Sleeping partners

I found Nicholas sleeping in my bed tonight. Kisses recognizes an opportunity when she sees it!









Later, when I came back, Grace had joined them.







Don't they look cozy?

Riley's "new" boots

OK, I know I post a lot of pictures of Riley, who is my niece and not my daughter, BUT she is my goddaughter AND she's awfully cute, plus she spends the day with me each Thursday so the photo ops are frequent.

On this visit, we dug out some of Megan's old rain boots which made her VERY happy. Apparently she wore them the next day in the house with her pajamas :)




Good splash, Riley!












This is the mud she had all over her pants and face after she fell. Running in rain boots is not recommended :(.

Megan's Room

Megan's room has undergone a major overhaul over the past few months. Her room is our bonus room, and used to be the kids' playroom. I painted this treehouse on the wall before Nicholas was born.


Here's the room under construction:











For her birthday, in the fall, she got some new bedding. She choose the color scheme herself (pale green, grey, and turquoise) and Grandpa was nice enough to do the painting. Grandma helped her go through all her stuff and decide what to keep. She organized the doll closet all herself!


































Isn't she cute? Grace, aka mini-Cheetah, is the perfect accessory!

Knoxville Snow

So a few days after we returned from Wisp Resort at Deer Creek Lake, we had some snow in Knoxville too! OK, it was not quite as much as we had experienced in western Maryland, but the kids went out to play in it just the same. Needless to say, they did not need their snow pants :)

Tubing at Wisp Resort

Despite the predicted cold temperatures (high was 18ºF on Saturday), we decided that we could stand anything for 2 hours and that tubing was worth it. So we headed over to Wisp to try it out.










And it turns out, it was :)









Although it was COLD, we had a great time and there was a nice little snack bar for warming up.

Deer Creek Lake

View of Deer Creek Lake as we drove in on Friday

Last summer, one of my roommates from vet school contacted me through Facebook and suggested a get-together with some of our other classmates. I immediately responded that I thought it would be a great idea (which I did). Shortly, though, I began to see that there were going to be some obstacles. First, I graduated from Virginia Tech, so most of my classmates live in the Virginia-Maryland area. A LONG way from Tennessee. Second, my daughter plays competitive softball which occupies a lot of our weekends making scheduling a challenge. During our discussions, my friend mentioned that her daughters play soccer so I knew we would have scheduling conflicts on both ends! And as we realized the date was going to have to be pushed back to the winter, there were the holidays to consider, and of course, the weather.


Theme of the weekend!

But it wasn't until a week before we left that several people expressed some reservations that I hadn't really considered. "You haven't seen these people in HOW LONG?" (More than 10 years.) "You're all staying in the SAME CONDO?" (We were.) "And HOW MANY PEOPLE all together will there be?" (13 including the children.) Now of the 4 adults who would be there besides David and me, one had been my roommate, another had sat next to me for 3 straight years, a third had dated my roommate (and sat in front of me), and all 4 graduated with me. (Yes, the other 2 couples were all in my same vet school class.) So I knew them all pretty well. But it had been 10 years. And we all were going to have to share a living space for the whole weekend. But it would be alright, wouldn't it? I mean, it was only a weekend, right?


Well, it really couldn't have gone better if we had been spending weekends together every month for the past decade. David (who married me during vet school and so knew everyone pretty well) got to talk Hokie sports (and other sports) with Jeff and Jim, the kids all got along great, and Brigette, Lisa and I got to relax and catch up.












We did have a little concern the first night (as it snowed and snowed and SNOWED) that it might be MORE than just the weekend, but although the roads were still snowy when we left on Sunday, we were able to make it out without incident.













We did have to park at the end of the road as the van just couldn't make it up the hill to park next to the condo.
The long trek back from the van











Other than being COLD, the weather was a rousing success. Megan and Nicholas were properly astounded at the "real snow" (which means it actually covers the grass) and immediately went out to play with the other kids upon arrival. (They were grateful for the snow pants which Megan had initially rejected as "ugly"). There was sledding and snow angels and eating snow.

















When the hypothermia finally set in, there were many fun indoor activities to keep us busy until we thawed out.


On Friday night, another vet school classmate, Jimmy, and his lovely wife and 3 great children came over for dinner. We all enjoyed the delicious baked ziti and olive bread, as well as some tasty pomegranate martinis!









After dinner, there was charades, foosball, chess, pictionary, the hot tub, the ubiquitous DS,


















and of course, just hanging out.









And that was only the beginning of the fun! The next day, we went tubing at Wisp Resort.

By Sunday, the snow had let up and we were, reluctantly, able to head south to Tennessee. Although the roads were still snow covered in Maryland, by the time we made it to Virginia, it was smooth sailing. I think we all hope we can make this a recurring event!