Here I am in our condo in the “Vista” section of Wintergreen typing away, looking out on our truly magnificent view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I’m doing my best-est to commit it to memory so I can replay it on my mind on Monday when I’m back to the reality of zooming up and down Midlothian Turnpike.  The layers and layers of mountains seem to go on forever, as far as the eye can see.  I sure wish they did, but I’ll definitely settle for the image! 

We had our own nice, relaxing Thanksgiving here, bringing everything all “to-go” from home.  Surprisingly enough, it worked out quite well and well worthy of repeating again.  It forced me to simplify the menu, making it much more fun all around with far less gorging and stress than usual, always a good thing for sure.

It’s amazing that this mountain retreat is a mere hour and a half and a few pops of the eardrums from our stomping grounds in good ole Richmond.  It is downright frigid here, and they’ve been making lots of snow, so lots of ski runs are open.  I absolutely love skiing and Daddy Mac is dying to give it a try, but it probably won’t happen for us this weekend unfortunately.  If only we had thought to bring the nanny.  Correction:  If only we had a nanny we could have thought of bringing.  Alas… BUT we are able to do a heck of lot more these days now that the Saminator is 3 1/2 than even a year ago.  We went over to Discovery Ridge to check out the snow tubing, outdoor bungy jumping, and the indoor kids’ play area. 

The tubing looked like a blast and a half, but Sam is not quite tall/old enough for the action this year anyway.  In the now infamous words of Ahnold, “We’ll be baaaack!“  We’ll have to use this as an incentive for Sam Macky to eat his Wheaties, spinach, and/or anything other than carb-o-licious crackers with no redeeming vitamins whatsoever.  The inside kids’ area was quite a Mecca for kids with a bouncy house, a couple of big screen Wiis, ultra cool video game chairs, and a mechanical bull of all things.  (See the picture if you don’t believe me!)  Sam was dying to try out the bull for some God-forsaken reason, but he needs bulk up big-time before I would let him anywhere near it.

Ah, twilight is now on its way.  And this blog entry would absolutely not be complete without me confessing to have been bitten by the “Twilight"vampire bug this weekend.  I have read not one, but two of the books since we got here.  I further confess that I bought the second one, “New Moon,“ in Charlottesville just yesterday afternoon and finished it off in less than 24 hours.  Man, these books are gooooood and, to state the obvious, so addictive!  I loved the first one and swear that the second was even better.  I have sent Daddy Mac off-mountain back to Barracks Road in C-ville to find Book #3, Eclipse.  God help him if he can’t find it.  Just kidding, really!  OK, maybe not….  God help me is more the truth of the matter.  So if I don’t write soon, you can safely presume that I have gotten my claws into Books 3 & 4 and will emerge after devouring them full of mixed emotions, a sense of relief to have my life back yet feeling like I lost a friend.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Libby