Jackpot

Rachel here. So yesterday I turned 30-1. Ugh. While I do still have one year until the actual three o... it stares me in the face each and every day. How the hell did I get to be almost 30? I could barf. Anywhoodle... we "celebrated" by getting out of town for a night/day and shopping to make me feel better. :) The 4 of us headed to Tennessee to the outlets in Pigeon Forge. While Pigeon Forge is like Virginia Beach on meth... we enjoy going because they have some fun cute things for kids to do. Reese and Emma Grace are too young to do most of everything there, but we'll enjoy taking them in the coming years nonetheless, and we had a blast doing some things Saturday night and into Sunday.
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Now actually getting to Tenn. was an adventure in itself. We went egg hunting with B's parents mid afternoon and were on the road to our destination by late afternoon. We had just crossed into Tenn. when I began to feel AWFUL. My stomach was hurting and I felt uber nauseous but just thought it had been because I wasn't paying attention to the road because I was clipping coupons... we're exciting I tell you. Within 10ish minutes of us stopping at the rest area to feed Emma and stop for a potty break, we were again stopped on the interstate so I could barf. GOOD TIMES. We decided to ford the river and continue on.

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I felt awful for the rest of the evening, but we enjoyed some arcade games, carnival rides, and ice cream (not me) anyways. We finally got to the hotel around 10... the girls did exceptionally well on getting to bed. I didn't. I COULD NOT sleep... Emma eventually joined me around 230. We hung out on the bed, and she finally fell asleep between B and I around quarter to 4. I FINALLY fell asleep soon after, and everyone was up close to 7.

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Sunday was MUCH BETTER! We went shopping... and then we did some shopping... oh and then it was super fun because we went shopping! :) First stop... Bass Pro Shop. Now we are not really the Bass Pro Shop people, but Reese was so excited to "ride the boats" that were outside the store, and the Easter Bunny was in the house for free photos, so we took advantage.

Reese also spent some money that Grandma and Grandaddy passed her way on a "Cars" fishing pole. :) Then there was the amazing trip to the outlets. I found so many sweet things for the girls... and used a coupon at each place! NERD. The only thing I bought for myself... bras... that's a whole other conversation. We also stopped at a little Amish stop where I found a couple of things for some mothers for Mother's Day, two ADORABLE rag dolls for my girls, and something super awesome for a certain little Rapier boy's baby gift. :)

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Okay... here is where the "JACKPOT" comes into play. So over there to the right of the blog is a link for another blog called "Girl's Gone Child." It's a blog that everyone on the earth was reading but me apparently. I've become addicted to this woman's writing and sense of style. She recently posted on her children's bedroom. She has a little boy and a little girl and a little house. :) Her children are "forced" to share a bedroom (something many children don't do these days, which is fairly interesting to me... but again... that's a whole other conversation). She had a really awesome decorative element in their room... photos of street signs. These street signs were special though because they were photos of actual signs that are across the nation that just happened to be of her children's names... "Archer" and "Fable." I LOVED THIS IDEA, and immediately clicked on the link she posted, but thought for sure I could figure out how NOT to pay someone to do this for me. Very close to our home there is a "Reese Mtn" sign... this was as good as gold to us, and more than perfect... or so we thought. That was until we drove past this on our mini vaca this weekend:

JACKPOT! Now to find an "EmmaGrace"... oy!