I told you we’d be back! Another three day weekend and another 4 hour drive to Hot Springs, Virginia. The weather reports for the Presidents Day holiday weekend are suggesting it will be warmer than it was last month, but it should still be cold enough to ski. It will be nice to get together with the Baurs again and do some more skiing. This trip we decided to hire a private ski instructor for Dylan and Ethan to try and build their confidence with going up the lift and skiing alone. By the end of the day, the instructor complemented Dylan and said that skill wise he was ready to go to the top.
I was so excited for the long weekend to finally get here. We’ve been looking forward to getting out of town now for months and Dylan and I were ready to do some skiing. Over the past couple of years, we have been somewhat indoctrinated in to a family tradition of joining the Baur family for three days of fun, food and skiing. Over the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend, we all make the long 4 hour drive down to the Homestead Omni Resort in Hot Springs, VA.
This has turned into an annual event that Dylan and I really look forward to for both the skiing and the company of great friends. What a perfect weekend and the weather was awesome! Maybe a little cold for some people, but when you’re skiing, who cares. We enjoyed the weekend so much, I think we might try to head back down next month.
It’s becoming and annual event for my first post of the new year to always be about our trip to New York City to see our good friends Brian and Dush and the rest of the Bedford family. I love this trip… mostly because taking the train to New York is so easy and relaxing, it almost makes you forget you’re traveling. But I also enjoy getting together with our close family and friends and venturing out on the city to explore new restaurants and enjoy great conversations over great food and wine. We’re truly spoiled in some ways… and blessed, that we are able to gather like this two or three times a year.
Here are a hand full of videos taken during our recent family vacation at Tucker’s Point Club in Bermuda. I didn’t bother to spend any time editing the videos like I use to… instead, I’ve just posted the raw files straight from my device to my hosting site and then used a widget to embed the iframe source code directly into my journal post. WordPress is constantly making changes to the layout and functionality of the tools, so it looks like this is my best option to get the visual results I want to go along with my theme.
Click the ‘More’ link below to see the rest of the videos associated with this post. Oh yeah, I almost forgot… the last video is a montage put together by my iPhone software. Enjoy!
‘Dylan and friends playing in the surf at Tucker’s Point Beach Club’ – Bermuda, HS
With Bermuda being one of our favorite vacation destinations, this fall we decided to spend two weeks in a row at our home away from home. We also invited my brother to join us for the first week. It turned out to be a beautiful week with perfect weather. Uncle Mike and Dylan had a great time bonding at the beach and pools and we all enjoyed dinner at the beach club. Here are some of the photos from our first week of this trip.
‘Dylan looking out over the ocean at Tucker’s Point Beach Club’ – Bermuda, HS
Last year, for our early summer vacation, we decided to change it up a bit and spent a week at Atlantis in the Bahamas instead of our usual Bermuda home. It’s always nice to try something new from time to time, but we are creatures of habit and if there is one thing I know for sure, it’s how much we love our little island paradise… Bermuda. So once again this year we decided to travel to our favorite getaway spot and home away from home Tucker’s Point Club, Bermuda.
For me this trip is not just another vacation, it also happens to fall on Fathers Day weekend, which makes this little annual trip of ours all the more special. Spending the week with just my wife and son on the beach in one of the most beautiful places on earth is truly the ultimate Fathers Day gift! Use the link below to see all the photos from the first half of our spring trip.
‘Julie & I enjoying a nice relaxing train ride to NYC’ – 174 Northeast Regional, Amtrak
This week Julie and I took the train up to the Big Apple for a family business dinner and some meetings the following day. It was a very nice trip and well needed getaway from the normal everyday grind. After a nice dinner with the family at Toro on 10th Avenue, we returned to our hotel (the Conrad) and went up to the roof top bar for drinks. Talk about a nice view… and the cocktails were pretty good too!
We traveled down to Florida again this year for Easter Vacation and the annual Harbour Ridge grandparents weekend event. As per usual, it was a lot of fun and the weather was great. I don’t know why I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do, but maybe it was because I was enjoying myself more than normal. I was a well needed relaxing vacation, that’s for sure!
Here are a couple of my cellphone videos I took of Dylan’s first time out on ski’s. As I told him at the start of the day… learning how to fall and get back up is just as important as learning how to ski. He did really well for his first time ever!
‘The view from the outdoor deck at the Homestead Ski Lodge’ – Hot Springs, VA
Several months ago we were invited to go skiing for the long Presidents Day weekend. Our good friends, the Baur’s, have been going to Hot Springs, Virginia for years and this year they asked us to join them. Nether their son nor ours has ever been on ski’s before, and they have told us that this is a great place for kids to learn to ski. The Omni Homestead Resort, located about 45 minutes southwest of JMU in Hot Springs, is about a three and a half hour drive from DC and surprisingly classy for an older hotel. The rooms are moderately priced go fast, so you have to book well ahead of time to get a holiday weekend reservation. The ski area is small compared to most local ski resorts, but they do have a nice size ski lodge with several fire places, including an outdoor one on the deck, a bar and food service for lunch. There is only one double chair lift which will take you to either the midway-station or the top of the hill. After seeing the operation I would totally agree that for young beginner skiers, this is a perfect place for them to learn. The ski instructors here are young and really good with the kids. We had Dylan and his friend take two lessons and they absolutely loved it! By the end of the second day they were almost ready to go to ride the lift up to the midway-station. Considering this was Dylan’s first time on ski’s ever… I thought he did very well!