Best Boy Weekend Ever

This past weekend we went to a family reunion in eastern Tennessee. 

For starters, I think it is safe to say that Henry is now fully potty trained.  We made it the entire 6 hour car trip with no accidents.  I put a pull up on over his underwear and he remained dry the entire time.  Of course, it helps that we put him on the pot every time we stopped for gas.

Henry is still talking about how much fun he had at Jamie and Jon's house. (Never mind that my cousins are Jamie and Kent.)  It was boy heaven.  Jamie and Kent have a fair amount of land-- complete with an old barn, a creek, a rope swing, giant piles of dirt where they are putting in a pool, a tree house, and large unmowed portions.  Henry kept saying he loved playing in the "crick" and "da jungle".  (He also had a blast at the HO-tel, as in, the boy screams HO and then just sort of non-chalantly adds "tel" to the end of it .  He and Gracie shared the sitting room portion of our suite and from their room we kept hearing H loudly whisper, "Gwacie, we having a swumber party.  Yippee!  A swumber party!)    Oh, and did I mention that Jamie and Kent have three kids--Mara (15), Amanda(8ish), and Seth (6ish)and therefore every toy known to man.  We're talking dinosaurs, cash registers, Legos, trains, horses, barbies, balls, blocks, foozball, tricycles, and battery operated cars for the kids to drive.  Amanda drove him around in her Barbie car.  Barbie has moved up in the world.  She no longer drives a Jeep, but a pink Escalade, complete with a boomin' sound system.  And Seth took him for a ride in his little John Deere Gator.  Oh, and did I mention that my sister's brood was there as well?  So his bestest buddies, Jonathan and Isabel, were there.  When they arrived, Henry and Isabel ran toward one another with arms opened, screaming one another's name as if they were in a soap commercial.  It was hilarious.  Unfortunately, I did not get many pics from the weekend because Gracie's two toofers were coming in and she was only happy if she was attached to me.  Most of these photos are from Sloan's phone.

The reunion itself was at another cousins' farm.  It was awesome.  There was corn hole, a pool, and a stocked pond with a paddle boat.  Once again, hog heaven.  Henry loved riding in the paddle boat.  Sloan let him go out there with a bunch of kids and a teenager.  I'm really glad I didn't know this until I saw the picture on Sloan's blackberry.  I would have had a stroke. 

Henry tries fishing for the first time.

Hey Lily, Henry caught you a delicious bass.

But just in case Henry hadn't had enough fun, we took the kids to Tweetsie Railroad on Sunday.  Tweetsie is a Wild West train themed amusement park in Blowing Rock, NC.  I went when I was a kid and was scared out of my mind. There is an adventure train ride upon which a tribe of Indians hijacked it tried to scalp everybody.  Well, they've tried to make it a bit more PC.  The Indians no longer hijack the train, but save the cowboys from the evil train robbers--the Hot Sauce Bandits (aptly named Texas Pete and Tabasco).  However, the Indians' costumes and face paint was pretty ridiculous, so it was still rather lame, if not overtly offensive.  The little show the college-aged thespians put on was a bit like that play you put on for your relatives at Thanksgiving:  Poorly rehearsed, funny in parts, but overall just a bit too long.  But Henry ate it up.  He loved riding on the train, seeing the water tower, the coal tender, and sitting on one of the coaches.  The park is also great because the majority of the rides are fore the 45" and under set.  And it wasn't crowded at all.  We didn't have to wait in a single line all day. 

Gracie enjoyed riding the train too.  Despite how much Henry talked about getting an Engineer's cap, he refused to put one on.  Nor did he want a conductor hat, a cowboy hat, or an Indian headress.  Gracie is not so finicky.

Flying high!

Henry asked for a red spider face painting.  Everytime someone told him they liked his Crab face painting, it made him, well, crabby.

Riding in the bumper car--aka "Wightning Macween dat wooks wike Wamone".  (Lighting McQueen that looks like Ramone.)