rope course several times and enjoyed watching her increasing courage to try the different elements. It was a nice treat to have additional adults so we could ride things that required the girls to be split up.

Julia enjoys her snack time. Since she discovered the Cheerios book is read with a Cheerios snack, I find the book laying on the high chair tray a lot. It is her non-verbal request for a snack. Generally, she puts one Cheerios “O” down on the book and then picks it up and puts it in her mouth. She gets this from Emily’s rule that you have to complete the page and then get to eat the snack. Just one more thing to learn from your big sister.

Emily met me this morning and informed me that she wanted Julia to be in her bed with her and that it would be safe for her. I told her that I could put Julia in her bed, but Julia might not stay. Emily had a little pillow set up in her bed so that she could share the space. It was all very sweet and I was hoping that Julia would want to stay with Emily for a few minutes. I gave them their morning milk together in the bed and both were very content to lay very still.

After the milk was finished they stayed for a few minutes more, each with a book. Actually, Emily’s was a toy catalog that she has been holding on to for over a week. Julia’s book was “Blue Hat, Green Hat” by Sandra Boynton. Emily kept telling Julia that she should read the book and say “Oops”. Too cute! Julia will giggle when I read the “Oops” pages, but hasn’t mastered that word yet.

All good things come to and end and Julia climbed down and went off to play. Emily followed so that she wouldn’t be left out of any fun. What a sweet moment to remember.

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.