Our Family in the Beautiful Smokies

Where do I start????

It has been so long since I blogged, I don't even know where to start!!! Well, I guess I should start with the most interesting thing that has happened lately. We went to Gatlinburg Friday with my parents and friends, Kent and Phyllis Garrison. We stayed in a very nice house on the VERY TOP of the mountain. Literally, we were a ten minute drive UP from "Ober Gatlinburg." That should tell you something! We made it up to the house fine, but our first trip down the mountain was quite traumatic. As we reached the bottom of Ski Mountain road, we were starting to smell smoke. Mom (who was driving even though she really didn't want to) rolled the window down to see how bad the smoke was. When she rolled the window down a guy who was walking down the sidewalk starting hollering, "You're car is on fire!!!" We thought he must have been referring to the smoke of the hot brakes, but when we stopped and got out we realized the van literally was on FIRE!!! Luckily, Kent and Phyllis (an avid bottled water drinker) were behind us. Phyllis had several bottles of water in her van which we were able to toss on the fire and get it out quickly. Dad called 911 and we became acquainted with the Gatlinburg Fire Department. Although the fire was out by the time they got there, they checked it out to make sure the fire was out and then informed us that the van would be okay to drive and that we should have put it in a lower gear to come down the mountain. (It would have been nice to know that before the fire). We decided just to park the van at Gatlinburg Church of Christ and Kent and Phyllis let us ride with them the rest of the weekend! (Let me also mention that we had just had the brakes worked on a week prior to this event- $310 worth of work-I'm taking it back to get it checked out tomorrow, but they aren't doing any paid work to it-Josh said he would put new brakes on if necessary!)
That definitely put a damper on the whole weekend, but we still had some fun and the kids had a blast! At least it wasn't as bad as the van in the picture above!
In news prior to the vacation trip, a couple of weeks ago I messed up something in my back and stayed in bed for about a week. It was awful, but luckily Paul was able to take a few days off and was a huge help.
Also, our dear 1994 Dodge Shadow has bit the dust. We're not exactly sure what is wrong with it, but it is overheating when driven. It was smoking, but at least it wasn't up in flames! If it costs much to fix it, we're going to be a one car family for a while until we can pay cash and get a second car (probably in January or February).
In today's news- As I put Levi on the changing table this morning to change his diaper, the changing table caved in. The wood where the top screws in is broken, so I don't think it can be fixed.
Also in today's news, I decided that I was getting back on the treadmill (I kind of took a break after the back incident). I was walking at a pretty good pace when I decided to step off for a second to turn the volume up on the tv. As I stepped off, Addi came in the room. I said, "Don't get on the treadmill!" Well, she must have missed the "don't" part. She stepped on it and got slung into the floor, her chin hitting the treadmill and getting a very nice strawberry on her chin!
Are the Kelseys having a spell of bad luck? Sure. But all of these things could have been MUCH, MUCH worse. And this week is my birthday so I'm not going to let all of these things get to me!!!
Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll try to post some pictures from our trip to Gatlinburg later. Bye!
One more thing: In some good news I did lose 7.4 lbs at my last Weight Watchers weigh-in. WOO HOO!