Family of 5. Will travel.

To celebrate the 4th of July and the long weekend, we headed up to Blowing Rock to the "Tweetsie House" with Poppy & Gigi.  Make no mistake...loading up our crew of 5 was not walk in the park.  And the week of, Weston was an ill-pill, the weather was nasty and Ben was working 14 hour days.

But we loaded up and headed up the mountain mid-morning on July 4th.  It was a gorgeous drive and we arrived just after lunchtime.  Linda had planned the "1st Annual Isaac Family Reunion" for that day so it was a real treat to see most of my aunts, uncles & cousins who I rarely get to spend any time with.  It was also nice having so many extra sets of hands to help corral the kids.  Even if they were showing them how to use paintball & bb guns...

And while Jackson clearly understood that the sparklers were HOT, I guess we never specifically stated that the metal sparkler wire was also hot...even after the sparkler went out.  Alas, Jackson experienced his first minor burn and learned not to be quite so curious.

On Friday, we woke up to a rainy day.  We managed a short little walk outside and found lots of worms.  Poppy wowed the boys by "eating" it.

Finally, some much needed sunshine broke through in the afternoon. We jumped on our chance and Ben & I took the big boys to Tweetsie for the afternoon.  Colton enjoyed an afternoon of being the one & only grandchild for once :)

Let me just say that Weston was speechless.  Literally.  He was in AWE of the trains, the rides, everything.

We had the best time riding the rides, chowing down on ice cream & popcorn and riding Tweetsie.  We dodged short storms throughout the afternoon but none lasted more than 10 minutes!

On Saturday, we visited the outlets prior to heading back towards Greenville.  Gigi & Poppy treated the boys to their first pairs of light-up shoes.  Talk about proud kiddos, these boys have been stomping ever since.

{On a side note, Jackson wanted to see his "light up under the water" and hopped in our kiddie pool with his kicks on.  Devastatingly, they quit working....but after drying overnight, they are back in action.}

And you'd never know from the looks of it, but this little rascal screamed the whole way home.

What a fun & much needed little get-away!