time off and... well, that's the important part

so this past weekend i took 3 days vacation from work in order to go up north on an annual trip with friends. except for the part about switching sleeping schedules (which was annoying and tiring), we had a phenomenal time. Matt & Heidi, Jayme & Glen, Molly & I all left on friday afternoon for a cabin on lime lake (near sutton's bay), thanks to jayme's family connections. we packed food, booze, snowboard/ski equipment, movies, & magazines and headed to the great white north.

saturday was a great day of snowboarding for me/skiing for J&G at crystal mountain, and relaxing & shopping for M, H, & M. the weather was unseasonably warm up north too, and while the snow was a bit sticky, it was also great to not have to worry about freezing our fingertips off and were able to enjoy the rides. in the evening, we headed to the casino for a little fun with the slots... and i actually came out a winner! i put in $10... and made it up to $50! i spent $20 more and lost it, so i stopped there.

sunday we slept in, had a great breakfast, then headed out to cherry republic for some wine tasting & shopping. a huge highlight this year is that they started making hard cherry cider - it was fantastic!! we made the brief stop at lake michigan for the annual "we're-freezing-and-it-takes-forever-to-get-the-picture-correct-on-the-timer" snapshot, then we were off to visit the beautiful black star winery where we enjoyed some fantastic wine & cheese, and also sampled some phenomenal chocolate! seriously... you should look at this chocolate. it was fantastically artistic, and was some of the best tasting chocolate i have ever tasted. :)

we headed back on sunday evening. i had taken monday off work as well, so it's been good to relax & not have to rush back to work 3-4 hours after getting back. and i have one night of work before my scheduled weekend, so it's a great week for me!!