New Year's Trip to Wintergreen

I'm holding off on my second Holiday post because I'm waiting on some more pics....I'll just skip ahead to our New Year's trip! Be ready for a long post - good for you if you make it to the end :)

I forgot to mention earlier that one of the best things about marrying your high school sweetheart is that you get to go home to the same place! It certainly makes holidays a little easier and (slightly) less hectic without all the driving/flying in between. One other great thing about being high school sweethearts is that we share all of the same friends. I love it, love it. We're still close to our friends from high school and are a slightly incestuous bunch as several of us have married each other, making it all the more fun for reunions.

Most of our friends are living in Virginia, so a few years ago we decided to take a big trip for New Year's down to the Outer Banks. We rented a huge house for super cheap. Here are a few pics from last year...






It was fun and we did it for a few years, but this year decided to switch things up and go to the mountains instead (a little closer to home and it offered skiing for those that were interested).

We had to rent 2 houses...Here was where we spent most of our time.

Doing a lot of this.

We celebrated a few birthdays!

We also did a lot of game playing...

Luckily, both Matt and I came out winners :)

The games were a little heated...

Let me show you this view again. Can you spot the ghost in the background? Creepy...

We did play some games that didn't involve money :) They ended up being girls only.

Most of the girls eventually retreated to the basement so we could gossip - just being honest.

On our first full day the temps reached into the 60s...a shock to my Vermont adjusted blood! A bunch of us decided to avoid the ski crowds and head down the mountain to the local brewery.

A very impressive building...

Bo made sure to pick up some fresh dollars to replace the ones he lost the night before...

On the way back up we stopped to take some pictures.

Of the mostly brown mountains since all the snow had melted :)

We hung out a bit more...

Then got all fancy for New Year's Eve.

The men entertained themselves by throwing snowballs and somehow turning it into another betting situation :)

We took our first "family" photo thanks to my camera and its timer.

It took a few tries - I love Bo in this one! Giving Walker the stare down.

After dinner the ladies played Loaded Questions..our favorite and always dangerous! (And scandalous if Jess is playing...)

I took some love shots with my new camera.

And broke out the champagne early...

Right before Barrow walked through the screen door.

My dear friend Kate rented this house for us. She found a personal connection with the woman who rented it to us so she had a lot invested in keeping the house in good shape. I'm not judging her for her reaction to the screen door incident. I don't think she was worried about whether or not Barrow was OK, but she might say otherwise!

He was fine - no worries. Thankfully, our friend William is very handy.

We rang in the New Year.

Things went further downhill from there...

Annnd of course there was dancing. I have videos but can't get them to load (maybe they're too big?). I'll post them another time.

Our last day there was more snowball throwing...Matt was always involved. He just loves snow that much I guess :)

Also on New Year's day a few of us decided to take a hike from our house down to a small waterfall. Our friend Barrow kept talking about wanting to go Geocaching. Have you ever heard of it? We hadn't. He's really into the treasure hunting thing. HAHA. Not really but we did talk about it before we left and you'll never guess what we found on our hike!

That's right. A geocache. Let me tell you the story.

The waterfall was pretty. It was the only time I didn't have my camera with me and I regretted it! These are from Matt's iphone. The guys felt the need to hike up into the middle of all the water....

From there they had a good view of everything.

They spotted what they thought was a piece of trash....

But it wasn't...look how excited Barrow is. Elizabeth, I know what you'll be doing all spring :) haha. Sorry Herb, I can't resist.

Oh yea, on a totally unrelated note, Matt grew a beard. It might be the only time you see it so thought I'd share.

I received a lot of grief for carrying my camera around the whole time (I was even called some names - can you imagine!?) but I think everyone will be glad now to have the documentation :)

Miss you already friends!

PS - Not sure why my sidebar is way down here at the bottom of the blog, but I hope it will fix itself when I post again. We'll see!