Cupcakes and Massanutten

I recently made a whole bunch of desserts for a back to school night with women from our church and this was my favorite. Perhaps hard to tell, these are apple cupcakes made with red frosting/sprinkles and brown, green and yellow tootsie rolls. Fun and simple.We took a free vacation to a resort in Virginia called Massanutten. The 90 minute spiel we were prepared to endure turned out to be a 3.5 hour disaster of which I will spare you the details (you really don't want to know :-) The drive was beautiful, this is the Shenandoah Valley area. There were many Civil War sites and we hope to visit them some other time since it's so close.Overall, we were happy to know that the fishing, swimming, trails and other amenities were just as awesome right in our own city. The only thing that killed me was forgetting to bring our own breakfast and having to pay out almost 7 bucks for a measly box of cereal that I had at home for 75 cents. We just told ourselves it was the best-tasting little round honey nut cheerios we'll ever eat!There were some very fun parks and trails we enjoyed exploring. The best was a completely enclosed playground! We spent as long as we could at the water park (the real reason we went) and had the time of our lives. I'll never forget the absolute joy on my children's faces as they explored each exciting area again and again.Jim got to ride the "FloRider" which is a virtual wave you boogie board or surf on. He only had one try since the kids had a hard time waiting 25 minutes for daddy to go and I couldn't take all three kids by myself somewhere. But on this one try, he dropped right in to the perfect position and when the lifeguard gave him a cue on how to do a flip, Jim totally did it perfectly on the first try! He is such a star! :-)

Jacob did more of watching at the water park but still had plenty of fun. He loved the lazy river and watching all of the kids swirl around him in their tubes.

Nicole took all of these pictures of us at breakfast. My favorite part of the whole trip? No cooking!!

Michael was hilarious to watch- he must have gone down some of the water slides at least 50 times. Serious! He wanted to go down the big water slides that he was too short for and actually made a sprint at one of them and I barely stopped him (gave me a heart attack). He has no fear and I can't wait until he is tall enough, what a blast it will be to take him!

Photo of herself. Nicole had the most fun shooting all of the water guns at us and turning all of the hoses on and off that squirt water around. The huge bucket on top of the indoor section of the water park emptied once when she was in range and she was knocked over and a bit distressed. After, though, she thought it was cool that the water got her :-) She was too afraid to try the slides, and it would have been a little difficult to leave either Jim or myself with the two boys while the other parent went with her. So we weren't able to do all of the water park, but since it was free we were just able to enjoy everything we could.

I can't believe someone is selling this. Or marketing it. In the South we fry everything.I couldn't resist this pic. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a nice big sign designating "Hurt" in the next few miles so we could prep for it?And a little forewarning on "Business Hurt" would be nice too, right? :-)