Getting Out

It was a good feeling today to be able to load up the car with all 3 boys and head out for an adventure--fresh territory--a new memory to make as a family. Not that we haven't been making memories all along during the past month and a half! But I've been such a homebody recently and have hardly wanted to go anywhere, so we haven't had too many excursions further than church and Wal-Mart since Tobin's birth, it seems. It was time to change that!

Today's expedition wasn't really that far away, just to Massanutten resort on the other side of town from us--up a mountain, to look at what is there. It actually wasn't entirely fresh territory for me, since I had gone skiing there a few times as a teenager...but that was a long time ago. :) And none of the other members of the family had been there. A lot has changed since I was last there!

Despite Josiah's initial statement that he didn't want to go to Massanutten, by the time we were there, he was clamoring to get out of the car and ski...never mind the fact that he wasn't wearing ski clothes and doesn't know how to ski! But today we mostly just drove around and looked, gathering information for future trips to participate in the activities there. The two things that interested me the most were the snow-tubing hill and the indoor waterpark.

David kept calling the place "Passanutten," which prompted Jeff to make good-natured jokes about "yeah, we're passing nuttin' " and "this is a mass of nuttin'." I suppose the fact that he comes from the mountains--the 8,000 foot kind--of southern California where the X-Games are sometimes held...and the fact that, as a teenager, he worked at a ski resort and got to ski everyday for free there...and the fact that at least one of the slopes at that ski resort was a mile long, far beyond the length of what we saw today...all that gives him the right to make fun of our lowly little ski resort. :) But I'm a big fan of our bunny slope; I have good memories of learning to ski there during Monday Night Madness! Those were the days...the days when I didn't mind falling down!

~ I was so excited to see a woodpecker as we drove through Massanutten...we don't see these right around our house, and it was unusual enough that we actually turned around and drove back to where I had seen it, then stopped in the middle of the road (obviously, no one was coming!) to try to take pictures of it
~ Jeff was able to get a closer picture of this woodpecker with his bright red cap
~ when Jeff and the older boys went into a General Store for a few minutes, I had fun taking pictures of the skiff of snow that fell today...the snow didn't stick around for long, but it was pretty while it lasted, and I liked the way it landed and stuck to the curves of these rocks