We spent this past weekend visiting my mom in Lake Placid, NY in the Adirondack Mountains. If you've never been, it's a beautiful village nestled in the High Peaks region of the Adirondack Park, home to the 1980 Olympics, and full of amazing vistas, two beautiful lakes (Mirror and Placid) and completely surrounded on all sides by enormous mountains. That is, of course, unless you're visiting in the middle of a wet and soggy and windy period that's lasted for days, and which subsequently obscured any and all scenic views for the duration of your visit. Then you're stuck with one picture of some mountains, which you see to your right.

Setting the weather issue aside for a minute, it was a very nice visit with mumsy. And why, you ask? Well, simply because her rotten, socially challenged, passive-agressive, insult-hurling husband wasn't around to poison the visit. (Although I believe I saw more of him in this visit than I ever, EVER want to see again, but I'll get to that in a minute.) My mom is so much more herself (if that makes sense) when she isn't around #4, that I really treasure the rare moments when he isn't around.

We arrived in the driving rain to see my mom standing on the corner of her street under an umbrella, waving at us and directing us to her (his) house, which we'd never visited before. She had dinner waiting for us. We spent the weekend doing mainly indoor activities. She took me to several hotels that offer beautiful views of the mountains and water (when it isn't a monsoon outside, of course), including this one, which offers complimentary chocolate chip cookies and coffee to its guests every day at 3:30pm (which we obviously weren't, but partook nonetheless). Score!

And then we went to this brand new resort, where my mom arranged a tour for us. And let me tell you, if I somehow come into any money in the near future, I am so snapping up one of these suites, offered both as timeshares, and as regular hotel rooms available to anyone. The Whiteface Lodge is probably the most swanked-out hotel I've ever visited. It has two year-round heated outdoor swimming pools. A year-round outdoor skating rink. A bowling alley. A movie theatre. An ice cream parlor. And a game room. It is Dirty Dancing's Kellerman's resort on crack. The smallest suites are 500 square feet. The largest are 4,000. Each has a kitchen, a wall-mounted flat panel LCD and HDTV television, and private porches. And apparently, the staff treats the guests like royalty, which I suppose they better for what people pay to stay there. I didn't want to leave!

But leave we eventually did, and when we returned to casa mumsy, she booted up her computer to show me pictures of her and #4's recent two-week jaunt to St. John in the Caribbean. Lovely pictures of sandy beaches. Boats sailing on crystal clear water. My mom sipping fru-fru drinks. #4 in a speedo. Brilliant red sunsets. Exotic dinners. WAIT! What was that?

Yes, my friends. There were pictures (read that: plural) of #4 in a speedo. I was so deeply disturbed at the sight that I was rendered speechless as my mom continued to cycle through the pictures as if I were viewing yet another shot of a gecko on a palm tree branch. What she doesn't know was that when the peepshow was through, I immediately retired to the bathroom where I poured bleach directly into my eyeballs to try and expunge from my mind what I had just seen. The horror of those pictures is beyond description. I will never recover.

We capped off the weekend by working on assembling the favors for my baby shower on July 9th. I'd post the pictures of the very cute favors here, but some people who will be in attendance read this blog (hi Marie! Hi Jenny!), so I'm keeping them a secret for now.

And yesterday morning, my mom packed us up with snacks for the road, and we drove the five hours back home. Now, I'd have to say that while seeing #4 in a barely clothed state rocked my very fiber to the core, and made me shudder in horror for a full hour after the viewing, seeing this on the highway as we headed home had both Rich and I almost driving off the road we were laughing so hard. Anyone care to validate whether this is actually true?