Thanksgiving and Family Time

This year, our whole family was able to get together in GA for Thanksgiving.  Mom and Dad were home from Guatemala for a few weeks and all of the siblings and their spouses were able to have the day off.  Some may not understand why this is so unusual but my 2 brother-in-laws are both in law enforcement and Mike was out of the country last year for his job.

We had a good time together, wonderful food, and went ahead with our family Christmas exchange.  This year we did a gift card exchange.  Everyone brought a gift card and we did the "White Elephant" game where you picked a number and were able to switch around.  Everyone was pretty tame with the game since all the gift cards were good!  It is a fun way to still do gifts but not put too much emphasis on the gift itself.   For Mom and Dad's gift from the kids, we had coffee mugs that we all signed and then baked in the ink (yep, pinterest idea!).  I think they were a hit!

We didn't get a whole family (with spouses) picture for some reason...we may have been a little preoccupied between the food, games, and Thanksgiving/Christmas movies...but we did get pictures of the original 6.

Mike and I were able to get in a few pictures too for our Christmas card and to document 25.5 weeks.

And, a sister/cousin picture...me at 25.5 weeks and Bec at 17.5 weeks

Mini-Getaway

As you know, we have been quite busy in the past few months.  Mike got home in June, we moved to VA in August, and are selling our home in NC...not to mention a little boy on the way!  We decided now was the best time, if any, to get away for a few days.

We talked about where to go, what to do, and we both ended up just wanting something relaxing with not a lot of fuss.  What we didn't count on was a super storm coming in about the time we were planning to head out!  We decided to go ahead with plans and left on that Sunday to go to Gettysburg for the night - who knew it was SO close to us?!  We had dinner in town and stayed at The Lodges at Gettysburg which we highly recommend!  We did not have any meals there but had a mini kitchen in the suite so just brought our own breakfast foods.  

We woke up to rain on Monday so we decided to go ahead to our next destination, Uniontown, PA, not knowing what the drive would bring.  It actually turned out not to be that bad, just a lot of rain and fog, and since we had plenty of time before check-in, we stopped along the way.  One of the places we stopped was Penn Alps which had a little shop and an artisan village.  Unfortunately, the village had closed early for the storm but we still got a couple of pictures and jam while there.

We finally arrived in Uniontown, PA, at our home for the next two nights - the Inne at Watson's Choice.  What a nice little getaway!  The innkeepers were friendly but not overly talkative, which I always fear at a B&B!  There were a few other couples there too so it felt more like an inn than if we were staying in someone's house.   Our room was upstairs too, which gave a little more privacy feel too.

We made our way into town that evening for dinner, and then went to bed hoping for decent weather through the night and electricity in the morning!  We woke up to a great breakfast, plenty of electricity, and SNOW!  I never would have imagined that!!

 We stayed inside most of the morning to let the roads clear up and for the temperature to rise and then headed out to Falling Water, one of the reasons that drew us to this town in the first place.  Falling Water is a home that was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family in the 1930s.  It was built over a waterfall and its main draw was to the outdoors that surrounded the home.  We really enjoyed the hour+ tour of the home and thought it was worth it to do the tour.  Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed during the tour so we can't share what the inside looked like.  But, here are some pictures of our drive there and of the outside of the house.

After a 2nd night at Watson's Choice, we left the next morning heading back to Virginia.  Since a stretch of one of the interstates was closed due to the weather, we took a different route which led us through some beautiful scenery (between the snow and then the fall leaves) on our way back.  We stayed one last night at another B&B on our way back and finally arrived home on Thursday morning.

It was one of the more relaxing vacations we have had and it was nice to get the added surprise of a little wintery weather!  Who knows, maybe living a little further north isn't too bad afterall!  It is nice to be able to drive only a few hours and see these beautiful places.  We might be having some more weekend getaways soon...