this one is long and could be even longer – it sounds like I’m on a sugar high….

Finally… I can tell you about the mini-vacation Santa gave the 5I’s for Christmas; Dan forbids me from “checking in” on Facebook while we’re gone.  I mean… god forbid either of my followers see that we’re gone and decide to chance incarceration (not to mention wading through the squalor that is our home) for a shot at my 0.003 carat pave diamond ring from Penney’s. (For the record – he is sooooo not the boss of me… I listen only because I’d sooner eat shit than say, “you were right”).

Any who… Santa pulled off a pretty nifty gift for us 5 I’s (and yes… yes I know there should be no apostrophe between the I and the s but 5 Is looks stupid).  On Christmas morning we awoke to a note telling us to be packed for 4 days of fun and frolic and in the car at 7pm on January 4th.  He also gave us suggestions for what to pack.  Lemme just say this about that – Santa is badass – everything rhymed…  11 poems in all (including one to Abby’s teacher – which was exceptionally well received but deemed inappropriate for requesting an excused absence… typical).

Santa had a tough time sleeping on the morning of the 24th – fear of the font of said poems being difficult to read made Santa’s eyes pop open at 5am.  Santa searched for better fonts but couldn’t find anything better, a few hours later Santa’s head elf said, “that font is perfect… don’t change it, it’ll be fine.”

Santa’s head elf is an asshole.

As anticipated, the reading of the initial poem was… a wreck.  Nobody knew what was going on.  Santa wanted to punch his “it’ll be fine” head elf in the throat.  Luckily I was there to sorta… clear things up.  We had packing suggestions, poems for teachers (just Abby’s… Santa kicked around forcing the older 2 to take poems to their teachers….) and an address in Roanoke – that was it.

Naturally… the week before our departure our car got sick… and so did I.  The car was easy to remedy – we borrowed my mom’s Escalade – ha! from a Kia to a Cadillac…. poor us….  either way – I still felt like shit.

No matter… at 7pm on January 4th I was in the car as instructed (sick yet selfless… that’s me).  I punched the address into google maps (as Santa suggested) and off we went.  Four hours later we pulled into Shirley’s Bed and Breakfast in Roanoke.  We told Cheryl the inn keeper Santa had sent us and she didn’t bat an eye… she expected us!  Even told us Santa had left a package under her tree for the 5 I’s (she mentioned how difficult to read the font was but she figured out the package was for us…  Cheryl… funny lady).  I tried to upload a picture of the box – fuck this…  I hate technology.

Here’s the gist – Santa left a box with 4 boxes inside – a box for each day of our vacation.  The boxes were dated, inside each was a poem and envelope(s).  The daily poem gave us a vague idea of how our day was to play out; the envelopes provided an address and time to report to the address (sometimes we found tickets inside, sometimes we found preloaded credit cards, sometimes… Santa screwed us and made us pay for shit ourselves).

I’m not going to lie – this gift… well… Santa did work.  I’m also not going to lie about the fact I was hoping our first envelope had the address of an urgent care center on the outside and an insurance card on the inside.

no luck

I was awake during the ride from Roanoke to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for periods only long enough to cry myself back to sleep.  So much effort to make things perfect and I was clearly going to die before we got there.

[Here’s a shameless plug for Shirley’s Bed and Breakfast in Roanoke – this place is amazing.  Cheryl had a room that accommodated all 5 of us!  Breakfast was spectacular and we felt like we were leaving old friends as we drove away – if you need a place to stay in Roanoke… I promise you won’t be disappointed at Shirley’s!]

Our first stop once in Pigeon Forge, was the Titanic museum.  Very cool.  We each got a passenger card upon arrival – the card gave a brief bio of a passenger aboard Titanic and encouraged the card holder to discover the passenger’s fate at the end of the tour.  We all lived (I can’t imagine they give out cards of people who died but who the hell knows).  We were all tickled to learn about our person – except Dan… his was a 62 year old guy; seems benign enough until you learn the average life expectancy at that time was 48 years. “There was my guy – shoving women and children out of the way to save himself – 14 years past his fucking prime…  his life was over for chrissake… great… I’m even an asshole on the Titanic.  Who doesn’t just say, ‘I’m 62… there’s nothing left for me – take my seat’?”  (my 67-year old father particularly enjoyed this story).

After umpteen mini-panic attacks (dip your hand into 28° water sometime…) we got back in the car and read our 2nd envelope which guided us to the cabin rental place.  As we were walking into the rental office I felt a little odd saying, “uhmmmm Santa sent us… sooooo….. I’m kinda at a loss as to what I’m supposed to be doing…”  A barely perceptible smile from the woman behind the counter then she leaned to look past me, “…are you Abby?”  Abby’s eyes got HUGE, “yes”.  “Well honey… Santa said you were comin’ – he’s got y’all a really nice cabin.”

until you’ve witnessed something like this – you haven’t lived.  Abigail was completely beside herself.

