The Etherton's

A Few More Pics from our Trip to Sugar Mountain...

Thomas after a late night of Tubing...He didn't make it very long after we got done :)

Here is where we stayed
(Sugar Top Resort)

We have been tubing this weekend at Sugar Mountain in NC...

A Series of Unfortunate Events but still a Great Time...

First just let me say we did have a great time. But I have to tell you I have never experienced more bad luck in such a short period of time in my entire life.

It all starts on last Sunday in the middle of the night when Thomas wakes up sick, fever, coughing, runny nose...the works! I take him the doctor on Monday and keep my fingers crossed he will be well in time for the trip. He gets an antibiotic and looks like its going to be ok. Tuesday Titus wakes up with the same symptoms...goes to the doctor he gets 2 shots, and 4 prescriptions, its bronchitis. Wednesday I feel it coming on and head to the walk in clinic on my lunch break, now I am on antibiotics...We talk about it should we go, should we not... Non-refundable reservations...its not that far...we'll be ok! So things are ok, we rush around Thursday evening getting ready for our out of town guests to arrive (The Walton Family) who are going with us on this adventure. All seems well, our guest arrive, its a little shy of midnight and Thomas wakes up screaming with his ears hurting (first ear trouble in his life) We are up half the night with the on call nurse, getting drops, Motrin, the works. Take him back to the doctor for a re-check Friday morning before we leave for the trip. Again we question ourselves but the doctor says its ok, we have plenty of medicine, blah, blah, blah...so off we go to Sugar Mountain. We get there in early afternoon, check in, things are looking up. Check out the area, get an agenda in our heads for a fun filled day of snow tubing on Saturday morning, find a great place for dinner, great meal, head back to the condo, keep in mind its about -1 degree with a wind chill of about -15, we take the kids to the indoor pool and hot tub. We figure hey all that steam will be good for our stuffy heads. Titus is worn out and still a pretty sick so after the hot tub, he has a couple glasses of wine, a couple Tylenol pm, and he's out! I am also completely suffering sleep deprivation from the night before so we head off to bed early so that we can get our day off to a good start on Saturday. Now Titus was snoring like a freight train so I had my sleep machine next to my pillow and ear plugs in. I am sleeping like a baby. Its about 1am, Becky (our friends who are joining us on this adventure) busts through our bedroom door yelling fire alarm..and its no drill there is smoke...hurry get your shoes and coat, lets go, Titus still doesn't even roll over...I am shaking I am in such a panic, grab shoes, and coats, purse, and kid bury Thomas' head in my shirt and tell to keep his eyes closed and breath into my t-shirt, smoke is rolling down the hall, Titus is barely awake, we loose him in the rush down the 4 flights of stairs into the -1 degree temps awaiting us outside the condo...Thomas is crying, I can't stop shaking, finally we see Titus, all he can talk about is when can we get back to our room to go to bed...After about 30 min we find out the fire was in the condo next door to us but was contained quickly, the sprinklers didn't go off in our unit so after opening some door and windows in the sub zero temperatures we were ok to get back to unit and go to sleep. So now we figure its got to get better, well we get a much later start on the tubing than intended so the ticket are sold out for the session we were wanting, Thomas gets really quiet laying on Titus, we thought he was falling asleep, no..he starts projectile vomiting across Titus' shoulder, then our friends little boy gets sick as well. We have 2 out 3 kids throwing up at this point and decide we should go back to our condo and get a new plan. As the kids snuggle in for a nap and we all calm down Becky goes to get medicine for her kid and locks her keys in the truck, Titus & Troy are on there way to find us another place to tube and get advance tickets...We are all on the verge of a breakdown. The guys manage to get the back window of the truck open and get the keys out. Things start going smooth again, we find a fantastic place to tube (Hawksnest Resort-15 lanes of snow tubing and very family friendly) we get advance tickets, are able to park very close to the entrance and have a fantastic time tubing with the exception of when Becky managed to totally run over an elderly man who was pulling his tube. She plowed him down, knocked him out (yes out) he then fell on top of her so she couldn't get to him and help him, he had her pinned down...anyway you get the point. With the exception of that this part of the trip was flawless, we even had hot chocolate and cookies by the fireplace to warm up after our tubing session was over. Its after 10pm by now we get back to condo and get a good nights sleep, Sunday morning we wake up all the trees are iced over and it has snowed on the mountain, it was beautiful, so slick you can't stand up but all is still going well, head back toward home, the plan is to eat a late breakfast together before we part ways from the Walton's. Titus mentions it must be really windy the vehicle is hard to handle the the cell phone rings, its our friends saying that we have a flat tire, ok so here we go again, but its ok we find a Walmart within about 2 min from where we are, they patch it up, by now its lunch time no late breakfast, we head to Applebees, we order, we wait, we wait, wait some more the server tells us there has been a little problem in the kitchen and our food will be a while, ok so 2 hrs later we get out of there but we are still laughing at this point that was about par for the course. We part ways with our friends, get back on the interstate, and Thomas and I both begin to doze we all are exhausted and still slightly sick, Titus slams on the breaks and heads for the side of the road I wake up in a panic to see whats wrong, seems at Walmart they raised the hood and didn't latch it back. Almost had the hood through the windshield but Titus shut it back and off we go again. At this point Titus and I just look at each other, say I love you, and are just happy to still be alive, both afraid to imagine whats next.... However we can happily report that we are home, safely and happy to be alive. We had made great memories and you know what they say, "that that doesn't kill you will make you stronger" :)

Here is a pic of The Walton Family (Becki, Troy, Wyatt, and Tori)

Can I just say how far we have come, 5 yrs ago, after a series of events like this I am pretty sure Titus and I wouldn't have been speaking to each other let alone laughing about it...my how we have both mellowed and started appreciating the small things in life...