Back from the mountains!

So we survived our Thanksgiving in the mountains. It got off to a rough start - mixed/crossed communications on arrival time - we arrived and no one was there. It was pitch black for the last 90 minutes of the drive which was a bit scary because that was where we were actually going UP the mountain; very narrow and winding roads. Scary!

Everyone arrived around ten p.m. and luckily we had a key to get in so we were already settled. When we woke up the next morning, I was blown away by the view. I don't think I could ever tire of looking at it! The house that we were staying at was high up on a mountain and had a small, man-made lake that Frank and Michael fished, we drove over to Chimney Rock with the intention of going to the park and climbing the mountain but they were closed. We ended up walking along their River Walk which was pretty breathtaking, too.

Thanksgiving night the winds whipped up something fierce and in all of my life I had never heard wind howl like that. It was pretty intense and creepy, but I seemed to be the only one bothered by it. Dinner was wonderful (and healthy!) and we left Friday afternoon with the hopes of visiting with some other friends who live in the area. Unfortunately, the hostess was deathly ill and so rather than head back over to the mountain retreat, we headed home. I'm not going to lie to you, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel on the way and feasted on a lot of unhealthy foods - I had chicken fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits! And a Coke!

All in all it was a nice change of pace but I really am just too much of a food control freak (especially on the holiday's) to do something like that again. Any other time of the year would be spectacular - there was mention of how on the Fourth of July you can see more than a half dozen fireworks displays around the mountain in her back yard - now THAT I can do!

I hope that all of you had a fabulous Thanksgiving!!

*Today's Examiner.com article is on homeschooling the only child. You can read it HERE. Thanks!*

Mixing Things Up This Year!

I am a creature of habit. One of the things that used to make me squirrelly when we lived up in New York was that on the holidays everyone expected us to be everywhere on one day. Of course that only happened after we had Nick and the fact that my parents were divorced and Frank's parents always had everyone to their house just made me CRAZY!

Once we moved away and had our first holiday on our own, I found them to be much more pleasurable. For a few years we would go to Frank's aunt's house - she lives like 90 minutes away. But after a while we decided that we preferred doing the holidays at our house. We would invite friends and it would all be very casual and laid back. No pressure to impress. Well, Thanksgiving had two pretty steady themes - either Frank's parents were here visiting, or we'd be down in Florida visiting them. There were a few years that we hung solo but for the most part, it was always with my in-laws and that was fine. I loved it.

Well this year I'm mixing it up! I'm getting daring and caving in to some pressure but I think it's going to be good. We are going to...drumroll please...
The Mountains. Yes, we are actually going AWAY to some place that isn't Disney for a few days. Can you believe it? And not just any mountains, my friends. Oh, no. We are going to the mountains to stay at the same place that Nick stayed back in September with his girlfriend's aunt. That's right. We are hanging with the future in-laws for a holiday.

I'm still feeling weird about it. My parents NEVER spent time with any of my boyfriend's families (or even with my in-laws for that matter). So I'm going to be in a strange house, eating strange food - remember, this aunt is a famous nutritionist who only cooks healthy! There probably won't be so much heavy, fat-laden stuff that we all enjoy so much. I may have to have a second Thanksgiving when we get back. But the point is that we are going to go away and do something NEW!! We've got a house-sitter and now we're ready to go. Sort of. On Thanksgiving.

Yeah for us!

*Today's Examiner.com article is on Scholastic Warehouse book sales and library book sales. You can read it HERE. Thanks!*