The Tennessee DeBrys

 Ah, Kingsport was so much fun!  The second day, we were able to sleep in and get some laundry and blogging done before we met arilyn and the kids at the YMCA for a day of swimming.  I love this picture of Freestone and me on the rope crossing.  He bet me a dollar that I couldn't cross it, and I would have won, but I started laughing when I was almost to the end, and I had to fall in the water.  Do you like Freestone in the background, waiting to collect his money?

 David and Marilyn were so good to us.  They fed us and spent time talking and visiting with us.  They are excellent examples to me, with the kind way they treat their children and each other.  They are so good, and so fun to be with!  I was pitiful at taking pictures, and I regret it!  All the kids are so precious, I wish I had pictures of each sweet little face, but we were too busy having fun, darnit.  You wouldn't believe the plush accommodations the DeBrys had ready for us.  Thanks to Parker and Michael, we were able to take over the boys' suite, which is semi-attached to the house.  It was beyond perfect, so thanks for sleeping on the couch, boys!  The kids slept like babies, even the baby.

Speaking of babies, there were 13 kids between our two families, and every single one of them was fun to be with.  Ptolemy had a meltdown the night before we left, saying, "We have to stay in Tennessee longer!  You have to stay here with me!  We all have to stay here!"  I hear ya, buddy!

I think all the kids really enjoyed Tennessee on the whole.  Driving through the Smoky Mountains, Freestone said he wanted to start saving up for a trip.  I asked him where he wanted to go, and he said, "Here."  Kid, we're already here!  But he wants to come back and do Dollywood, and have more time to explore.  Ari asked if we could move to Kingsport.  No, but it sure is fun to be there and to strengthen our connection to family.  One of my favorite things, besides talking to Marilyn all afternoon, was when David loaded a bunch of us in their 15-passenger van and took us on a tour of Eastman, where he works.  It sounds like an exciting place, really progressive, environmentally friendly and supportive of the community.  I was so proud of my cousin for having such a great job and such a great family.  It was just neat to see it all in action.  I commented that Opa must see David going to work at Eastman, and all of us going about our diverse lives, and be very proud of his descendants.  It's pretty incredible how far and wide our generation has spread.

 Even though we wanted to stay in Tennessee forever, we hit the road early.  Our plan was to go through the Shenandoah Valley, but David suggested Charlottesville instead, where Monticello and UVA are.  Ari is a bit of a Jefferson buff, so I changed our hotel reservation last night and rerouted the GPS this morning as we took to the road.  We were peacefully cruising through the breathtaking beauty of Virginia when Ari started screaming.  I looked over and a GIANT ant was lost on her thigh, probably thinking it was somewhere else entirely.  Panic clouded my vision, and I couldn't tell if it was a hornet or what.  Thankfully, there was a rest stop right there, and we veered off, jumping out of the car screaming.  Now that I think about it, I can't believe there was a rest stop.  RIGHT THERE!  A gorgeous one, too.  Here is Ptolemy, demonstrating how big the ant was.  It was BIG!  We were all spooked for an hour afterward, jumping at the least little thing.

 A trip like this, we can stop wherever we want.  If a kid wants to stop, we do.  There was a place called Natural Arch, which was a bit of a tourist trap.  They had a wax museum that the kids wanted to go to, but I'm sorry, I'm not paying a hundred bucks to shuffle 5 kids through a depression-era building full of dusty wax statues.  I will, however, stop at a roadside candle store and let them pick out any candle they want.  They chose a fishbowl full of seashells and gel wax.  The scent was called "Sex on the Beach."  Ewww, but I'm the one who said "any candle."

Other scents included "Baby's Butt" and "Squirrel Farts," so our options were limited to the imagination of the hillbilly who ran the store.   Scary!  He was a good guy, though.  He let the kids pet his dog, and we're Facebook friends now.  I know, right?  He was just so enthusiastic about his new Facebook page...

