This year, we headed to Dan's parents' house in Sautee, GA for Thanksgiving. But because of the rock slide (or should I say 'boulder' slide?) on I-40 between Knoxville and Asheville, we had to go a different way. That section of I-40 is closed for several months. There are several ways to get to Sautee from Knoxville {and we have tried most of them}, but we have determined we prefer going through the mountains on I-40, down to Waynesville, NC, through Dillard, GA, and on to Sautee. It is mostly 4-lanes so the roads are better and less curvy, and there are more "populated" places to stop for potty breaks, etc. It's a much more family-friendly way. Any other way you go involves going over the mountain at some point with lots of ups and downs and way too many curves. But if we were going to go, we had no choice this time.
We headed out on Thanksgiving late morning, really not that long before Fenn's lunchtime. We stopped and got him some chicken nuggets from McDonald's (yes, we're parents of the year!) and were on our way. We were hoping he would eat his lunch and then take his usual "after lunchtime" nap. Everything was going great until we got into the mountains and the roads started getting curvy. Fenn had been content to watch Little Einsteins DVDs. And I had been sitting in the backseat between Fenn and Boone to help keep both of them happy. But then Fenn started acting funny and had these strange looks on his face. And he was leaning forward in his seat and seemed like he couldn't get comfortable. I had suspicions that he was feeling a little car sick. Then it seemed to go away for a little while. But that didn't last long. I'll never forget the look on his face. It was this horrible look of complete and utter terror. He had never really thrown up before, at least not in a way that he knew something was about to happen. The couple of times in the past had happened so suddenly that he really wasn't phased at all. Once it was over, he acted as if it had never happened. But this time was different. This time he could feel something was wrong, but he had no idea what was going on. I grabbed one of Boone's burp cloths and held it under his chin. And up came those chicken nuggets! Luckily, I was able to catch most of it and very little got on Fenn. While all of this was going on, I was telling Dan to find a place to pull over. Easier said than done when you're winding through those curvy mountain roads! We finally found a place where we could pull off the road and got Fenn out of the car for a few minutes. That gave us a chance to clean him up. We finally got back on the road and drove for the next hour or so with the windows cracked. And it was a COLD day! But we wanted to keep fresh air on Fenn. We finally got to Grami and Poppy's house with no more problems. We were exhausted from the trip. We had a nice Thanksgiving meal, but that's about all I remember from the rest of the day. I didn't even take out my camera I was so completely exhausted.
On Friday, we hung out around the house. Piper and Sydney did a great job keeping the boys entertained {especially Fenn}. He followed them around all over the place. Boone had fun playing on the floor in the family room with Piper for a while. Fenn played downstairs in the pop up tent with Piper and Sydney. We took Fenn down to the pasture to see the horses. While there, he got to see some deer grazing in the field. And we took Fenn over to the playground for a little while to burn off some energy. We didn't stay long because it was so cold. It was cold enough that when we mentioned something about leaving, Fenn said "okay" and headed to the car! 
On Saturday morning, it was time to head home. It had warmed up significantly outside, so Fenn and the girls started playing in the pile of leaves out front. Then they discovered they could walk up the hill, run down, and slide into the leaves. Fenn had a blast!
We had a great time. It was a short trip since we came home on Saturday. But it was nice to get home and have a full day home before having to start a new week.
No comments:
Post a Comment