It's a Big World Baby: Greenbrier (Part 2)

Here we are at Greenbriar resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. This is a TINY town. This is coming from someone who lived in a city, Natchitoches, a city that has a Wal-mart, some local food joints, and did not get a Walgreens until my senior year in college. (2005) In any case, it's like you drive along and BAM there's a massive resort. This place is huge with a ton of things to do. They have bike rentals with the trailer for Audrey, which we took advantage of on day two. We rode ALL around the resort, up huge hills that nearly killed me. They have horse back riding, an indoor swimming pool, as well as an outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, croquet, a fitness club, a five star spa, and a lot of shopping within the resort. They have a very cool toy store as well. This place is pretty cool. I have to be honest I was not sure about a resort in the middle of nowhere. Lets face it, I AM A CITY GIRL! I enjoy hiking and being with nature but at the end of the day I like to know I can go to my local health food store and stock up on some Udi's and Elderberry! I never said I was a typical city girl This brings me to Lewisberg, which was voted 2011 coolest small town in the USA. That is a big claim and I honestly just didn't see it until we got into the very small downtown area. It has a charm to it that is very eco-friendly/green/urban. Yes, it's small, like Natchitoches small for those who know Natchitoches, but the stores are AWESOME. They have a cafe that serves local beef as in organic beef FROM Lewisberg, they even listed the farm it was from. Oh and did I mention the really cool health food/small grocery store that had everything from GF pasta to Udi's along with loose herbs and spices, homeopaths, and any Nature's Path herb, along with some other brands, you could ever need. Well, if you're thinking it couldn't get better, it does. They have a specialty toy store, the specialty is that the toys are ALL GREEN. YES ALL GREEN!! They have tons of plan b toys, melissa and doug, and some adorable eco- farm animals and dinosaurs. They were super cute and of course the best part, not plastic. We are phasing ALL plastic out of the house. plastic toys that we have are going to charity as we replace them with wood. I can't simply throw away toys but giving away to good homes to kids who will have fun with them is something I am more than okay with. You know I freaked upon seeing all the wood toys and um...I had never heard of plan b toys....where have I been???? This company is awesome. So....we got Audrey a wood tea set and some wood fruit. Oh and on a side note we found an Audrey sized border collie. I showed her it and she said "ELI!!!" all excited and that was it, we HAD to get him. If there had been one that looked like Eleanor you know we would have gotten it too! She is sleeping with "Eli" as I speak. Audrey has NEVER slept with a stuffed animal so it must mean she loves him! Anyway, back to plan b toys. They have a refrigerator and it's kind of sort of amazing. This is the blue one, but we are after the green one. (it's water based paint and not particle board) oh and we are also after one of these kitchens along with this awesome shopping cart too. For Christmas, my brother, who is very awesome and sweet, got Audrey a shopping cart, something I honestly had never thought to do, which has been used every single day, but it has been damaged after tons of crashes to the floor and into walls and shelves. The cart is wobbly and no longer safe to push. :-( so a new cart and some new food is on the way. food first, cart later.

Oh I know I mentioned the pool above, since Audrey was so....tiny when we went to Destin, this was 1 year ago this month, she was not a fan of the pool. OMG does she LOVE the pool. The indoor pool is somewhat heated I believe but it's still pretty chilly. We tried to keep having Audrey kicking her feet to stay warm. She chilled in her "boat" a simple floaty/mesh thingy don't you love my wording and just thought it was amazing. She got out a couple time to float and go under water, she asked to go under again and again, it was really too cute! Like I said the pool isn't super warm and eventually little burrito's lips turned blue and her bottom lip started to shake. We asked her if she was ready to get out but she wanted another 10 min. She finally said "out mama" and that was it. No fuss, no fight, it was simply too cold. When I was little I would be shaking while in the pool yet tell my mom and dad that the water was warm and they should come in, I have a feeling Audrey will be no different.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we did cloth diapers the WHOLE trip!! So.....well worth it. We were lucky to have washing machines and dryers available to us in Ashville. In Chatanooga we went to the Fairfield Inn, right next door and used those machines. :-) We did diapers both days. We brought our Charlie's Soap with us, did 1 load of wash before doing the diapers, so they wouldn't gunk, and then started diapers. It worked out great! Once at the Greenbrier we were out of the luck so we went SUPER old school and did diapers in the tub each day. YUP In...the....tub!! It wasn't bad, we hung them around to dry and put the inserts over the AC. It was not your typical one. We tried looking for