Fall Creek Falls

A few weekends ago we had some beautiful upper 60's lower 70's degree weather. So what did the Bates household do? Took a day trip to Fall Creek Falls! We didn't realize that it was a two hour drive when we set out, but we went with it:) . It is such a beautiful place and the kids loved all of the waterfalls, not to mention getting to stand on the edge of cliffs. I was surprisingly not overly fearful of them tumbling down into the abyss ( which may have to do with the iron grip I had on them), and only almost had a panic attack while walking across the suspension bridge. Not because I was afraid of falling, but because I kept having flashbacks of a very scary incident at Wonder Works Emporium (in Gatlinburg). I will just say that it had to do with Rogan, an inversion tunnel, and a shoe. Anyway, here are some pictures of our adventure!

Leave it to beaver :)

Rogan is really excited in this one!

The scary swinging bridge.

He loves his sister!

Ameryn Says the Dampedest Things

Last Sunday Ameryn and Rogan spent some time hanging out with my parents and siblings while Chris and I went out with some friends. Ameryn had started saying that her ear hurt a little earlier in the afternoon, but as it was Sunday and no Drs. offices were opened, we decided to give her some Tylenol and take her in the morning. She was doing fine when we dropped them off with some happy meals and kisses, promising to see them later that evening. I left my cell phone at home because we were taking the motorcycle, and I would have nowhere to keep it. I thought that Chris had his on him, but he had left his at home as well. Ameryn's ear really started to hurt later in the evening, and her fever started to spike. She was pretty pitiful, I was told, and spent the evening snuggled up to her Mimi. At one point my brother David came in to the room and asked if Ameryn would like to sit with him for awhile. She said yes and they settled down in a chair together. "Wow Ameryn, you're really hot. Let me go get you a damp rag" he told her. He got up to get her a nice damp rag, and Ameryn went back over to Mimi. They waited for about ten minutes for David to come back (he doesn't get in any kind of hurry), when Ameryn looked up at her Mimi and said in the sweetest little voice " Mimi, where's my dam rag?" My mom did her best to hold in the laughter and asked her what she said. "Where's David with my dam rag? I really need a dam rag." What made it even more hilarious is that she was saying this with the sweetest, most pitiful little voice. She really needed that dam rag!

So SmOoOoky!

I am a sleep walker, talker, seeing things...er. I have been for as long as I can remember. I once got out of bed, went out the front door, and knocked on our neighbors front door at about three in the morning. I remember falling down in the grass on my way back home, and then nothing until I woke up in my bed later that morning. I was about six. My Dad was sure to engage the chain lock on our door the next night and waited to see if I would attempt my escape again. Sure enough around the same time I came out of my bedroom and started trying to open the door. I could not, so I just stood there pulling repeatedly at the handle. My Dad decided to undo the chain and watch what I was going to do next. I stepped out onto the porch and just stood there for a few minutes. When my Dad asked me what I was doing I replied "Don't you know Dad? I'm floating." I only remember him bringing me back into my bed and asking me what I was doing. I was very insistent that I was in fact floating. I had started to wake up by then, and knew that what I was saying was silly, but just couldn't make myself say anything else! I have continued to do things like this even until now (though I have never to my knowledge left my house again).I even freaked out my newly wed husband by trying to catch the wagon wheel on a pole with giant nails sticking out of it that was falling onto him...twice. For the past few months I will suddenly wake up as if someone had yelled my name, and see a huge spider sliding down his web from the wall toward my face. I will jump out of bed to turn the light on only to find that the spider has disappeared. I have apparently passed this trait onto my children. Ameryn has woken up crying numerous time watching things on her ceiling that I can not see. She also talks, and will even answer questions you ask her with a hilarious "yisssss" when her answer is yes. Well, the night before last something very smooky (Ameryn's version of "spooky") happened. I snapped out of a deep sleep to see not a spider, but a giant black beetle crawling down the wall. Being that I am not as deathly afraid of beetles as I am of spiders, I lay there watching it until it slowly disappeared. As soon as it had faded into oblivion Rogan woke up crying in his room. I went into his room and found him crying, staring at his pillow. "What is it buddy?" I asked. "The cricket" he answered. I searched through his bed, insisting that there was no cricket lurking anywhere in it, until he was appeased enough to go back to sleep. When I got back into bed I told Chris that It was really weird that I had just seen a beetle on the wall and then Rogan wakes up with a phantom cricket in his bed. I went back to sleep only to be woken up with Ameryn about two inches away from my face ten minutes later. "Mommy, there is a beetle crawling down my wall" she said pitifully. I got up and checked it out, finding no beetles. She went back to bed, only to get back up about thirty minutes later tell me that the beetle came back. I rechecked her bed, and let her sleep with the lights on (which is a surefire method of keeping ghost bugs at bay). After that we had no more night time visits of the arthropodian kind, for which I am very grateful! So what do you think, pretty smooky? I thought so!