[Here’s a shameless plug for Heritage Cabin Rentals in Pigeon Forge: from start to finish this process was perfection.  The cabin was awesome and every person I spoke to was ridiculously kind and outlandishly accommodating.  If you are planning a trip to Pigeon Forge – consider this organization for cabin rental]

We found our cabin, staked claim to our rooms (Dan called the same room as me…. sonuvabitch) then envelope 3 – dinner (Santa even gave us a preloaded Visa to pay for it).  Our evening rounded out with some time in the hot tub and a few games of pool – yeah… Santa hooked our asses up.

The next day was the aquarium.  Standard water animal type stuff but there was the Penguin Encounter…

you ever see $120 so well spent?  They did get to pet him (her?) and that brought grins but… mostly it was 30 minutes of  :/

After a couple hours of watching fish swim by and 30 minutes explaining why nobody needs a $45 pop up book about the history of clams we stopped off at the Mellow Mushroom pizza place for dinner – they had beer… I was happy.  Then off to the Comedy Barn.

Santa got us seats in the front row – center.  One of the comedians mentioned lock-jaw and asked Dan if he’d ever experienced it… Dan ran through 46 scenarios in his head in half a millisecond before he said, “yeah… uh sure…”  He was known as ‘the liar’ for the rest of the show; the kids ate it up that their dad was “famous”.  We left the Comedy Barn and found ourselves in a snow storm.

yes… of course… why not… a place that gets 8.9 inches of snow ANNUALLY would obviously be due for 6 inches of white bullshit in one night during our stay.  This wouldn’t have been a real issue had Santa suggested we get some snacks at some point.  We woke up Saturday morning completely snowed in and not a single morsel of food in the cabin.  Cal and I were shooting a game of pool and the conversation rounded out with: “…we’ll be fine dude.  Abby is small and will be weakened from lack of food.”  “I’m not sure I could resort to cannibalism mom…” “Please… I’m calling it now – if we ain’t outta here by 12:30 you’ll have Abby up by the hot tub with a stick of butter in one hand and the pepper shaker in the other…”

Dan got us out at 12:13 – Abby was never the wiser.  Although this picture came out of the experience:

We ate, checked out the Wonderworks museum (very, VERY cool hands on/interactive science-ish experience) and played a game of laser tag.  I don’t mind telling you… I came in 2nd (Cal’s a cheater).  As we stood there getting our instructions the guy says, “under NO circumstances are you to point the laser or shoot the laser at anybody’s head or face…”  It was not quite 17 seconds into our game that I found myself looking into the business end of a laser gun… the other participants were 14, 12, 10 and 45 years old – I’ll give you one guess as to which nimrod aimed for my retina…

A dinner theater, a 5D theater and a stroll through Ripley’s Odditorium later and we were ready to head back to the cabin.  Did I mention it was -2° while we ambled through Gatlinburg?

Gatlinburg was burning as Santa planned this trip, I was delirious from sickness for most of the trip, we got 2/3 of the annual snowfall in one evening and the day before we got there and the day after we left the temperature was in the mid 50’s but below zero during our stay… why do I even try?

The next morning we were headed home.  Dan, my awesome, amazing, thoughtful, selfless husband Dan got up at 6:30 to start the packing up – my Packers were playing at 4:40 and he knew I wanted to be home for kickoff.  It woulda worked too… if he had woken even 1 other person.  The rest of us were up and moving by 8 but I held us up – I grabbed a “quick” shower; which I did only because Dan had showered (yes… this is how deeply my sick competitive gene runs)

We made it home pretty uneventfully – just in time for me to find out my attempt at recording the game was unsuccessful – talk about serendipity… the Packers sucked right up until I tuned in. I’m kinda glad the DVR didn’t work.

We were back to the grind on Monday…  Santa mentioned his plan was to give us family time because we’re so busy (he looks at our schedule and it makes his head dizzy… killer poems I’m tellin’ ya… killer poems).  He got what he wanted – lots of togetherness, lots of 5 I-ness, lots of bickering, lots of mumbling as we left a room…   hopefully next year Santa sends Pop with the kids….

For all of you parents who are just like us – overwhelmed with STUFF and just wishing you had time with your kids… might I suggest you follow our lead.  I’m pretty sure this will be Abby’s last year of believing in Santa – I wanted to make it memorable and (without sounding like a complete DB) I think I hit this one out of the park – with some help from some very, very lovely people along the way.  I will say this – take beer, wine… whatever soothes your soul – because you will need it; togetherness is great… for a while.

Oh! and get snacks, too….