Vacations aren’t always what you want them to be when you invite the family along and they do things that you don’t appreciate. But then, that’s the nature of families, and individuals. We invited along our daughter, Jamie, and her family, which includes her husband, Donnie, and two boys, Jay (age 12) and Luke (age 10).
Sunday afternoon at Wonderworks, Jamie got into quite a mood and took it out on everyone. It’s hard to keep someone else’s negativity and rudeness from spoiling your afternoon, but we tried. We have no control over her behavior, but we do have control over our responses.
Then last night, we went to the Comedy Barn to see a show. At one point, they invited all children 11 years and younger onto the stage. Every child rushed to the front, except Luke. He was determined that he wasn’t going, and he didn’t, regardless of how much we tried to encourage or coax him into joining the kids on stage. Of course, they recorded the show, they filmed all the kids, we bought a copy of the show, and Luke won’t be on the DVD. That’s disappointing.
Today we drove up into the Great Smoky Mountains and around the loop at Cades Cove. We did a lot of stopping and took a ton of pictures. Guess who refused to get out of the car? Luke. Which meant we couldn’t get any pictures of him. Finally, he told me, “Grandma, I don’t want to meet a bear.” Ah-ha! Now we knew how to address his concern, and on future stops we assured him that there were no bears in our area. That got him out of the car, and he started joining us.
This week, we’re staying in a two-bedroom resort and while Pigeon Forge is celebrating the 4th of July, Floyd is back in the room watching television, I’m using the Internet hot spot at the pool writing my blog, and Jamie’s family is enjoying the indoor swimming pool at the resort. It’s a great, relaxing time, especially following a day spent driving through the Great Smoky Mountains.