All right, time for a 2013 holiday wrap-up post, beginning with....
Thanksgiving!!!
Ha -- and you thought I was going to write about Christmas?? You really ought to know me better by now.
So yes, Thanksgiving. This year we were graciously invited by our Ohio cousins to invade their house for Thanksgiving. It was a serious blast. The H's really know how to throw a party!
We left the DC area early early on Thanksgiving morning, thankfully well after the great exodus of the rest of the unwashed masses. It was so cold that the sliding doors on the van
had frozen shut. The kids had to climb in over the front seats!
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| well-armed with caffeine |
The weather had been iffy the previous couple days, but thankfully was all cleared up by the time we hit the road. Plus, the DOTs in other states know how to clean up a snowstorm, unlike the DC metro area (motto: "Combining the Best of Southern Efficiency with Northern Hospitality!").
We really packed the car.
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| I mean, REALLY packed it. |
We're probably going to need to look into getting one of those car-top
carriers before long. Or just invest in a retired school bus.
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| there's Jojo! |
As I said, the H's were so gracious in their hospitality -- SO gracious that they even arranged to have a snowstorm for us right before our arrival! SO thoughtful.
This provided excellent opportunity to
kick all the noisy kids outside allow the children to have some quality fun time together.
We were having so much fun that I took no pictures of the actual feasting. Suffice to say there was lots and lots and lots of food. I think we did justice to it all.
Our creative cousin Rachel set up a photoshoot with creative props, and everyone took hilarious pictures. She then posted them on Facebook, and whoever got the most votes won a giant tin of popcorn.
Mr. Pickles was the winner.
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| Award for Most Outstanding Photobomb goes to... |
The cousins had tons of fun together. The boys relished their shared love of Star Wars and glowy screens. The little girls played dress up (we left several items of clothing there after all the costume changes). The big girls talked and talked. And the littles were just cute little forces of chaos.
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| What toddler doesn't love curtains you can hide behind?? |
Beloved Aunt Katie was there for the day, too, with her family. (hooray!)
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| Why yes, it was close to bedtime. How did you know? |
The next couple days involved more playing in snow, more feasting, and a Hearts tournament, with a bottle of pumpkin liqueur as a prize.
The biggest irony of the weekend was that the person with the corn allergy won the giant tin of popcorn, and the teetotaler won the bottle of liquor! (All the kids loved the popcorn.)
We had massive amounts of fun. You can always count on the H's for a good time.
The fun didn't end after the weekend either -- we decided to take a much-needed family vacation and go skiing (which Mr. Pickles has wanted to do since, oh, our honeymoon when he couldn't ski b/c he was still healing from an emergency appendectomy).
We went to
Snowshoe Mountain, a ski resort on top of a mountain in West Virginia. (You can go to the web cam and watch people fall down in the snow, live!) :) It took us AGES to get there -- Mr. Pickles got to navigate twisty turny mountain roads in the dark. Fun times. But we finally arrived and crawled our weary way to our suite -- really a 3-bedroom apartment.
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| The skiers made good use of the tub at the end of the day! |
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| I was SO grateful this was here!! |
And then the next morning we woke up and looked out our windows.
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| top o' the mornin' from the top o' the world! |
There was almost no one else there -- we practically had the place to ourselves. We signed the girls up for a ski lesson. They did GREAT. There were two other boys in their class who were having a really hard time. The instructor mentioned, aside to Mr. Pickles, that it seemed as though they had never played outside before in their lives. (NOT a problem our kids have!)
While Mr. Pickles and the girls skied, I was on Little Boy Entertainment Duty. Fortunately there was a decent mountain of snow in the middle of the shopping village.
I also went shopping at a teeny-tiny convenience mart and payed through the nose for a couple groceries. Otherwise we hung out and enjoyed not having anything particular to do.
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| except be silly, of course |
Oh, I also took the boys to this recreation area/arcade. This scooter-coaster was a huge hit. Andy insisted on pushing the scooter back up after everyone else took a ride.
There were several bouncy things, too. I couldn't get the boys near the obstacle course , but they liked the slide.
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| fast-moving object in low light -- awesome! |
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| Even Andy got to bounce! He pitched a fit when I took him off. |
It was a nice break from routine. I didn't get to ski, but maybe next time.
The ride home took AGES again -- the first part was terrifying as we careened down the twisty mountain roads at what I felt was breakneck speed. But once we reached the foot of the mountains and I could open my eyes again, the drive became very scenic. There's something about seeing the bare bones of a landscape in the winter, when all the leave are gone.
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| totally cool random rock formation |
The drive confirmed for me once again that the Shenandoah mountains really are just lovely.
It was also interesting gradually returning to civilization, first passing farms and cute small towns, then larger towns (with a stoplight!), until we joined an honest-to-goodness highway with onramps. It's good to be reminded that there are whole universes of loves and interests outside one's sphere of life. On trips like that I often find a gypsy life appealing. ...Temporarily.
And then it's back to home, and housework, and school, and friends, and all the things that make our days so full.
