Om Sweet Om

Today was my first day of being home after spending nearly a week in Vermont. Spending Christmas in Stowe was absolutely amazing. We arrived in Burlington and met Andy's sister, Beth and her husband Clint. Andy's parents rented a Dodge Dakota for the week so we could all travel around together. It was quite amusing stuffing seven people (all grown-ups) and our luggage into that SUV, as anyone that has been skiing knows that packing for a ski trip is no small feat. Scarves, hats, goggles, mittens and gloves, ski pants and coat, wool socks, not to mention all the layers underneath the pants and coat. Skiing requires a lot of "stuff", there is no way around that. Luckily we squeezed ourselves and our gear in and made our way towards Stowe.

The area was gorgeous. Mountains covered with pine trees, charming New England homes along the hillside, rushing creeks, "moose crossing" signs along the highway, no billboards, no fast food or big box stores anywhere in sight. It was a nature lovers paradise. However, there was no snow. In fact, much of New England was without snow. I read that this was only the second time in nearly 100 years. But we had heard that Stowe made the best "fake" snow, so we didn't let that get our spirits down. We checked into our condo that was nestled in the hillside, unpacked our luggage then made our way back to town for dinner.

We had the best food throughout the week. Our first night we ate at PieCasso, the most yummy pizza I've had in a long time. Fittingly enough, I had the "treehugger" pizza which was topped with veggies and spices and Andy had the "carcass" pizza which was loaded with meat. We also ate Dutch pancakes, had dinner at a local pub (where the photo above was taken), enjoyed ice cream at the Malt Shop, had a beer sampling of Vermont beers, enjoyed more ice cream at Ben and Jerrys, had dinner at the Trapp Family Lodge. The Lodge continues to be owned and operated by the Trapp family, the inspiration for the classic musical and movie "The Sound of Music." As you can see, lots of good eatin'!

We had much time to burn our calories on the ski slopes, skiing three and four days while we were in Stowe. I was excited to work on my skiing skills. I'm no expert by any means and spent most of my time on the green slopes. I made my way over to the blue slopes the second day we went out, although Andy warned me that he didn't think I was ready, informing me that he thought these were as challenging as the black slopes in Breckenridge, Colorado that we skiied several years ago. I however, did not listen. I got a tab bit nervous as we boarded the lift and read the sign, "advanced and expert skiers only". So up, up, and up even farther we went on the ski lift to the top of the mountain. The view from up there was amazing. Well worth the 45 minutes it took me to get down the mountain...skiing, sliding, skooting, doing whatever it took to make it down. From there, I happily made my way back over to the "baby greens". Guess we can't excel at everything ;-)

We also shopped at quaint and whimsical stores in historic Stowe. My favorite was Stowe Gallery. They had the most fabulous stuff. All unique and handmade by artisans from around the world. I was so excited to see that they had a big selection of Storypeople artwork and I was even more excited on Christmas day when Santa left me a box of Storypeople cards!

The morning we left Stowe, we awoke to a blanket of snow. Everything was covered in white and was truly breathtaking. We made it to the airport and the trip home was a story in itself. Our flight to JFK was cancelled due to fog. Our only hope of making it home on that day was to rent a car, drive three hours to Manchester, NH, hop a flight to Atlanta with 30 minutes to connect (we barely made it) to Cincinnati, then drive home to Nicholasville where we were greeted by two very excited dogs. Wow, what an exhausting day! But here I am now, happy to be home trying to return to my normal schedule.