Quest for the Best: Vacations

This is our new series to be continued, well, forever.  I figure instead of reading a gazillion reviews of products and places and services, I should just ask everyone I know.  Much easier.

Today's quest for the best: Romantic Vacations.

Where is the best place to go for a relaxing get-away?  We're thinking totally cliche here: beaches, massages, rooms with private pools and a window or door that opens to the ocean and a gorgeous view, yummy drinks, lots and lots of sunscreen.  Something along the lines of this: 

What or where do you recommend?  What or where do you NOT recommend?

On your mark...get set...go...

Give me an A...

Give me an L...

Etc, etc, etc.

We are on our way back from a fantastic trip to here:

More to come.  Including gratuitous cuteness from our five-month-old niece.  Prepare yourselves.

Operation Remember How to Ski

We went.  We saw.  We skied.

I got bruised and the snow started to melt.  We went home.

Friday was our experimental day of skiing in preparation for our trip to Alaska.  Not experimental skiing, but a skiing experiment.  It had been 10 years since I had been on the slopes and a few years for S so we thought we should probably work on our skills before we embark on the wilds of Alaska.

We drove up to North Carolina.  Yes, there is skiing in North Carolina.  Prior to Friday we had both only skied in Colorado so it was a bit of a surprise to drive up to the "resort" and see this:

And then on the ski lift you gaze upon this:

Uh, where's the snow?  

Oh, there it is.

So it wasn't exactly a winter wonderland.  It was also in the 50s and 60s.  They did have actual snow on the slopes, manufactured just for us!  And it wasn't too bad until about noon when it started warming up and more folks arrived, then it got a little too slushy.

Good news: We remember how to ski!  Yay!  I'm not saying I'm awesome, but I am saying that there were two falls that day and neither was me. 

 
Bad news: my boots badly bruised my shins.  Except without any visible sign of bruising, just intense pain.  I felt like a beast skiing with my shin injury.  I'm basically Lindsey Vonn.  Unfortunately it ended up cutting my day a little short.

And the final good news: I got to use my give away bag!  It is very, very yellow.

Sometimes you DO win!

I love blog giveaways!  I enter almost every one I come across.  I am forever leaving comments like

"I would use the sander to refinish our bedroom furniture!"
"Love your blog!  And I would love that tshirt!"
"That lotion would come in handy for this pesky rash I can't seem to shake!"
"I totally need that book about monster truck repair so that I can repair my monster truck!"

But I've never won.  Actually, that's not true.  I won a fantastic Skeeda bag that I use almost everyday from my friend Carrie's blog via random number generator but I didn't even realize I was entering her giveaway at the time, I was just commenting on my friend's blog, so it's not exactly the same.

So back to my half truth, I've never won one of these random giveaways.  Until yesterday.

I won!  I won!
I did my happy dance.

Want to see what I won?

http://fantabulouslyfrugal.com/

Awesome right?  And here's my comment.

I wasn't lying.  I really am going to take all this stuff to Alaska in April!

S and I are going to meet our niece.

And to do some of this.

And hopefully see one of these.

We're very excited!  And I will be well equipped with my new travel supplies.

Psssssst - I don't really have a rash.  Please don't be grossed out.  I don't have a monster truck either but you probably guessed that already.  

Merry New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2011!

Happy 11th Day of Christmas!

We hope you had an amazing holiday season.  I'm having trouble letting go.  Post-Christmas is not my best time.  In fact, I secretly detest January.  Shhhh....don't tell anyone.  It's okay because I am stubbornly hanging on to the Christmas spirit and listening to festive music as I type.  What did you do for the holidays?  Did you have a family-filled hectic travel-about-town type Christmas?  Or are you more the stay at home for a quiet hunkered-down affair?  

We packed up the car and headed out on December 20th for a two-week road trip:

Tulsa, OK --> Hurst, TX --> Oklahoma City, OK -->

Richardson, TX --> Hurst, TX --> Slidell, LA --> back home 

Buddy loves riding in the car.  He looked like this for 13 hours.

 

Buddy and his new BFF Drake in Tulsa.

 After the Philip pick up, we drive to Texas.

My parents' beautiful Christmas tree covered in memories.

 Breakfast on Christmas morning and me looking appropriately maid-like.  I even covered my hair.

The always-important family Wii time.

Buddy loved the pig he got from his grand"paw"rents.  (Harharhar)

This his new human toy, which we also call Mason.

