In Tennessee, we joined Papa, Granny and Jaime for a relaxing week. We slept late and proved to be the laziest ever. The week was spent taking rides on Papa's boat, going to get gas and feed the fish, jumping into the hot tab and reading books. Yifat's favorite activity was a swim in the Lake with Doug and the kids and a date with Doug. We went to see "The Fault in our Stars", which was a very sad and romantic movie. Yifat cried buckets and Doug provided the mascular shoulder to cry on. It was the first movie they saw together in months. The kids favorite activity, besides the swim in the Lake and hearing Mom singing kids' songs, was our trip to Gatlinburg, to WonderWorks, with Granny, Papa and Jaime.
WonderWorks is a combination of science exhibits, hand-on exploration, laser tag, magic and everything in-between. It inhabits an upside-down house, whose roof touches the ground and its base reaches the sky. Inside, it is fully furnished with tables and chests sprouting from the ceiling and stairs going to the ceiling. The house seems to have been uprooted by a big hurricane or a tornado (what do I know about these, being in the West? Anyways, one of these must have done the damage…). That house will give the Winchester house in California a run for its money!
We had a great time inside the hands-on exhibits. Charlie and Joy loved the space walk, which had a 1.5 hour wait for it. They stood patiently (or not so patiently) in line, yet announced the experience as a very worthwhile one. The room is dark and simulates space, while you have to go through a high obstacle course, up high in the air, attached to a harness. Both kids loved it, while mom was saying prayers for their safety and practicing s-l-o-w breathing, watching them up there. There were also a lot of monitors where you could have answered questions to check your scientific knowledge, that we all were interested in. We got special hair-dos at the earthquake simulator and all of us learned a lot about space, hurricanes, tornados etc. Jaime was taking lots of videos of everything while Papa and Granny were enjoying the grandkids in their daring space walk. Charlie was mesmorized by the robotic arm, trying to use that arm to stack cubes on top of each other. It is way, way, more difficult than what you can think. Honestly, stacking those cubes would have been done much faster by a 5 years old! Also, we loved the Tesla coil and the glove that you wear in order to see the lightening shooting from your hand. A smart Glass restroom was also an interesting exhibit. When you lock the door to the restroom with its Smart Glass walls, the walls fog and people outside the restroom cannot see what's inside it.
After spending a long day at WonderWorks, we ended at our favorite restaurant "The Applewood Restaurant", which has an amazing apple fritters dusted with powdered sugar. We filled ourselves with good country food and drove back home.
Another culinary discovery for this trip was a restaurant hidden in the mountains next to Granny and Papa. The restaurant has a great view of trees, mountains and a waterstream and is very charming. They have some Cajun food (good jumbo) as well as steaks and country food. The atmosphere was really cute and special and we all liked to read the historical background about the family that founded the restaurant, coming back to their ancestors' land in Tennessee.
A funny exchange with Charlie: When we went to get gas on Papa's boat, we arrived at the dock, where they have a small store that sells ice cream and where you can feed big, huge carps. When we asked Charlie what kind of ice cream he wants to have, he said "I don't give a Carp". Get it? Carp! ha, ha, ha!
Finally, let's not forget tubing. Joy and Charlie LOVE tubing, with each one of them, trying to toss the other one off the tube, look as silly as can be or make the most ridiculous moves for the camera. And, mostly, they do all these things at the same time. If Joy and Charlie ever want to apply for a circus position as replacements for the monkeys, we have the prefect pictures to show that they are fit for the job! Standing on the tube, making faces, switching places with each other and just trying to crush each other- what wonderful, treasured photos we have to show at big family events, where "child embarrassment" is our parental duty!!!
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