I woke up on a Friday morning and my husband looked at me and said… “Sooooo where should we go on spring break?”

Mind you… Technically spring break was about to begin at 11:05 am this same day when my son exited the doors of the elementary school.

Ummmm, I might have given Jeff Rose the evil eye and said a few choice words. Mostly ones that centered around the fact that he knows I’m a planner and this little spring break blurp out of his mouth meant that he wanted to take a trip…without planning first.

My pet peeve.

So I did what any type A wife would have done and I jumped out of bed, went straight to the computer and starting trying to put a PLAN together. A plan people. It’s not that hard. I like PLANS.

You hear that husband? #futurereference

He insisted we go somewhere warm and I insisted we go somewhere that didn’t take us a million hours in the car to get to. That pretty much eliminated most of the warm spots. Ha.

Florida is close enough to drive to, but it’s still 12 hours or so. That’s a LONGGGGG time in a minivan with three energetic male children. I need more than 24 hours to prepare my mind for something like that.

So, because he was the one choosing this summer RV trip {the 14 day one in a miniature home on wheels}… I told him that I was choosing the destination for this last minute spring break road trip.

Done and done. Wife takes over.

After contemplating a gazillion and eighty seven places, because that’s what type A people do…we research till we are blue in the face, I decided that we should take the boys to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We technically stayed in Pigeon Forge which is just around the corner and has a lot of the kid activities.

It was only a 7 hour drive and had TONS of places to entertain the kiddos.

Including this gawd awful 5,000 square foot mirror maze pictured below that almost made me question why I booked this vacation in the first place.

This thing was what my nightmares are made of.

Poor SJ didn’t grasp the concept of mirrors. It’s hard to understand when you’re two.

Heck, it’s hard to understand when your 32.

Errrrrrr, 33. Yea, I turned 33 didn’t I? Gah.

I thought I might not make it out of this thing alive. That’s no joke. Not to mention that I feared losing a child or two and it taking hours for me to find them. Because literally you could look in one mirror and it looked like they could possible be in five different locations. It was pretty much the worst experience of my life.

Don’t ever enter one. Unless you like torture.

We checked out a place called Wonder Works, which was an upside down museum type place that had lots and lots of fun things for the boys. It was more of a science center type of atmosphere. You can tell Bents is thrilled to take pictures these days.

That boy hates to cooperate.

He’s more stubborn than super glue.

Our condo had a really great indoor pool that I thought the boys would love. It was one of the reasons I chose the resort I did.

But, only one minor issue.

Have you ever tried to explain to a potty training two year old that it’s ok if your pants are “wet”?

Because I can assure you that it’s the most confusing thing ever. He was so distraught that he cried. And cried. And cried. To the point that apparently we won’t be able to swim with him until he understands that pool water and pee are two different things.

Maybe by summer?

The highlight of this spontaneous getaway…. Go Karts. Which I’m pretty sure we didn’t need to drive 7 hours to do, but hey.

Even mommy had the best time driving like I was Jeff Gordon. The boys were all too little to drive on the big tracks so Jeff and I took turns taking them on rides. We even fought over who was gonna take the third child. I won. Duh.

And even though SJ was anti-pool boy… he thought the race cars were the best thing ever. No fear at all.

When we were in downtown Gatlinburg we ran into some friends from our hometown. It was crazy! My best friend from high schools family was all vacationing there too! She wasn’t with them, but was pretty jealous when I text her this picture.

But my favorite memory from the ENTIRE trip? This video I captured of Parker at the miniature golf place doing a little dancing (he had no idea I was taking this).

Oh hey, pretty girl. Me? I wasn’t dancing. Nope. *as he checks her out*

I would have to admit that the most challenging part of the whole entire 5 day trip was the restaurant outings. Which happened twice a day.

We still haven’t conquered “how to behave in public eating places” just yet. Not to mention that we lost an iPad so we had ONE distraction and they all just fought over who was gonna get to play with it before the meal came.

Shoot me.

We finally had dinner on night 3 with a sleeping toddler. And even though the food was not so great and the service was nearly terrible… it was the most peaceful dinner we had the whole trip. Celebrate the small things, right?

Right.

Jeff was convinced that we should drive to the top of the Smoky Mountains to at least say we did it. He has been there before hiking with friends and wanted to show us all how beautiful it was.

Which sounded like a nice plan except it was raining. And by the time we got to the top of the mountain all the boys were passed out {not complaining}, it was 20 degrees cooler and the fog was so thick I could barely see a tree 10 feet away.

We came home that day and decided to take a break from all the non-stop activities.

Pretty sure it’s not typically acceptable to have 3 boys in your bed at once. #unlesstheyarethiscute

It was still extremely refreshing to take the boys and do something just for them. Go karts, miniature golf,  swimming, museums, 5D movie theaters… Making memories that they won’t forget.

I’m hoping that next year my husband gives me more than 1 day notice that he wants to take a spring break trip. But, if not, it seems as if I’m getting more spontaneous by the minute. Take that DNA.

*** DON’T FORGET I NEED YOUR HELP WITH THE GUITAR PROJECT!!!!!! PLEASE!!!