Blue Ridge Weekend Getaway {Stars, Career Planning And Cooking}

I think it was on Wednesday of last week when my honeys said, “Let’s go somewhere this weekend.”  We started looking on VRBO and found this Comanche Lodge in the Blue Ridge mountains (they look like hills to me, but I’ve learned not to dispute the locals here.  It turned out the owner only lives a coupla miles from us, so we dropped the payment off that afternoon and then counted the hours until we could leave on Friday to make the ninety minute drive North.  We arrived in the dark.  To gorgeous views like this.

 The stars were so incredibly bright.

 I spied Orion.  And had fun with long exposures to capture the sky.  These were all around eight seconds long.

 Saturday morning came and I slept through the sunrise.  My kids caught it and my boy child raved about how spectacular it was from the loft of our cabin where he slept. 

 Since Poe still has issues playing nice with most other dogs, he was a road tripping boy again while Dylan and Ruby went off for a weekend of spoiling with other dogs.  Ruby loves it because she’s allowed on the furniture at our friend’s house.  Much like our kids when they come back from the grandparents’ spoiling in the summer, she goes through a reprogramming phase when she comes home.  Poe has enjoyed his walks through the trees in these hills.

 My honeys ran out to the local Food Lion and brought back doughnuts for the kids and coffee for the two of us.  We had a late and extended breakfast.

 We talked about career planning.  The 10,000 Hours principle that Malcolm Gladwell discusses in Outliers.   Doing what we love.  The girl child told us how she loves writing and then asked, “Do you know what I love?  I love when my teacher gives us a title and then I get to write a whole long story about it!”  My girl child also loves hot chocolate.

 Our boy child talked about his love for sports.  And building video games, which is currently being fostered in an after school club this quarter.  He’s frustrated with the tight reigns and not being allowed to create as many characters or scenes as he would like.  Note-to-self: have a chat this week with the instructor to see if some kids can take a more advanced track without taking away instruction time from the other kids.

 The kids LOVED the ping pong table.  They had fun playing with each other.  And also with us.

 Poe still has a sore ear from last week when Dylan thought he should take over his food bowl.  Crazy boys.  But it is earning him extra sympathy and love.

 Todd and I both played ping pong with the kids, but never played with each other.

 I love how Poe crosses his front feet when he’s lying down.  And squints his eyes.

 Sunday morning I woke in time to catch the sunrise.  When I walked out of our bedroom, I could see the first stretches of pink through the living room blinds.

 I walked out onto the deck to grab a shot of the sky.

 And then I snuck up to the loft where the kidlets were sleeping.  So stunning.

 Please excuse my plethora of sunrise shots.  It’s rare that I see it in the Eastern time zone.  I’m either not up in time or it’s blocked by all of our trees.

 I loved that the moon was still out.

 And the pods on this tree.  I don’t know what they are, but the shapes held my attention.

 And the moon through the branches.

 Seeing the sun stretch out over the ridge line was so gorgeous.  My boy child joined me on the deck to marvel over the rays.

 When I turned my back to the sunrise, I watched the wind blow the feathers around hanging from the cabin wall.

 The kids wanted to take our boy for a walk.  I think he peed on every. single. branch. and. twig. he could.  The Blue Ridge bears will know he was here.

 This is what eleven looks like.  Untied high tops.  Sweat pants.  And the desire to walk our hound and help out more with chores to earn his allowance.

 And this is what it looks like to be a sad white boy on leash duty while he continues with obedience training for the next month.