The Scarboro---A beautiful house at Sugar Mountain

You can check out the house at: http://www.thescarborohouse.com/

My cousin Christine owns the immaculate mountain house shown above.  Amazing, right?  It sleeps 17, has huge tvs in every room, a hot tub, a large outdoor fireplace on the top deck off the back, and a game room on the bottom floor (note that we didn't see our kids the entire stay here thanks to this place, lol).  For Thanksgiving, we were invited to stay here with them and some of their friends.  It was awesome!!  We had so much fun hanging out and enjoying the serenity of the mountains.  We took a trip up to Grandfather Mountain, roasted marshmallows, celebrated both Thanksgiving and Clayton's birthday, played many games and relaxed.  Clayton and I are now considering renting it so that his whole family can fly in from Wyoming and Nebraska to stay in it.  They would all love it!

Blue Ridge Mountains

Grandfather Mountain parking lot for the mile high swinging bridge

More Mountain Pics

Split Rock @ Grandfather Mountain-Emerson and Hayden are up top (and yes, I was panicky-I HATE heights)

Jeff (Christine's husband), the twins-Josh and Aaron (I can't tell who is who but one is on each end of the kiddos), Hayden, Ryan, Clayton and Emerson

The cutie up front is Anna.  She is Ryan's sister.

Clayton standing at the top of Grandfather Mountain

The mile high swinging bridge-Clayton, Jeff, Mark, Lori, and all the kiddos

The told us that the hike up to the bridge was only .4 miles but they neglected to tell us how difficult the terrain is.  Several of us fell (including klutzy me, lol).  

Playing spoons-it got fierce!  From left to right: my cousin Sheila, cousin Rachel (Sheila's daughter), Lori, cousin Christine and Erica.  The green sleeve belongs to cousin Ashley (Christine's daughter).

Myrtle Beach 6/25-7/2/11

Clayton's company told us to take vacation early on since they would likely need him throughout the rest of the year (since they are starting up a new machine in Concord and they haven't hired hardly anyone to run it yet). The Barnes' and us decided to head to Myrtle Beach, SC for a week.  We got a condo in Barefoot Landing, thanks to Natascha.  Jason's twin sister, Mandy, and her husband Mark, joined us for the second half of the trip and we had a fabulous time.  We played on the beach, swam in the pool, ate lots of good food, and shopped quite a bit.

Mark teaching Hayden to play the tuba

Hayden

Broadway at the Beach

On our way to Orlando's airport [2.5.11]

It took forever to get off the dang ship that morning.  I was begging for them to let me through because I was so afraid that I was going to toss my cookies right then and there at the customs counter.  As soon as we disembarked and got our car, we stopped at a Publix so that I could buy a bunch of medicine.  It managed to make me feel okay thankfully.  We stopped at an outlet mall and rested in the car. We were so tired. The boys hunkered down in the back of the rental car and slept for a little bit.

Our flight home was delayed and then they lost one of our bags when we got to Denver. Ugh. To make matters worse, Denver was freakin' cold. We found our car covered by a sheet of ice. If I hadn't of been so sick, I would have booked me another flight right back to Orlando and stayed there.

Cruise Day #7 [2.4.11]

Today was our day at Castaway Cay. Let me tell you, this is always the best day of the cruise. The island is amazing! Disney really pulled out all the stops when they designed it. I could live there forever. Unfortunately for me, I woke up with the flu (did not know that was what was wrong until I got back to Colorado). I was miserable! I luckily had a bunch of drugs with me to make me feel okay enough to get off the ship that day. I would have been sad to have missed it. The weather was awesome and the water was beautful. The kiddos had a marvelous time as well as the adults.

Clayton and Jason got into a water fight, lol.

I think my hubby may have won that battle!

Beautiful Jasmine enjoying the water

I was pouting because it was our last day.  I didn't want to leave!  BTW-That white mark on my tummy (just above my bikini) is where I put a cherry sticker when I tan.

I love this man more than anything in this world.  I took this pic while he was laying in the water.

Hayden

The view of our ship from the beach

Cruise Day #6 [2.3.11]

Today was a lazy day at sea. We had a wonderful brunch at Palo, a galley tour and the kiddos swam. It was a great day. That evening, we got to see the kids club do a little presentation in the theatre which was cute. Hayden opted out though and this is where we found him afterward:

He had fallen in love with Peggle and Chuzzle (both games that I really like).

Jason and Natascha in Lumiere's

We had watched a horrible, and I do mean horrible, magic show during our trip. Jason tried to show off his mad magical skills during dinner to try and show up the so-called professional magician. Emerson was impressed, lol.

Jasmine and Emerson boogied down during John Charles' show in Rockin' Bar D. John puts on a awesome show where he sings lots of songs with a guitar. He does everything in a humorous way. Lord forbid you get up and walk out of the room while he is performing. He will totally call you out, lol.

Cruise Day #5 [2.2.11]

You think that they like each other? Nah, not one bit! lol

Today we went to St. Thomas. We were so drained from the previous day at St. Maarten though. We ended up not going to a beach and instead did a little shopping. We didn't stay off the ship very long. Well, long enough for me to buy a couple of beads for my necklace. ;)

We had lunch on the ship and let the kiddos swim in the Mickey pool. Hayden and Jasmine seemed to stay in the pool mostly but Emerson insisted on going down the Mickey slide a million times over, lol.

They had another pajama party for the kids tonight so they insisted on going. When I went to pick up Hayden, I found him learning to play chess.

Cruise Day #4 [2.1.11]

Lovely St. Maarten

Hubby bubby

We walked a long while up one of the beaches to get away from the crowds. Once we found a location, we let the kids run for the water. They had such a wonderful time! The only bad thing was that the water was a little bit rough. There was a major drop-off if you went out too far also. It was kind of stressful worrying about it while they played but we came out unscathed. Emerson lost his kids club band so we worried about the $50 fee for it but they never made us pay for it. It slipped off his arm while he was in the water.

See how beautiful the water was? It was breathtaking!

Clayton took a photo of Jason taking his photo. These 2 guys are so silly!

Emerson on the taxi boat back to the ship

Disney Magic docked in St. Maarten

This night was designated as pirate night so we all donned pirate gear. Jason was being goofy with his eye patch so Natascha decided to get him, lol. We celebrated the special Pirates in the Caribbean menu in Animator's Palette. After dinner, we played shuffleboard and lolly-gagged until the party. Unfortunately, we were tired by the time that the party started. For whatever reason, Mickey didn't zipline across the ship so we weren't impressed. The fireworks were still cool though.