Lipani Family: October 2008

*WARNING: This is a LONG post with A LOT of pictures!

Late last month we took a trip with my parents (Mom & Stepdad) to Tennessee. We had a great time with everyone! The kids loved seeing their grandparents and playing with their cousin. We all took plenty of pictures so here they are:

The Papa Bear Lodge

The house had a basement with a pool table and it was a great place for the kids to run around!

Look at Maren in this picture- staring at her big brother.

A little time to cut up with Poppy.

The first day we were there we went up into the mountains to Ober Gatlinburg. Michael is afraid of heights so he was non too thrilled about the ride up to the top. I took a picture of the car while we were waiting in line.

Here's a shot of Michael in the car. Do you see that slight smirk on his face? That's him telling me that he's going to kill me for conning him into this! The things we do for our kids.

The thing I was most excited to do was take William ice skating. They have an indoor ice skating rink up at top of the mountain. I was the only one brave enough to put skates on. My Mom & Michael chickened out!

Will was so cute. The skates probably weighed as much as he does. He could barely walk in them and struggled to find his footing on the ice.

We went ALL the way around the rink! I was so proud of him. He stuck with it and tried so hard!
At Ober Gatlinburg you can also take the ski lift up and get off half way and ride the alpine slide down or go all the way to the top. Given my husband's fear of heights I was lucky to get him half way up.
As we're riding up I look at Michael and he says, "My hand hurts." I look over and he is white knuckled holding onto the bar on the side of the ski lift. I start to laugh and tell him to let go! I look at him and say, "So, I guess we're never going skiing."
What a good Daddy!

Mae & her Grammy. She loved being able to run around- Maren had a blast!

The view on the way down.

All day William asked about playing putt putt. On our way back to the house we found a really cute place to play. Mom snapped this picture of Will. There were great Fall decorations everywhere.

We kept Maren in her stroller as long as we could. Finally she had enough and wanted to be in the middle of everyone! The only thing that kept her happy was to have 2 golf balls to hold. The rest of us had to share golf balls for the rest of the game.
My crew!
Maizie!
My handsome guys!

It was a foggy morning, but we got out to have lunch and do a little shopping.
The was a cute children's toy store that had some bikes outside. Look at this face! She was having a blast.
The girls

There was a screened porch that ran the length of the back of the house and Maren would run from end to end.

Aimee, Brad & Max joined us for the weekend. We took the kids to Dollywood Saturday afternoon. It was really cute and the kids had a good time. We went to scope it out for our longer day at the park on Sunday.

Shortly after we got there it started to sprinkle so we headed for a ride that was covered. William was first in line for the carousel. He checked out all the animals while the group ahead of us rode and he picked the green dragon. He thought it was so cool.

This is me desperately looking at Aimee wondering how we ended up having to squeeze into these ducks. I don't know how the kids do it because I was nauseated when we got off!

Aimee bit the bullet and rode on the bumble bee ride! William loved it-- he got to push the button to raise and lower the bee.

Max & Maren watching William ride on a little roller coaster. Everytime I saw these two together I would think-- Oh my gosh, this is what it would be like to have twins!
Mom snapped these precious pictures of William. He looks so serious like he's really studying the map!
We came across this creepy little hot dog guy and William was cracking up at him.

We were dodging the rain all afternoon. We were headed into see a show and Mom mentioned that there was Elvis stuff in the window. William asked, "Who's Elvis?" We all tried to explain the best we could, but eventually we had to go to You Tube.

Little Miss Independent-- while we were watching a performance Maren refused to sit on my lap for long. She wanted to stand up and watch the people sing even though she could barely see over the seats.

William sat perfectly still, mostly because he was stuffing his face with ice cream.

So here was my favorite part of the day...

Normally when we're walking somewhere with puddles I discourage William from jumping through them. We were all pretty wet on this afternoon so when William went to jump in a puddle I let him go for it. So then I grabbed his hand and lead him to another one. As we were walking to the car I would run from puddle to puddle and let him stomp away. We were drenched by the time we got to the car, but who cares- we had a ball!
The last big puddle!
Here's a sneek peek at Mae's Halloween costume. We brought it with us to show my parents. She pitched a fit when I took it off.

Luckily our last day in Tennessee we had beautiful weather.

Here's the only group shot we were able to get of everyone.

After we took our picture we started to walk away and this park employee walks up and says, "Where you coona**es from?" Obviously he saw the LSU garb we had on. He was from Norco. Seriously, who else but someone from Louisiana would start a conversation that way!
Kiss 1,152 for the day!
Go Max!

Again, my wonderful husband braved his fears and rode a roller coaster with me!

When William first looked at this ride he said- no way. Once we walked over to check it out he was game. It was really cute. He and Michael had to pull themselves up to the top with a little help. They kept pulling themselves up and then sliding down.

William was getting more brave as the day went on. He kept seeing signs for the new water ride and kept asking over and over if he could ride it. Once we got there he wasn't so sure. I think Michael was less sure because he didn't want to get wet. (Oh well!)

This ride had water guns on the cars and in the viewing section. Michael had the option of riding on the inside of the car where they would get less wet or on the outside where it was more likely they would get soaked. When I left them at the entrance of the ride the decision was to sit on the inside.

Here is Brad soaking Mike and Michael!

William hates getting water in his face so he quickly realized that he did not like sitting on the outside of the car!

Max, Poppy, Aimee, Brad & Grammy

Look how drenched they got! William was pouting as he walked back to us.

Since Brad was partly responsible for how wet they were he spotted the $3.00 for the dryer.

We FINALLY got these two to sleep!

When we went to Disney World last year William was still too little to ride a lot of things. This trip he was able to to much more. He's usually pretty cautious but he was really excited to ride this time. He wanted to do another water ride! This time he wanted both Mommy & Daddy to ride.

Every time Will thought he was going to get wet he would scoot over and get as close to Michael as possible. If the water got him he was say, "That's disgusting!" But, once wasn't enough-- as soon as he off he begged Michael to ride again.

There was one more water ride. We were trying to get all of the water ones over with so we get dry. William was feeling so confident and ready for another big ride. This time he was too little. He was one inch too short. We were so glad that he couldn't ride because there was no seat belt. He had more fun standing on the bridge.