A Friend From Home

Yesterday it was back at Splash Country. Boy, are we making use of our season passes. We found it was cheaper to buy the season passes then if we paid on a day-to-day basis. We also found that upgrading my pass to a gold pass was well worth the price. It was $30.00 more then the regular season pass price, but it gives us free parking plus 20% off everything in the park.

David at the end of his Water Drop

They are also running a special in August, if you buy an adult meal with a season pass the kid's meal is free. Anytime you make a purchase at a store you are entered into a $500.00 spending spree at Dollywood. I'm keeping my fingers crossed since we hope to come back for a weekend in the fall.

After playing at the wavepool David wanted to go down the water drop again. I, on the other hand, declined the offer. At the bottom he began to talk to the boy that went down at the same time. You will never believe this. Nicholas is from our hometown and they knew each other from playing at the Y pool. He was there with his father and two older brothers who left home the same day we did and are leaving here today. The boy joined our group and he and David had a blast together. But, after several hours together, David began to get very quiet and wanted to cuddle with me. I think there were two reasons for this. First, Nicholas never shut up and I think this was wearing on David's nerves. Second, Nicholas talked about his mom but she wasn't with them. David is so used to the traditional family, with vacations together and all, that the thought of not being together was hard for him to think about.

David giving me water rides

After lunch David became a cuddle buddy with me. I got lots of kisses and he took me out to the wave pool in an inner tube and gave me rides. You would think a day at the water park would water log David, but no way. He was back in the pool at the hotel.

God has really given us a wonderful week. The weather forecasts said it would thunderstorm on Wednesday and yesterday it was to rain on and off all day with thunderstorms in the afternoon. Neither of those predictions came true.
It is hard to believe that it is already time to pack up and head home. But even in that we are very fortunate. We have lots of wonderful friends that we have missed and a wonderful home to return to. And we have all missed Roger and look forward to seeing him.