TN Vacation

I know that this is kinda late, but I thought I would write about our vacation. Ilana and I went with my co-worker Kristeen and her daughter Mercelia to Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and Sevierville, TN. We had tons of fun, but was also exhausting at the same time.

Our first stop was in Sevierville, TN at Wilderness At The Smokies indoor waterpark. This was the largest indoor waterpark that Mercelia had been to, so she was really excited. It was very similar to the Wilderness Lodge that we stayed at in Wisconsin Dells. Here are some photos of the girls.
Ilana and Mercelia on one of the rides.

This is in the wave pool. I was trying to pull them out on the raft and the waves started and we all ended up tumbling like rocks. It was pretty funny. Good thing my camera is waterproof and shock proof!!


These are some cool underwater pictures.

I really like this one of Ilana.

Ilana on the Flo Rider.

Next we went to our hotel in Pigeon Forge, TN. We really liked the hotel and had a great view of the Smoky Mountains from our balcony. It was nice to wake up to that every day. I didn't realize how much I missed the mountains. :(

We spent a day in Gatlinburg going to all the Ripley's attractions. We saved the Aquarium for Thursday when it was supposed to rain. We rode the sky lift to the top of the mountain. That was really fun.

This is the photo that they took as we were ascending the mountain. Neither Ilana nor I liked this photo because we're making weird faces, so we only got a small one.

This is the photo that we took as we were going up.

The entire ride.


We also went to Dollywood for 2 days. The first day was really hot and the lines were über long. It took Kristeen about 2 hours to stand in line for lunch and then the food was not good and they forgot to put the hamburger patties on one of our meals and forgot our cheese. It was edible though, and that was all we were asking for. The second day, we wised up and brought snacks with us. We were not waiting in those lines again for food. The lines weren't that long because it was colder.

The first night after Dollywood, we went to Dixie Stampede. That was a ton of fun. We were on the South side and of course, the North won. I would like to see that again.

With our souvenir mugs at the pre-show.

They took pictures of all of us before and we had to buy them because it was rare to get a picture of all 4 of us. Also, you weren't allowed to take pictures DURING the show, so this was good. It's part of the trap, I know.

We also went to two musicals at The Miracle Theater. The first one was called "The Miracle" and was about Christ's life. I really liked the music on this one. The second one was "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." This was the first time I had seen this live and it was really fun to watch. Melinda Doolittle was the narrator and did an awesome job!!

We got a CD soundtrack of the Miracle if we bought the picture, so Kristeen and I both got a copy of the photo. Not a bad deal for $20.

They had the same deal for this photo except you got Melinda Doolittle's CD. We weren't as excited for this one, but we got it anyway. :)

It was nice because Ilana and Mercelia got pictures with most of the cast members. The cast for both musicals were basically the same with a few exceptions.

Our favorite character was Lucifer. We liked him because we thought he sang the best.

Overall, it was a fun, but tiring vacation. We were all glad to get back home!!