Tag: 2020 Goals

As I mentioned in my 2020 goals post, I’m planning one weekend of fun for each month throughout the year. In January, we took a trip to Kingsmill in Williamsburg, VA for my mom’s birthday celebration. For February, we decided to do something a little closer to home… snow tubing!

We were initially considering doing an overnight trip, but when we saw that Liberty Mountain Resort offered two-hour snow tubing passes AND they were less than an hour from our house we decided to just go for a day. While I love to ski (but haven’t been in 10+ years), I’ve never been snow tubing before. Neither Travis or Jack has ever tried to ski, so I figured snow tubing would be a fun and easy way to introduce them to the mountain!

Joining us on our trip:

The cost to snow tube for a two-hour session on the weekend is $34 per person. This includes your tube and unlimited tubing on the tubing trails. We grabbed our tubes and hopped on the people mover, which took us up to the top of the hill.

Jack is smiling here, but the first three times on the people mover were a little rough. He fell over each time and then insisted on holding my hand until he got to the top. The first time we rode it and jumped off, I was more worried about helping Jack walk off safely than myself… and I immediately slipped on some ice and fell to the ground like a ton of bricks.

Luckily, we all had on our puffy snow pants! Before he went down the first hill, Jack was pretty apprehensive. Especially when people requested to be spun around and the helper would yank their tubes in such a way that they would spiral down the tubing track.

Here’s the ‘regular’ non spinning way to tube, with Jack:

And here is my brother in law, Craig when he went down on his tummy and requested a spin:

We all had a pretty great time and snow tubing did grow on Jack just a little bit. After he mastered the people mover, he got more confidence after each run. He still didn’t want to be spun, but the fact that he was smiling was enough for me!

With that being said, when I asked Jack if he’d like to try snow tubing at another mountain resort, he said that he thinks he’s fine for the year.

Have you tried snow tubing?

I mentioned in my 2020 goals post that I’m planning one weekend of fun for each month. Well, January was easy because my sister’s, brother and I planned a weekend trip for our mom to celebrate her birthday! While I’ve been to Williamsburg, VA many times, I had not yet visited the Kingsmill Resort. My mom had said she loved it though, so we figured out a weekend and everyone booked their rooms.

We ended up traveling to the resort last weekend – driving there on Saturday and then driving back home on Sunday. As part of my mom’s birthday gift, in addition to her water-view room, we scheduled her a massage, pedicure and also had a delicious dinner out as a family.

Since we were there, I also booked a massage for Travis and a massage for me to enjoy. And OHMYGOSH did we enjoy them! Holy moly. My masseuse, Leah, was absolutely amazing and did a combination of a regular Swedish massage, hot stone massage, and even did a bit of cupping. I’d never experienced cupping before, but it basically felt like she put some sort of suction thing on my back and then dragged it down a bit before un-suctioning it. It didn’t hurt, but it felt a little tingly. It’s been a few days and there aren’t any bruises or anything (which is literally all I knew about cupping, that it gives you big circle bruises).

For dinner, the whole family went out to a restaurant called Food for Thought (you can find it here). About half of our people got the ribs special and they were so, so, so delicious (Travis gave me one of his, because he’s awesome). I ordered bacon wrapped scallops, which were also super good. Jack stuck with the chicken fingers and French fries… I let the waiter know that it was my mom’s birthday weekend, so they were nice enough to bring her out a dessert with a candle in it. There was no obnoxious song, so we stuck with ‘Happy Birthday’.

This would have been a great time to insert a photo of the entire family at dinner, but I literally didn’t get my phone out at all until the next day.

After dinner, we all met up in my sibling’s rooms because they got a shared suite with a common room. It worked out great because we could light a fire for warmth/ambiance and we also played a rousing game of charades. My family gets super competitive – so we played original Harmans (me and my siblings) vs significant others (all our spouses). It was pretty hilarious and I’m still pretty darn proud that I got Mona Lisa from whatever the hell my brother was doing.

I finally did take a photo when we were about to leave, here is me and Jack on our hotel balcony:

Every time we go to Williamsburg, one of my favorite places is the Astronomical Pancake House. So, even though the rest of the family decided to get up early and go to breakfast at 9, I knew Jack was going to want to sleep in (he was up past 10pm with our shenanigans). Sure enough, he rolled out of bed at 9:30 with plenty of time for us to pack up our room, check out and drive on over for pancakes. Actually, I should say waffles… because THIS:

I get the same meal every time we go because it is THAT delicious!

The first fun weekend of the year was a success! I loved hanging out with the family, the resort and massages were amazing, and my mom had a great birthday weekend. Now I can’t wait until our February fun…