Weekend Getaway

This last weekend Raif's company had a holiday retreat/getaway to The Grove Park Inn in Asheville North Carolina. When I first heard about this I thought this place is going to be empty because who the hell vacations two weeks before Christmas - the answer is everyone in NC. The place was packed. It was a beautiful old resort reminding me (I am showing my age a bit) the hotel in Dirty Dancing. They had an enormous fireplace and Christmas trees everywhere and apparently hold a national gingerbread house competition every year. While I think we would have had more fun in the summer (the mountain activities are geared more towards nature and I just wasn't willing to spend the morning at the outdoor nature preserve in 40 degree weather) we had a good time wandering around Asheville. There was a band each night and the kids danced to the music and had fun looking at all the Christmas decorations. Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend. If you are interested in looking at more (especially to see the gingerbread houses because some of them were AMAZING) you can go to Raif's smugmug page here....

http://sailrace.smugmug.com/gallery/6841277_RJZot#437353875_25L5c

The view of the back of our hotelNow that is a fireplace...

Damn my children have rhythm.

Let It Snow

We got 3 inches of snow last Thursday night. We couldn't get our cars up the hill on our driveway so Friday was a snow day for the whole family. Grandma and Grandpa thankfully had bought the kids snowsuits for Christmas in preparation for our February ski trip and so we busted those out a bit early (thanks Grandma). We spent the morning making snowballs and learning that ice is slippery. Raif taught the kids to eat snow which they then proceeded to do later in the day in the local Chili's parking lot. Sweet. Greyson wanted to ride his trike on the ice but settled on attempting to clean it all up with a broom.

Winter Wonderland

It snowed in Nashville! We got our first snow of the season tonight and it was a doozy (at least by Southern standards). It started right about rush hour when both Raif and I were trying to get home. Two hours for me and the kids and over an hour for him. And actually Raif's car didn't make it home - he couldn't get up the hill in our neighborhood and he had to leave it at the community pool's parking lot and hitch a ride with me. I took these pics tonight because generally snow doesn't stay long around here so sorry if they aren't the best. The kids got to see the snow from the car but after 2 hours of driving in it and and hour and a half past dinner and bed that was all they were going to see. I am hoping it stay around long enough tomorrow morning for them to play in it.

Holiday Pet Peeve

OK - first if I insult you with this blog I apologize but I have to get this off my chest.

I am a big Christmas person. I love the holiday (I mean I actually listen to the Christmas radio station in the car) and I think everyone should deck the halls and get into the spirit. I love decorations both inside and out. While some might call it tacky (you know who you are) we even have the inflatables at our house that the children adore. Here is my pet peeve - if you are going to decorate you need to keep a theme and keep your themes separate. Example: my neighbor has just put up his decorations which include a nativity scene right next to Santa on a choo-choo train. Perhaps I missed that Sunday School class when I was young but I don't remember Santa puffing in to Jesus' birth on a lighted train. Perhaps he has the 3 wise men in a back compartment, but I doubt it. Nor do I think penguins in hats and gloves migrated down to Bethlehem those many years ago to play in the manger. Nativity scenes do not go with your festive holiday animals, snowmen and Santas. I don't care how you decorate - nativity v. festive holiday charm - just don't mix and match.

O' Christmas Tree

Christmas has finally arrived at the Erim house. Today Raif and I decided to take a chance and we took the kids to cut down this year's Christmas tree. I couldn't decide whether the adventure would turn out to be a cherised holiday memory or a big giant disaster. Remarkably it went really well. The kids loved walking around the Christmas tree farm and picking out the tree.
Greyson and Quinn inspected all the prospective trees.
Then carefully supervised the menial laborer.
All the sawing finally paid off.
While the Farm tied the tree to the car we enjoyed some hot cocoa.
The finished product!! The kids weren't very interested in actually decorating tree but rather fighting over who held the ornaments so Raif and I put the ornaments on after the kids went to bed. All in all, a very good day and considering we participated in an event with a hand saw and we all still have ten fingers I'd say we did really well.

Backseat Words of Wisdom

Yesterday morning I was driving Greyson to school when it started to rain, which of course meant that everyone had to slam on their brakes on the highway. As we were crawling along at a roaring 5 mph, Greyson pipes up in the back seat "Go faster Mommy." I told him I couldn't because there was all this traffic in front of me. "Mommy," Greyson sighed "there are idiots everywhere."

And the Oscar goes to....

We were out playing on the driveway when Greyson fell down and skinned his hand. It was bleeding a tad and so I offered to get him a band-aid. Quinn piped up that she wanted one too and I told her that she didn't need one because she hadn't fallen. So, Quinn then proceeds to carefully lie down on the driveway and start this quite realistic crying jag and in between sobs informs me that she fell down and needed a band-aid. I hear Hollywood calling.