 Our next unscheduled stop was Southern Virginia University.  David and Marilyn had mentioned this school, and I'm embarrassed and perplexed to admit that I had not heard of it!  It is a small university that is 95% Latter-day Saint.  Helloo?!  How could I not have heard of this?  MY cute kids are so patient.  They didn't whine or anything when I took a detour to see what this school was all about.  It is in a splendid setting, hilly and green, in a quaint, tiny town.  We went to the main building, which was quite magnificent.  I would love to know the story of this building, because it has to have been built long before such large, stately buildings were commonplace.  An old plantation, maybe?  I spoke to some students, one of whom got a little verklempt telling me how much he loves this school.  My kids will definitely have to look into this!

 Charlottesville is a gem of a town.  The campus of the University of Virginia is over-the-top picturesque.  Every single building is built of the red brick that screams higher learning.  It really is ridiculously beautiful.  Walking through town, there are buildings everywhere that predate anything my kids have ever seen in Utah...not including this gelato shop, which looked pretty darn new.

 At first, I was concerned that we wouldn't find anything kid-friendly to do.  I hadn't done any investigating on Charlottesville.  We followed the signs to Old Town, parked and went to the visitors' center.  There, I told the guy my parameters and got instructions on exactly what to do.  We would have loved to see Monticello, but realistically, with kids this young, it wouldn't be worth the steep admissions price.  As an alternative, we rode the free trolley to the rotunda, a building similar in style to the Jefferson Memorial, which Thomas Jefferson designed.  Ari followed a tour and listened to all the fun facts about the building, while the rest of us rested on the lawn.

  We then took the trolley back to Old Town.  By then, we were fading fast from hunger and ducked into the first pizza place we saw.  Decadent, delicious pizza by the slice.  I had mozzarella, basil and tomato and Tizzy had pesto tomato, which I "shared" with her.  We also gulped down about a gallon of lemonade!

Revived, we visited some shops and admired the quaint architecture, then went for gelato.  Being with these five can get intense at times.  NONE of them ever stop talking!  I have a trick that has helped me stay relaxed, and it's not Lortab, although I was SUCH a good parent when I took those after having Tizzy.  Anyway, at the beginning of the day, I hand out imaginary "Unlimited Free Passes for Fun" to each person, including myself.  The kids are funny;  they actually hold out their hands and I actually pretend to hand them a pass.  Throughout the day, I remind myself that the kids are fine being kids.  They have their Unlimited Free Passes for Fun, so let them have fun.  I also remind myself that I have one too, so I am allowed to have fun and not be uptight about little things.  I can't decide if that's pathetic or great, but it had worked.  Tonight, it worked in the pool.  My theory is that if I keep the kids up late, there will be no problem with bedtime, and boy am I correct on that one.  They are only too grateful to crawl into a nice, cool bed when I'm finished dragging them around!  So that's why we went to the pool late.  I started out shushing them, worried about the other hotel guests.  Them I remembered my Unlimited Free Pass for Fun, and even though I had left it back in the room, I decided to have fun.  I ended up teaching them about the Nestea Plunge, and we ended up practicing it repeatedly, without even bothering any other hotel guests.  I felt delinquent as a parent for not introducing them to the Nestea Plunge sooner!  What is wrong with me?  I guess I didn't have my UFPFF until now.

Tomorrow, we pick up Golda and Ruby in D. C.  The next day, Scott arrives.  Although I am terribly excited and anxious to see all of them, I am sad that my little "D. C. Group," as I've been calling them all summer, is about to be invaded by outside forces.  It's been an incredible experience having just the five littles all to myself.  We have had such fun!  Of course, we all miss Daddy.  We were sitting next to a woman and her two children at the pizza place tonight, and their dad walked up.  The kids said, "Daddy's here!"  And the mom repeated, "Daddy's here!"  Tziporah, in a tiny, questioning voice, said, "Daddy?...Daddy?..."  She kept looking at the dad, but he just wasn't the guy.

I miss the guy!  So...on to the next adventure!