Fun in the snow!

We just returned from our first real family vacation!
When I was a child we took one vacation a year to Colorado (usually) for snow skiing...
I've been to the mountains on skiing trips since before I was born...
(ie in momma's belly)!

For our trip this year we went the opposite direction...
we skied Snowshoe, West Virginia...

I must admit that I had my doubts...
but it was great!
We stayed in an older building because the baby nursery was located in this building but we were more than comfortable!

We spent our days skiing the slopes and our evenings dining in the Village Central

By far the best of the food we ate was at the restaurant Ember
it was so good I forgot to take pictures...
First we had crab & lobster ravioli with ginger soy beurre blanc
then I had syrah roasted beef short ribs with sauteed mushroom and cherve grits
the hubby had lamb chops with orzo with kalmata olives, red onion, capers, tomato and feta with roasted shallot vinaigrette...
no pictures...
but then for dessert we had apple baked in pastry with Woodford Reserve bourbon infused caramel, pecans, cranberries, and a dusting of sea salt drizzled with vanilla bean ice cream...

the hubby reminded me to take a picture right after we dug in...
with the bill we got green apple flavored cotton candy instead of a mint!  It was made fresh right there in the restaurant!
see:

Here are a few pictures of us on our vacation:

my first hot buttered rum...yummy!

about the fourth mogul down is where I lost it! 

where we cut through the woods to the blue run after losing it!

by the frozen lake

view of the frozen lake from the top of the mountain

a final message:

I'm goin' to Jackson and that's a fact...

I do sooo love Johnny Cash!  (And Joaquin Phoenix)

The hubby & I took off a day of work, slept in and then hit the road this past Friday to go visit some of my very best friends that I met in undergrad at Mississippi State.  The destination?  Jackson, Mississippi...well pretty darn close to it.

We took a quick break in Starkville (the home of Mississippi State University) to grab lunch at The Grill (yummy steak on a stick) with a friend then headed south.  We spent the weekend catching up, visiting and for three of the four of us girls, meeting each other's babies!  

That's right, four women, three babies and a two-year-old all in one house (at least one of the days)!  We ventured into Jackson for lunch at THE best place to get a gyro in town...Keifer's!!!  It took two trucks and a LOT of organization to get there and needless to say...we were a sight parading through the extremely crowded Saturday lunch crowd to our 8-top table!  

Caleb, Lily & Hadley waiting for the tables

After lunch, we took one more stop to a architectural salvage shop in downtown.  Although Caleb and I didn't find anything we couldn't live without we enjoyed practicing taking pictures with our new camera!

 Beautiful salvaged stained glass windows

Old doors from North Africa (left) and Cairo (right)

Sunday we slept in and met another friend for lunch at Beagle Bagel in Madison and then headed northbound on the Natchez Trace toward home.  It is an absolutely beautiful drive with many opportunities for sightseeing and tons of walking trails between Natchez, Mississippi & Nashville, Tennessee.  As we passed Kosciusko (yep thats where Oprah's from) I began looking for the little white house in which my grandfather was born and raised, in Ehtel.  You can actually see the old homestead from the Trace!  It has been vacant for about 30 years but up until the last year or so the property has remained in our family.  We stopped to look around and of course snap a few pictures!

My Daddy says that when he was a child, his parents would drive him and his sister all the way from Lepanto, Arkansas to Ehtel about once a year or so- most of the way on gravel roads!

I was told the story once about how during the depression my Granddaddy's parents were one of the few in the area that had a radio.  I'm told that people once came from all over the county to sit and listen to the world series on this very same front porch!

The chimney says 1901- the year this chimney was added onto the house.

One of the outbuildings- there were several, one for canned goods and a root cellar.  There also used to be an old barn on the property.

   

The old truck my Daddy's uncle drove.  This is where he parked it and after he died it was never driven again.  It is gone now but my Daddy took this picture a few years ago.

All in all it was a great weekend!  When we arrived at home Caleb opened an early Christmas present from his Grandmommy- as you can see he loves it!

And finally...another ornament: