We decided to take a little end of the summer trip with the kids to Pigeon Forge. The plan was to stay at Dollywood and go to Dollywood Splash Country.
We headed out on Tuesday morning. Caitie insisted I sit in the way back so I could see her.
This goofball made things pretty entertaining.
Peyton took advantage
We stopped in Knoxville to eat lunch with Michael's grandparents. It just so happened to be Michael's grandmother's birthday. So it worked out perfectly. Sweet little Caitie fell asleep for about half of the ride.
We made it to Dollywood's DreamMore Resort!
Once we arrived, we checked into our room. It was the perfect room for us. It had a queen size bed, bunk beds, and a pull out sofa. It was decorated so sweetly!
We changed into our swimsuits and headed straight for the pool. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was not great. It ended up drizzling all day. Caitie and I sat underneath the umbrella and enjoyed a cocktail while the boys swam.
The rain can't stop our fun!
Michael enjoyed a pretty festive cocktail as well
Those cheeks!
It was raining pretty steadily, so there were not many people in the pool. It was nice to have lots of room to swim.
We swam until past dinner time. The rain held off for a few minutes, so we headed up to the room to change and grab some s'mores.
Cutest little s'mores kits
One happy little boy
They have story time followed by a movie in the barn outside. They had freshly cooked popcorn and blankets for the kids to sit on. It was precious.
I rocked this little one to sleep in the rocking chairs in the back. Seriously, nothing sweeter than this.
We had planned to go to Dollywood Splash Country on Wednesday. However, the forecast was heavy rain all day long. So we decided go to MagiQuest for some indoor fun.
The boys were pretty serious about their Magic.
They have 4 attractions at Magiquest. Since it was pouring outside, we bought a package to experience all 4. The boys favorite part was definitely the magic portion. It was fun to solve little clues. After the magic portion, we played glow-in-the-dark mini golf. By this time it was packed, so it went a little slower than we would have preferred.
We also did a mirror maze. Peyton was absolutely terrified and was in tears by the time we finished. He thought we would never make it to the end and was scared about being stuck in there forever. Patrick tried to run in front of us and figure it out by himself, but ended up getting stuck in the mirror maze. Michael had to go back through and find him. It was very challenging!
Next up was the Vault. I didn't do this one, but it was an obstacle course, where you try to go through as fast as you can without hitting any of the lasers.
It took us about 3 hours to go through all 4 activities. The boys were begging to do the magiquest portion again and we definitely could have spent more than 3 hours. We headed back to the hotel to swim in the rain. Then we headed out to dinner at Calhouns. This little guy was passed out by the time we got to dinner.
We woke up the next morning ready to go to Dollywood Splash Country. There was rain in the forecast for the entire day, but we thought we would tough it out anyway. We got everything ready and headed towards the shuttle when we were told that Dollywood Splash Country was closing for the day. It was only the second time that it had closed this summer. We decided to book a room at Wilderness at the Smokies, so we could play in the indoor water park all day (which ended up being cheaper than Dollywood!)
We were pretty bummed about missing out on Splash Country, but ended up having a blast at Wilderness at the Smokies. We had been a couple of years ago, but had never experienced the outdoor attractions.
Caitie was an absolute champ. I'm not sure many babies would tolerate being in the drizzling rain outside all day watching your big brothers go down slides over and over again.
Precious girl
This was the boys favorite attraction. They went down slide about 50 times over the 2 days we were there. They also convinced me to go down once.
We spent the first day at the waterpark until it closed and then headed back to Dollywood Resort for s'mores and a fun game of checkers. The next morning we checked out of Dollywood and headed back to Wilderness at the Smokies. It was a gorgeous sunny day and was absolutely packed outside. We had a tough time finding chairs, so it was a tough day for Caitie being outside in the sun all day!
After lunch, we headed back to Nashville. Although the vacation didn't go as planned, we had an absolute blast with the kids. Can't believe the kids start school in a couple weeks.
