"Dream" a little "More"

A few weeks ago, Brooke and I discussed meeting up with our boys at Dollywood. Then, I got an email from the Dream More Resort, saying rooms were 25% off; two hours and one phone call with Brooke later, we were booked in a Junior Suite!

In the week or so between booking and actually taking the trip, Brooke and I joked about how having three boys in the same hotel room - two of which (mine) have proven themselves to be HORRIFIC under those circumstances - was probably the worst decision we'd ever made, but it actually turned out to be one of the best.

These boys - and their mamas - had a BALL.

The boys and I got there thirty minutes or so before Brooke and AJ. Jones and Freddie would've been completely content to sit in the dual rocking chairs in front of the resort, but when I got them into the hotel to check in, they were positively giddy. When we got to the room, Jones ran around, saying, "AWESOME! This is all I want!" He proceeded to see the phone, pick it up, and say, "I have one call." By all means, Son. Take it.                                            The boys had about as much fun exploring the room as anything else. It had both a sofa bed for Jones to sleep in and a "cave" (bottom bunk) for Freckle. Though he slept on the bottom, Freddie - and both other boys - loved climbing up and down the ladder to the top bunk, where they'd jump and touch the ceiling with their hands. Of course, they also jumped on the king bed Brooke and I shared.

Can you blame them?

After all that fun, we had a not-too-relaxing dinner at the Song & Hearth Restaurant before going for a swim and, then, making s'mores and hearing a story, fireside. It was a GREAT evening, followed, magically - MIRACULOUSLY! - by an AMAZING nite of sleep. All three boys slept until their usual wake up times! In fact, my boys slept about 20 or 30 minutes later than usual! That sound you hear is a choir of angels breaking out in the "Hallelujah Chorus."

We had a quick breakfast at the Resort and then played on the park by the pool. Finally, it was time to take the trolley to Dollywood. To be honest, if we'd have just done that for the next six hours, I think all three boys would've felt COMPLETELY fulfilled: "Trolley!" AJ kept throwing up his hands to say, no doubt certain we were on the way to meet up with his beloved Daniel Tiger. 

We ventured on, anyway, and entered those butterfly-covered gates of the Smokies' greatest amusement park. With the exception of a handful of incidents - most of them small, one of them embarrassing (I promised myself I wouldn't mention Jones's conniption fit in front of the train ride, so that's all I'll say about that) - we had a terrific time.

The icing on the cake of an amazing day at Dollywood was riding the trolley AGAIN. Just when you think life can't get any sweeter, it does.

I hope these stair-step boys of ours are always such big buddies.

This is when Jones started calling
Freddie "Tom."

Freddie's not frustrated;
he's scratching his head.
Stupid eczema.

AJ calls Jones "JewJew."

Jones kept referring to himself as "Dollywood Jones."

I can't think of many things in this world that he loves
more than a sofa bed.