We survived the annual family trip to Gatlinburg once again. Occupying time for eight kids under the age of 11 can be a chore, but we made it happen. There is so much to do and see in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge that the kids go crazy. Every other second one's screaming out, “Oooh, let's do that, and that, and that; it never ends!”

Going on vacation with a van full of kids doesn't really sound like a vacation, but the key to enjoying yourself or to make the trip even worthwhile is to just act like one of them.

Hey, you're on vacation, its okay to act a little crazy. There's a 99 percent chance you're never going to see the people again that saw you acting a little strange.

That's why we always go to the NASCAR Speed Park where we can ride go-carts all day and all night. I'd have to say we blended in pretty well. But after seven or eight hours of playing, the adults started to wear down. But the kids still had three or four more hours left in them. It was a break for me, though. No one was hungry or even asked to go use the bathroom while they were riding rides. Instead, I was asking them if they were hungry or needed to take a bathroom break.

There wasn't a bored bone in their bodies, complete opposite from the ride down there. I only answered the number one question: “When are we going to be there?” a couple hundred times. The kids quickly caught on to what a bathroom stop was and were wanting to stop a lot until we told them the more we stopped the longer it was going to take for us to get there. I didn't get to relax a lot, but we all had fun and that was the most important thing.

And at the end of every trip we say we're not going to tackle the trip again, but we will.