We had the opportunity to compete in Tennessee this weekend. Since we have family that is only 2 hours away from Pigeon Forge we thought "why not?". Here is where my story gets CRAZY!
So we had friends that were supposed to go with us, but they decided earlier the week before that they weren't going to be able to make it. I had ONE problem. Tim came home from being gone a month on Friday the 15th at 1030 at night (ATL). Trouble was - Cale was supposed to be weighing in Friday night in Tennessee. I emailed the tournament director our situation hoping he would have pity on me. He let me know that he was updating the website that minute to inform everyone of the satellite weigh ins, and thankfully enough there was one in Georgia.
I found the Georgia weigh in site and it was 3 hours from our house, and only 45 minutes away from the ATL airport. Which once we were done weighing in had us waiting around the ATL area for about 4 hours! We also had to backtrack 45 minutes to get back to the airport area to get dad! (but my crazy story doesn't end there...keep reading!)
I went to my works Christmas party earlier that day and left work early to come home and pack the car. Tim wanted me to bring the wrestling dummy so him and Cale would work on some moves.
Picked up Kennedie about 30 minutes early from school and we were on our way to Alpharetta. This isn't the worst of the traffic either, but I will say that we never stopped dead on the road - we were at least moving!
We made it to the gym that was hosting the satellites and he came in at 68.7 almost 2 lbs under his 70 lb mark.
My baby was STARVING - so we found the nearest place to eat and he was excited because Steak and Shake is one of his favorites!
She was amazed at how big the shakes were!
Back in ATL. Backtracking 45 minutes to go back and get dad at the airport.
We went to a walmart near the airport to waste some time. Got there at around 8:00 and once we wasted an hour browsing, it was 9 and nothing was really open for us to go explore, so we headed to the airport cell phone lot to wait for an hour and a half. Cale popped in a dvd to watch, I read, and Kennedie was drawing or doing something on her phone. She was VERY comfortable stretched out in the back though!
"Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe"
Cale watching all the planes taxi to the gates.
Finally got dad and we were on our way! I drove for 2 and half hours into the 3 and a half hour drive from the airport to Pigeon Forge. This allowed Tim to get a nap - once we stopped for the bathroom I told him it was his turn. I don't know how Cale is sleeping like this though!
3am we arrive to the hotel.
This hotel was pretty cool. Rooms were nice and it had this cool fireplace outside!
I got up before everyone and went to waffle house - the boys call themselves "Waffle Bros" so I found this at waffle house and I HAD to get it for them.
I went exploring a little bit after (and I found there was a TON of shopkicks near - 150 at a few places and there was no traffic yet, so it was worth the 2 mile out of the way drive).
This was a year round Christmas store!!!!
I thought I had a picture of the Christmas Inn that was right across the street from our hotel.
We called the family that came down (the parents and brother of the man we named our son after) and we visited with them for a bit and then left for the tournament. I was REALLY disappointed in this tournament. There was a TON of mat space but NO seating. Alot of people were standing - and when you are standing for HOURS that gets exhausting.
Cale cheering on his team mate.
We WERE ready to rock that day. And I mean WERE
He was so excited to have daddy back! (side note - Maci Bookout from the Teen Mom OG tv show has her son wrestling. I saw her a few times. I wanted to be like "can I take a picture with you" but it looked like most people were leaving her alone so I did too.)
Teenagers!
So we arrived at the tournament at noon for skin checks (normally Cale competes in the morning for his age. This tournament had kids older than him competing in the morning and he was afternoon). When we got there we found out they were already two hours behind because TrackWrestling crashed the night before. We waited around and still nothing was being posted or updated online with the bracket. We asked the table several times in that 3 hours we waited and they kept saying "the brackets weren't built last night and the system is down so we don't have anything" Now we were feeling horrible that we have family just waiting around for who knows how long. At 3 hours in my husband decides we are done - we are leaving. It wasn't until 845 that night that I could get into the website and they STILL didn't have a winner in Cales bracket. They didn't start his portion of the tournament until 630 or so. We would have been waiting for SIX HOURS. I heard it didn't end till just after 10. I was sad he didn't get to wrestle because he was so excited, or that the family came down to see him wrestle. We got to hang out more though so that was nice.
Just some sights on our way back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We went to margaritaville for drinks/dinner.
Margaritaville has some awesome stuff to look at.
One of my favorite pictures of the weekend, Tim and "mom".
Group selfie!!!
I wanted group pictures with EVERYTHING - but it was freezing!
Cale loved rolling around on this ottoman.
Breakfast was pretty good. I had an omelet.
While the boys were chit chatting we walked over to the Christmas store across the street!
Cale was in heaven!
Like how freaking FUN is this store!!!
He took pictures of absolutely everything!
We went to the outlet mall after we checked out of the hotel. This was after lunch - EVERYTIME he sleeps on me.
Even though we didn't get to wrestle we had a great time seeing family we don't see by once or twice a year. I had NO IDEA Pigeon Forge was like a mountain themed Panama City Beach. We are totally coming back spring/summer with more time to explore everything!
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