Happy family.

And I got to re-cover my parents' dining room chairs as part of my mom's Christmas present!

Now we're home and my past-Christmas blues have set in.  Do you get this affliction?  Or are you happy to finally move on?   I get it BAD.  This year it was tempered by new storage bins for our Christmas decor. 

They're purple!  S picked the purple.  Thank you, S.  

Also, this Pottery Barn tree skirt marked down to $29.99 from it's original $119.00 didn't hurt either.

So, now on to the new year.  2011 will be a year of change and uncertainty for us so we rang in the new year looking a little bit like this:

But more on that later.  In the meantime, we'll going to be working for more positive emoticons.  In the spirit of positive emoticons, on to the fabric store! :-)

See?  It's working already!

Our mountain greenery home!

This weekend we took a somewhat impromptu trip to the north Georgia mountains.  I've been bugging S about requesting that we go up to the mountains while there are still pretty fall leaves on the trees and we decided to stay the night and then take all of Saturday to enjoy the area.

Buddy was ready!

While stopping for gas on the way, I couldn't help but marvel at how much more classy a tan & salon shop becomes when you put it next to a convenience store.

The lady at Misty Mountain Inn & Cottages in Blairsville told S we were in the "romantic" cottage.  We forgot that to an older woman in the mountains of Georgia, this means "covered in pink roses."

And, for some reason, elevating the bed to a height that requires a step stool. 

But it was cozy and comfortable and they had cable.  Buddy didn't care about cable, he spent most of the time ready to go.

We veered from our original plan and made a stop at Crane Creek Vineyards in Young Harris.  Excellent choice, if I do say so myself.  We got there in time for a wine tasting and bought two bottles, White Mountain Harvest and a really interesting red called Hellbender

The people were super nice and so were the vineyard dogs.  Buddy made some friends!

Isn't it lovely?

We planned on just hiking so we weren't really dressed in "wine tasting chic" but no one seemed to mind.  They were serving a yummy potato and leek soup with a glass of wine for lunch so we sat on the deck and ate while Buddy socialized.

Then we stupidly relied on our Garmin to get us to Brasstown Bald mountain.  Guess what, Garmin does NOT know how to get to Brasstown Bald Mountain from the middle of nowhere.  When you have left paved roads, are driving down a one-lane gravel road, and then see the "Leaving County Maintained Road", you know you might be going the wrong way.  So, blah, blah, blah, many u-turns and a steep hike later, we ended up at the highest point in Georgia, where it is also lovely (huge surprise).

And then we drove home.  Ta-da!

What I did on my summer vacation

Hey, would you like to come over for dinner?  Oh and while you're here we'll just show you a few slides from our exciting summer adventures.  Nothing big, it'll take 1, maybe 2, hours tops!  You'll love it.

This is one of those "here's a list of stuff that I've been doing lately" sorta posts.  Feel free to scan.

Last weekend we were in Tulsa for a wonderful family wedding.  The bride was beautiful and happy and the wedding was lovely.  (Hi Ellie!)

My parents were able to come and help with set-up which made things very fun and we even made a groom's cake!

We danced.  See how good we are?  (You don't have to lie, we know we're not good. :-))

It was happy, we had a few marital insights that we'll share later, blah blah blah, and then we came back home.  On Monday of last week I started teaching at the one-month musical theater camp that I did last summer.  I love teaching at this camp!  S began a long summer of watching all of the movies and tv shows available on Netflix instant play.  He's made a pretty good dent in the list!

This weekend was way too productive.  I need a few days off to recover.  I got up early and went to the New Balance Atlanta store to get my 20% discount on shoes for the 3-Day!  I now have brand new pink 1064SBs to wear on my training walks!  I love my pink shoes, I love my pink shoes....

And I have made a big gains in my fundraising efforts and now only have $902 left before I reach my $2300 goal!  Yippee!

We also reorganized the pantry (exciting).  What was that?  You want to see a picture?  Well here you go!

We watched the US-England match at a local pub, we went for a 4.3-mile training walk with Buddy, we watered the community garden at S's school and brought home the first fully-formed bell pepper of the season, S brewed beer with a friend, I made coconut ice cream and salsa and re-covered the piano bench with nifty fabric, we had dinner with friends, and now it's now.

And, just in case you forgot, this is what we look like.  Hi!