JonZReaTom: 1 House, 12 Adults, 10 Children (age 5 and under), and 6 Dogs

Doesn’t that sound like fun?
For Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit our friends John and Sue, the parents of our good friend Matthew, at their thankfully-quite-large mountaintop cabin and take part in a get-together that used to happen fairly often before we all had children and spread our homes all over the world. (We also went here and one other time that I can’t find a post for)
It was a jam-packed weekend, full of fun, catching up with old friends, and the joy of watching the next generation play together.
To give us all a break from a very full house, we went one day to Tweetsie Railroad, an amusement park in North Carolina geared mostly toward younger children. It was PERFECT for our crew of kids and they LOVED it!

Thomas on the carousel

Cousin Avery, Zachary, Thomas, and Cousin Tyler on the boat ride

Thomas and Reagan on the rocket ride

Matthew and son Andy relaxing in the shade

Unfortunately for me, one of the early rides we went on was the Tilt-a-Whirl, a ride I will never go on again FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I should have known better and never ridden it in the first place! BUT I THOUGHT I WOULD BE OKAY! Most of my problems in the past have come from waiting in long slow-moving lines in the heat, so that I was sick before I even got on the ride. This time, it wasn’t that hot and the line was super-short! I thought I could do it.

I couldn’t.

Here, look at pictures of other happy adults riding with happy children!

Aunt Carey and Uncle Clay with Cousin Tyler and joathan

Jim with Reagan and Thomas

I rode it one time. And apparently turned genuinely green. I managed to not throw up, but was pretty much useless for the next hour or more while I tried to overcome my nausea. There was a lot of sitting still with my eyes closed while whispering to the kids to please not touch me and motioning to Jim to please stop asking me questions.

Stupid Tilt-a-Whirl.

Anyway, I eventually got over it and was able to enjoy the rest of my time. In addition to the rides, there were also shows, a music one and a magic one. We watched both, and the kids even got to participate in the magic show!

For the big finale, the poor magician ended up with every kid in the audience on stage, all of them asking for keys because a couple of kids were asked to hold keys and then every other kid wanted one too. It must happen pretty often because the magician handed out keys to all of them and didn’t want them back. It was great!

Daddy with Reagan and Thomas

Reagan, Zachary, Jonathan, Andy, and Thomas

One of the highlights was the train! An actual working steam engine that pulled a line of open cars around the park! During the ride, we got to see re-enactments of a bank robbery, cowboy shoot-out, and Indian attack. By the time we stopped at the fort, the train had been taken over by cowboy bandits who held us for hostage! Jonathan actually turned to me and asked if the bandits were going to shoot us! I assured him it was all pretend! Then the cavalry came to our rescue and we returned to the station where the “bandits” handed out bullet casings to all the kids!