July 24-27, 2008

We're home! We all enjoyed our weekend away. I think Caleb had just as much fun as we had on his "golfing weekend"!

We headed out Thursday morning and arrived at Carowinds around 4:00. We spent a few hours riding our favorite rides and the kids played a game where Carson won two stuffed frogs and Jamie won one. Then headed out to get dinner and check into the hotel. We were upgraded to a suite again - woohoo! That makes it so much easier to stay in a hotel with kids.

Friday morning we got to the park at 9:45 so that Vic could be at the beginning of the line for the Nighthawk. I can't believe he likes this thing. It makes my palms sweat just watching it. After that, we split up for a while and Jamie and I went to the kids area while Carson and Vic went to some of the bigger rides. Jamie pretty much likes the kiddie swings, Azul the train, the cars, and the carousel and that's it. So, we rode those over and over and over again. Luckily, there was very little if any wait time for the rides. After that, Jamie and Carson both won another frog, for a total of 5 frogs. They wanted more but we decided that was plenty of frogs to carry around the park. Apparently, frogs get lonely and need lots of friends.

After lunch we headed to the water park where everyone's favorite attraction was the wave pool. Carson and Vic also went down some slides, including a speed slide, which Carson loved. It is the one at the top of the tower on this page. I can't believe he liked that.

We left about 4:30 on Friday and headed back to the hotel for a while to rest and shower. After that we took the kids to an outlet mall that we found when we were in Charlotte back in April. It has a HUGE play area in the middle. This thing is bigger than any play area I have ever seen. The kids were amazed and had a great time.

Saturday morning we headed to Asheville and spent a great day with Grandpa and Gran at the Fun Depot. The Fun Depot was truly lots of fun! The kids played games galore, Jamie played on the playground until she was "exhausted", and Carson loved speeding around in the go karts, once with Grandpa and once with Vic. Vic enjoyed it just as much as the kids, I think. He loved the go karts and also tried out the batting cages. He even suggested to the kids on the way home today that we go back there for their birthdays, lol.

After the Fun Depot fun, Carson went back home with Grandpa and Gran while Jamie, Vic and I checked into our hotel in downtown Asheville and headed out to explore the Bele Chere festival. It was neat seeing all the arts and crafts, but for the most part we found it very crowded and expensive. It was no Fun Depot, that's for sure. ;)

We picked up Carson and then tucked in two very tired kids around 10:00 on Saturday.

This morning we walked around downtown Asheville and found a neat little eatery called the Green Sage. We enjoyed a great breakfast before hitting the road to head home. We picked up Caleb around 6:00 and heard all about his fun weekend golfing and playing at the Little Jumping Bean. Sounds like he had a whole lot of fun! We missed the little guy and were glad to have him back. Grammy fared better this time and had no broken bones when we returned! :)

We have no pictures at all because we left our memory card at home. I wish we had some photos, but it was kind of nice to enjoy the vacation without worrying about taking so many pictures.

Now we are going to watch Dan in Real Life and then get some rest. I am so glad that we won't be sleeping on a hotel bed tonight! It is good to be home.