We're thrilled to be able to share James birthday with him this year. Besides being a year older, for some strange reason, he has suddenly shot up and is now almost as tall as I am. Well, it's been a pretty busy few days. After making it through a couple of days of snow last week, that turned to rain, we were hopeful we would have good roads for traveling and mother nature didn't disappoint.
After some rain, the roads were clear enough that a few local girls came round for some nibbles and festive punch on Wednesday.. I think a fairly good time was had by all. Friday evening we attended Lloyd's Christmas party at Red Shores, before we headed home to get some sleep before leaving.
We were up pretty early and had everything packed up and ready to go when it was time to drop the dog off at the kennel, then we were off. It had started lightly snowing as we left town and were sincerely hoping this wasn't to be an omen. But after getting across the bridge, and into New Brunswick, the weather had turned out not too bad. Our border crossing was easy and we continued on into Maine on bare, dry, sunny roads. I had no sooner commented to Lloyd that it was a beautiful drive, when we found ourselves in some fairly serious flurries, with significant slush on the roads. But fortunately it was short lived and the rest of our drive was easy.
We stopped in New Haven, Connecticut, and found a hotel for the night. We both slept really well and were up and ready to go by 7:00. We'd showered, dressed, packed and loaded the car and all that was left to do was grab a quick breakfast and we were off.
This was our first time using the GPS and it worked well, but I wasn't totally comfortable driving on the interstates through traffic and once we were a couple of hours away from the resort, I asked Lloyd if we could change our route for the rest of the trip. We had lots of time, so we stopped and had a bite to eat and then changed course. It took much longer to travel that last leg but the scenery was much nicer and the ride a lot less stressful for the passenger!
We had gotten messages from the kids and they were stopping at the Luray Caverns on the way so we would get there before they did, We rolled in around 5:30 and got all checked in and unpacked before the others arrived around 7:00. We didn't have any food so we all headed out to a local eatery for some supper, before crashing for the night.
We were extremely pleased with our accommodations, and there is lots of room for everyone. There's an indoor pool, 2 whirlpools, and sauna. Outdoors there are tennis courts and mini golf. Fortunately on Monday, the weather was lovely. It was around 17 or 18' and sunny for most of the day. The kids really enjoyed playing tennis and exploring the property. Lloyd and I had a presentation we had to attend in the morning and then we all met around lunch time. Because we'd all had a pretty busy and tiring couple of days, we pretty much took it easy on Monday.
In the afternoon the girls went grocery shopping and picked up pretty much everything we would be needing for the week. We'll need to restock the basics but we made a menu and shopped accordingly.. We also made a list of what we wanted to do while in the area and made a tentative schedule for that as well. Besides local attractions, the resort has all kinds of activities scheduled as well. In fact, when they first arrived, James got all settled in and then looked the schedule over, and declared "This place is awesome, why haven't we done this before?" Pretty high praise from an almost 15 year old.
After making supper, we all (well, not Papa) headed over to the activity centre to play bingo and then go for a swim. It was pretty entertaining and we all came home with a prize.
Over the next few days we plan to visit:
Busch Gardens
Colonial Williamsburg Village
Jamestown historic site
Virginia Natural Museum
Prime Outlets Mall
The new star wars movie (just the boys)
as well as numerous activities planed by the resort. Lots to pack in over a few days, and oh yeah, we also have to throw Christmas in there as well!!
Check back in a couple of days for a further update and hopefully, some pictures...
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