From Heavenly Love to Lazy Rooster

I think it's good for couples to get away even if only once every year or two. To shake off all the "parentness" and focus on just being human for a few days.

It has been about 2 years since Marcus and I had a few days alone together and I was starting to feel like it was time. Life is about to get a little more crazy with three boys (!!!) and I knew if we didn't get away now that if we did in the next few years I would be nursing and dealing with bringing a pump and keeping breastmilk cold etc.

I had been looking online at log cabins for a while and inquiring about good places to vacation. I wanted something that was close to Indiana yet still felt like a "get away". Most cabins I ran across were expensive and plus I had no idea if the quality was worth it.

Recently one of my friends went to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg Tennessee with her husband and stayed in a cabin. I immediately hounded her for details and before long I had the same cabin (called Heavenly Love....swoon) booked for three nights with the most amazing breathtaking views (and for much cheaper than a hotel would cost!)

I was so excited! I had never stayed in a cabin and was giddy about it. I looked at the website's picture of the cabin's view on a daily basis.

(patriotgetaways.com)

I couldn't wait to sit. In the quiet. The Quiet! Stare at God's creation. Just to breathe and soak it in.

Thanks to Marcus' mom and my parents splitting up childcare duty we were officially free to get away for a few days. We dubbed this trip as our Babymoon/Early Anniversary/Birthday (I turn 30 in a few days!)/ Mother's Day Trip all rolled into one.

We honeymooned in TN and although we certainly created memories (although fuzzy after having a few kids) we definitely dealt with some least than ideal honeymoon situations on our trip 8 years ago. Bad sunburns, losing an expensive digital camera that wasn't even ours (I still have no idea what happened to that thing and I was protecting it so closely), and to top it off we had a wreck on our way home.

So this was TN's chance to prove to us that the beautiful state was not out to get us.

Despite some car sickness on the way and leaving a few hours late we were making decent time and almost in TN. Then I got a phone call from the company we booked the cabin with. There was no water at the Heavenly Love cabin and we were going to have to pick another cabin to stay in. We laughed and wondered what all might go wrong on this trip.

For about 30 minutes the extremely polite woman on the phone went through about 12 cabins with me while I tried to look at pictures on Marcus' phone and compare and contrast. So we ended up trading in our weekend at Heavenly Love with a weekend at the Lazy Rooster! A lovely cabin but one that definitely didn't have a view.

But the lazy rooster set the tone for weekend. We were indeed lazy. And it was awesome.

(The cabin was nice except this sign by the front door- what in the world?!)

Playing pool, movies, yummy food, putt putt, desserts, pancakes at the cabin, hot tub, kingsizedbed!, walking around Gatlinburg, naps, sleeping in (not answering a million questions from a 5 yr old or changing a ton of poopy diapers)

We ate some pretty awesome food...the teriyaki steak (upper right pic) was my favorite!

Putt-putt. I will say that Marcus won (I will not say by how much) He waitied until the last few holes to let me know that I was hitting it too hard and once I lightened up I did SO much better. I was the only one who got a hole-in-one though!

And he did beat me at pool too but only by one.

More belly pics (27 weeks)...hey, it's what you do when you're pregnant :)

 Picture overload...I know. We had fun eating dinner in Gatlinburg and just walking around seeing things.

Aaaaah. It was lovely and lazy. We laughed. We smiled. We had fun. We made inside jokes (like Pizza Hut's Guard Rooster) And then we left for home somewhat holding our breath that this time we wouldn't wreck!

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On the way home we were able to stop for a late lunch with our long time friend, Cliff, whom we haven't seen in a few years. It was nice to see him again and then we set out for my parent's house to get the boys.

We missed them. I swear we saw about 125373 red headed little kids while we were away and as we turned on my parents road I felt my heart leap that I was about to see my boys!

I'd like to say they screamed "Mommy! Daddy!" and ran into our arms. Nope. Luke was unsure what was going on and therefore didn't want anything to do with us for awhile. Nathan was pouting that our arrival meant he had to leave Papa's house.

But we hugged and kissed them anyways and gave them their little stuffed bear and fox souvenirs.

Now back to life. Back to reality. But definitely refreshed.

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We are super super grateful for our wonderful family that allowed us to get away for a few days by taking excellent care of our boys. My mother-in-law even took Nathan to his kindergarten orientation (which was hard for me to miss but I was glad he still got to go). They definitely enjoyed their time with all their grandparents and Nathan's asking to do it again.

Nathan and Papa