Trip to the Mountains

We are home from our wonderful week away in the mountains. We loaded up the car (we took the Prius for this trip since gas prices are skyhigh. Surpisingly we were able to fit everyone and everything including a stroller and two kid-hiking packs very comfortably and averaged 50 miles a gallon for the trip. Nice.) We headed up to Rhett' parents mountain home in Bryson City, NC affectionately known as "Shirley Ridge". We planned a few days of just relaxing and enjoying being in a different place besides Birmingham. Rhett's Dad came up to spend a few days with us and my parents drove up to spend the night with us too. A fun time was had by all. We missed Rhett's mom who was at a wedding in Wyoming. The kids had a wonderful time visiting with the Grands and Rhett and I got to have a little rest too!

Most of our time at Shirley Ridge was spent at the table pictured below. We ate here, played here, read here and just enjoyed being outside in the slightly more mild temperatures. I love having an outdoor living space like this. It would be great to have a great screened porch area that we could live in at our house -especially with the kids. They get cabin fever being cooped up inside so much because it seems like most of the year it's either too hot or too cold to hang out in our yard. Maybe it's just too hot and too cold for me and I need to get over that.

So we played and ate and read and waiting anxiously each night for the beautiful sunset. It is neat to be in a place where you can't help but stop and appreciate the beauty of the sunset each day. So many days go by that I don't even think about the sunsetting but up there in the mountains with this view how can you not stop and be amazed at the beauty of God's creation?