asheville, day one

We arrived safely in Asheville. We waited until after Jonah's lunch to hit the road so he would be nice and tired for the car ride (he ended up sleeping a whopping 22 minutes) and we wouldn't have to find somewhere to do his lunch tube feed. We couldn't check in until 4:00. So after driving up extremely winding, narrow roads with no guard rails to speak of, we arrived to see Matt's parents parked outside of the driveway gate failing to open it. They had been trying with the given code for 45 minutes. Gerry had already left a message on the management company's emergency line. When we arrived, I emailed them from my phone. Then, Debbie and I trekked (STRAIGHT) up hill to take Jonah to the house (we really had to pee), while the boys waited for help. We were about half way up when we saw that the driveway just continued straight up, so I went all the way back down to retrieve the jogging stroller from the depths of the luggage cavern known as our van. After taking 10 minutes to remove everything from the van to get it, I pushed it all the way back up to discover that Debbie had continued on without me, and they were pretty much all the way to the house. Jonah had walked most of the rest of the way on his own!!!


While I was hiking (in flip flops, no less) back up the driveway, I got an email back with the (oops, we're sorry, we gave you the old code) new code to the gate, called Matt, and shortly the boys were passing us in their respective mini-vans while Debbie and I continued pushing Jonah up a mountain (slight exaggeration, but not really). Once arriving, the garage code to the key box didn't work and then we couldn't get through the pool gate with the given instructions (oops, those must have been wrong too). Matt scaled the pool fence (my hero) and then finally got the deck key box to work (wow, right code this time.) Once we retrieved the key, we tried and tried and tried to unlock the door but to no avail. It sounded like it was unlocking but then just wouldn't open. Did I mention I had to pee? Cause I really really had to pee. I had seen a huge planter down in the driveway, and I was seriously considering using it at this point (hey, we're all family, right?). Matt walked away to try the front door (or something) and I tried the key in the back door again. On a (desperate) whim, I slammed myself into the door, and voila!, the door opened almost taking my skin off with it (seriously, Patrice, you're complaining about a minor skin abrasion... what is WRONG with you?). Then, because Matt had walked away with all of our needed (obviously super accurate) documentation, I didn't know the code to shut off the alarm. So then I was screaming from the deck down to the driveway, "I'm in! I'm in! I don't know the alarm code. Help! It's going to go off! Help!" (Insert some snide comment from Matt about how he hopes it does go off because then maybe we'd actually get some help for crying out loud.)


And then we came into the house.


And then I changed Jonah's diaper.


And then (Glory Hallelujah!) I got to pee.


Other than our early onset shananigans, things have gone smoothly. Kim and Andrew and the kids arrived safely, Matt and his dad went back down the mountain to grab breakfast groceries and pizza for dinner, then Matt's Dad had to go back down the mountain to get C batteries to blow up Abby's air mattress, and then we ate. 


Jonah is having the time of his life, laughing, climbing stairs, screaming, singing, dancing, loving every minute of hanging with his cousins. He didn't fight us too bad before settling down in his pack-n-play, and now we're sitting around playing on our computers, talking, and watching the Braves. Not sure what the plans are this week, but I know we're going to try to hit The Fun Depot, Biltmore House, the Mast General Store, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I am definitely, even if it's only me, going horseback riding. I haven't taken many photos so far due to the aforementioned shananigans, but here are a couple I snapped with my phone from earlier today.

Minute one of the twenty two minutes.

Random turkeys who, only a second earlier, had been walking in the street.

I think that's it for me. There's an oversized outdoor planter calling my name.