Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Making Mountain Memories

The Blue Ridge Mountains were beautiful! Having the entire family together at the same time in the same place was wonderful! It really doesn't get much better than that. We rented a beartiful log cabin called the"The Sunset" in Ellijay, Georgia. Ellijay is a quaint little mountain town full of little antique shops, cute family style restaurants and friendly townspeople. The town is decorated for Christmas with wreaths and bows on the light posts that line the streets. A quartet was singing one night in the town square while local merchants were serving hot apple cider. It was almost like stepping back in time to a simpler life syle. It's interesting that when we plan a vacation we like to go to a place where life is simple and just being together is what it's all about. We had a four bedroom cabin with a stacked stone, woodburning fireplace inside and outside. The cabin was at the top of a mountain ridge that was two miles up a very rough dirt road. There was a beautiful mountain view on both sides of the road and the trees still had some color in their leaves. It got a little crazy at times with all six of us and four dogs in the cabin but that's what makes it fun. We took turns cooking dinner, kept a fire burning in the fireplace since the temperature was in the 20's most of the time, and played games. The kids got caught up on their sleep, I drank about 2 gallons of coffee, we shopped in Blue Ridge and Ellijay for Christmas ornaments and had a foosball tournament. We spent time reading, taking walks with the dogs and the kids enjoyed the hot tub. Since I don't sleep much these days, I was up by six o'clock and enjoyed starting the fire in the fireplace and drinking coffe while enjoying the view. It was so quiet in the mountains, we weren't always in a hurry and could take our time to do whatever we wanted.
I read "The Last Lecture" on the way to the mountains. It's a wonderful book written by a man diasnosed with terminal cancer, that writes about reaching your childhood dreams. It was his way of leaving his thoughts and advice for his three young children. The most important thing to him, after his terminal diagnosis, was to spend as much time as possible with his family. None of us know how long God plans for us to be on this Earth and we need to be spending each day of our lives as if we have a limited amount of time left. Life is too short to be wasted on worrying about material things and staying busy with unimportant demands. Take time to plan how your time will be spent so that you have no regrets when your time is running out.


























































































































1 comment:

Haley said...

I'm so glad yall had such a good time! I love Clarke's little sweater, bless him! Hopefully we will see yall during the Christmas holidays!

Oh, by the way, if you know of anyone wanting a Christmas gift (pet) for their family, there is a female pure-bred boxer named Annie that needs adopting! She is the cutest thing! I am about to post pictures on my blog. I wish we could take her but Chad says no. :(