Massanutten, For Nothin'

Last week we had a bit of a family adventure together in the Shenandoah Valley. Short story: We lucked out big time in getting a free week-long stay in a really nice condo at a resort in the mountains.

Long story: A few weeks ago, a friend from our ward was visiting her father, who is a mission president in Canada. She met a member up there who had reserved this condo outside of DC (ok, 3 hours outside of DC) for a week, and then couldn't use it. She wanted to know if anyone in our ward could use it. I said "me, me, me", and we got it! Woo hoo!

Anyway, the resort is about 2 1/2 hours from us, and it is a neat place. The condo was huge--2 bedrooms, full kitchen, 2 baths. (And the biggest jet tub I've EVER seen--it seats 4! Really, it was like a small swimming pool in the bathroom. Tessie LOVED it!). Boy, is that the way to vacation! (It's so nice to have a separate, quiet place to baby down to sleep!)

Massanutten is a ski resort during the winter--and we really were out in the Virginia countryside. We frequented many a farmer's market in Mennonite territory (fresh tomatoes and corn--yum!); scoped out the Green Valley Book Fair (think 50,000 books in the middle of a corn field); searched out used bookstores (with some disappointment); hunted (and found!) treasures in antique stores; read a lot; watched some good movies; ate good food; and got to know the town of Harrisonburg, VA intimately.

Ry & Tess cross one more VA campus off their tour list: James Madison University.
We never did get to see Eastern Mennonite University.

Mainly we got to spend lots of time together--Tess hasn't seen this much of her dad since she was born! Ry and I took turns sleeping in and taking naps. Wendy and Keith came up for a couple days, too, so it was a full family affair!

Ry & Keith at the elusive JMU Arboretum. Nope, no trolls under the bridge.

The time-share people were persistent in their efforts to get us stuck on one of their two-hour long tours, but we managed to evade them. About half-way through the week I saw this local news report on vacation scams, and I started to wonder if I'd end up with some $1500 charge on my credit card. But no, it truly seems to be a case of good will! Any ideas of how I can thank the people who let us use the condo?

I wasn't particularly picture-happy this trip. But Tess did make some progress on her army low-crawl this week, which Ry managed to capture on film.