The Pool at the Doubletree - or Our Trip to Biltmore

Last week, we went to Charlotte on Wednesday and stayed the night with Nana. It is always so good to spend time with her. Both of the kids were not feeling great, and Hudson was miserable in the car. Usually, he is such a good traveler, but he cried from the Apex side of Jordan Lake to Siler City and there was nothing that would appease him. I think part of his discontent was from leaving the yellow passy at home. My fault. I just had no idea it was so important to him. Anyways, right as we were stopping at the Walgreens in Siler City to buy emergency passys (which, by the way, were pink, because that was the only color left), he fell asleep in the parking lot...for 20 minutes. Thank goodness for Auntie Amber's DVD player.

We had a great dinner with Nana, and as usual, stayed up later than we intended to chatting and visiting. Hudson slept like a champ, but Alden was up almost every hour. Really!?!?!? In her defense, she was coughing a lot, and Hudson was terribly congested, so we made an impromptu trip to Charlotte Pediatrics in the morning. Unfortunately, the doctor just brushed off my hacking, green snot-nosed kids as having the latest virus, so I was a little irritated about that being a waste of time and two co-pays. However, it was not a complete waste, because we walked into the waiting room and our friends Courtney and Tom were there with their son, Cole, for his 2 year visit. Court is the group manager for all the offices, so I was hoping we could stop by and at least see her in her office, but it was a great surprise to see them all.

So, we finally started towards Asheville, Hudson crying again. AHHH! We stopped at Chick-Fil-A in Shelby, and neither child ate anything. Typical. Then, we stopped in Hendersonville to walk around, and mostly to get covered wagons at Mcfarland's Bakery. Alden got a blue dinosaur cookie, Hudson got a sugar cookie, and Matt and I split a delicious covered wagon at Mcfarlands', and bought a few more to bring home to my parents. The kids had a fun time in the toy store, and we walked through Mast General. For those of you unfamiliar with this delicacy, it is devil's food cake, about the size of a hot dog bun paper, with ~3 inches of divinity on top (I don't know what is in divinity, but it is like marshmallow fluff and icing all mixed and delicious), and then a chocolate-y shell on the top. My mom grew up in Brevard, and we used to get them there, so they are a special treat whenever we are in the mountains.

We made it to Asheville around 4:30, checked into the hotel, and went down to the river to walk a little bit, and to let the kids burn off some energy. Matt's parents were running a little bit late, so we just did a quick dinner at Moe's. The Balloon Fairy was there making balloon creatures, so Alden got a balloon magic wand with a heart on the top, which she liked waving around.

We came back and went to the pool, which was Alden's favorite part of the weekend. Forget the splendor and extravagance of Biltmore. The hotel had a pool AND a hot tub. How do you compete with that? Both kids really had a good time. Hudson even stayed in longer than usual, but started getting chilled, so he and I took off and got baths going. Matt and Alden finally straggled up, and we endeavored to put both children down with all of us in the same room. Hudson cried for about 30 minutes in his pack-and-play, and after that, he and Alden slept for the rest of the night. Hallelujah.

We had breakfast the next morning and prepared for the Biltmore. I will say that the kids were MUCH better than I expected through the tour. We tried to do the audio tour, and I think Matt and I heard about 45% of the recordings. Not bad. Hudson lasted 60% of the way around in the backpack, and Alden walked about 50% of the way, before she needed me to carry her. We have no pictures of Biltmore because we were trying to corral two kids.

By the end of the tour, the kids were melting down, so we high-tailed it to Moe's (Alden calls it "Welcome to Moe's") again for lunch. There were 3 tour buses of middle-school kids at McDonalds (Alden calls it "Old McDonalds") so that didn't seem like a good idea. The kids and I took a great nap. I let Hudson sleep on one of the beds, and he crashed in about 30 seconds. Matt met his parents back at the Winery for some sampling. We had hoped to go back after naps to see the barnyard, but we were a little too late, plus the snow was really starting to fall.

We had dinner that night at the TGIFridays attached to the hotel, and Matt and Alden went back to the pool, while I put Hudson down. I let him fall asleep on the big bed again, and he was so tired. Those pack-and-plays have got to be so uncomfortable, even with all the extra padding that I try to add. We all went to bed early again that night.

Our original plans were to head home on Saturday, but the 10 inches of snow and news of jack-knifed tractor trailers on I-40 kept us in Asheville another night. Luckily, the hotel had a huge lobby and a lot of room for the kids to run around. They actually lost power for a while, but the staff did a great job of getting everything going. We spent a good part of the morning/afternoon in the lobby with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma had fortuitously brought Valentine's Day presents for the kids, so their books and toys helped distract them. Hudson liked the Jersey cow in the lobby, and kept saying, "Moo-moo", and pointing in its direction. He and Matt walked a couple laps around the hotel. We all took good naps that afternoon, and let Alden watch some Curious George shows while Hudson finished sleeping.

That night, dinner was a bit of a fiasco. Getting pizza seemed like a good idea, but we didn't think about containment issues for a 3 year old and an 18 month old. We will know better next time.

Matt and I finally got to run on the treadmill that night, taking turns going to the little workout room. We stayed up a little too late watching House Hunters International. I tell you, after not having cable at our house, we really enjoyed watching HGTV and X-Games.

We started our drive home on Sunday after breakfast with Grandma. Alden made friends with the omelet chef, and he gave her her own paper chef hat.