They had a ball "packing" their own little rolling suitcases and getting some toys ready for the car trip! Little Nana as we often refer to Maddie Grace as, gave extra attention to make sure her things were packed as precisely and perfectly as could be. =) Surprisingly enough, all three exceeded our expectations in terms of behavior and the ride from our house to our first stop down the road to Cracker Barrel went beautifully! We were off to a good start for sure!
We have come to love Cracker Barrel as a family and it would rank in the twins top 2 favorite places to eat if given the choice! So of course once we began planning the trip, we knew this would be the perfect stop along the way to split the trip up!
The joy of tradition for me means a lot and we have made so many precious memories with our girls here already so this particular stop was just another one to add to the books! I'm pretty sure that our girls ate their entire breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc and then dove straight into their next round of eating our chicken tenders, fried okra, macaroni and biscuits with jelly. Considering our girls have never been huge eaters, this is one place to never count on taking any food home from!
We were all thrilled to make it to our hotel and truly it was so great to have zero plans other than to have fun as a family! They loved wheeling their suitcases up to the room, pushing elevator buttons, dropping coins in the fountain...you know all the little joys in life as a little one! We asked the twins what they were most excited about and of course their answer was...
TO GO SWIMMING! So we let them enjoy the room for a little while, eat a snack, and then we got our swimsuits on and headed downstairs!
They said this was their favorite part of the whole trip...and remembering those same joys as a child, I couldn't disagree!
Our original plan was to spend one night at the Embassy Suites before checking in to Opryland Hotel...that was until a huge snowstorm was predicted to hit starting Sunday night...so much to our disappointment we decided that even if we couldn't get our money back from our room, we still needed to be wise and drive home before we got stranded in an expensive hotel for a week with three little ones. So after one last swim, a delicious breakfast, & packing up we headed to our next stop along the way!
A trip to visit Opryland...we were still sad that we couldn't stay here with the girls, but we decided to make the best of it and still come spend part of the day enjoying the boat ride, a pizza lunch, and wandering through the conservatories. Our sweet girls seemed to think it was a pretty "fun" place!
LOVE these two so much it hurts!
And Ashton Kate's favorite part of today was being able to roam all over the place and be out of her stroller. Miss Independent LOVED her freedom!
Kendall and I had both been here several times before but it was so much fun to enjoy it through the eyes of children! The excitement for all things new is just super fun!
Our sweet twinsies getting so big!
But in Daddy's eyes, whether he admits it or not, the REAL reason he planned the entire trip to Nashville was to have an excuse to eat at Rainforest Cafe. He is like a little kid and has been talking for years months about how he couldn't wait to bring the girls here! I think it surpassed everyone's excitement and the girls have talked about it being their new favorite restaurant ever since we've arrived home. Needless to say, daddy says there will be many more trips to Rainforest Cafe in the future!
Seriously SUCH a fun and memorable trip! Cut short...YES but we managed to pack in quite a bit of fun in a short period of time and apparently we WORE them plum out!!!
This little one was more than ready to be in her bed!!
ROAD TRIP COMPLETE =)
Tired kids and parents, but FULL hearts!
