hiking friends are the best friends. especially the ones who invite you on a random monday to drive two hours away to another state, to go hiking in the middle of winter. it was just what i needed in the middle of all the thanksgiving, baking, birthday, christmas, etc chaos. so what i’m saying is, […]
hiking
grandfather mountain hiking adventure.
derek’s parents generously gifted us a weekend at a resort in blowing rock for the last weekend of october. my only request (demand) was that we plan one outdoor activity, and not just end up eating out and shopping the entire time. derek did the research and settled on a hike at grandfather mountain. before […]
camping in the great smokies, sans family.
a long long time ago, derek booked us a long weekend at a campground in the smokies. during prime autumn leaf color season. it was to be our very first family tent camping trip since selling the rv. but then. isaac wanted to go to a homecoming football game. and anna had some sort of […]
new river gorge day four.grand view, castle rock trail, grist mill
if you’re reading these in real time as i publish them, i’m skipping to day four of our trip because we are still waiting on the professional photos of day three (white water rafting with anna). if not, ignore this disclaimer and maybe i’ll even take it down once i make the day three post. […]
new river gorge day one.sandstone and kate’s falls
we have always wanted to visit new river gorge, but it’s so close that it’s one of those places you just keep putting off until another time. then it became an official national park, so we pushed it up the list, and finally made it happen this summer, basically the minute school ended for the […]
marchy march. 2022.
time for a recap of march happenings in lidbomland. we kicked off the month with a semi-spontaneous visit from my mom, aka new gramma. the kids had a long weekend, but since it was exceptionally nice the day before the long weekend, it was determined that anna would play hooky and have an extra long […]
february. the 24th month of covid.
whelp. february is a wrap. concluding the 24th month of covid. or. two years if we are counting in years, which if you had told me we would have in march 2020, i might have had a nervous breakdown. anyways. enough about that. you know about that. here’s the happenings around these parts, in no […]
january 2022
i think most people would agree that january is the most blah month ever. the holidays are over. it’s still cold and gray. there’s nothing exciting to look forward to for a really long time. and it seems like it lasts for like 75 days. such was the case for this january around here in […]
autumn leafy mountain day
on a beautiful, sunshiny, october day, we packed up the fam and headed down the road to blowing rock, to partake in a little colorful autumn leaf admiration. our first stop was an overlook on the blue ridge parkway, where we hopped out to take a few pics and check out the scenery. from there, […]
september twenty twenty one.
september was a really hard month. we had a close friend who lost their son to suicide. it is the single worst thing i have ever watched someone have to go through. it has cast a sadness over everything. before all of this, anna and i had ourselves a perfect saturday. first, we hit up […]