“We gave thanks for the blessings that have flowed through our lives like the creek through the mountains.”

Our Featured Friend: Mountain Magic by Alice Boggs Lentz
Every autumn, since I moved away from my home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I’d come home to be near my mother and my mountains. When Mom went Home in 2010, everything changed. We are waiting for a happy occasion to return to Virginia as I feel the tug to go back and take our children to see the Blue Ridge Mountains, especially since our six-year-old daughter asked me recently if mountains were really blue! I think the reason my mom gave me this book is so the nostalgia of nature would keep drawing me home . . . and it worked!

Introducing The Family of 7 and their Memories from Mountain Magic:
“The summer heat drove us up into the mountains. But it was the mountain magic that tugged at us to stay. There were seven of us– Grandmother, Mama, Daddy, my three brothers, and me.”

Grandmother was the first to tell us about the mountains. She told us about the green peaks that leap into the sky. She told us about the blue ridges that look like the ocean’s waves. And she told us about the creek that flows near her house.”

The narrator, the granddaughter, goes on the share the journey of her family to grandma’s house in the mountains and their summer memories of: crawling crickets in grandma’s bathtub, playing in the rain, climbing rocks in the creek, making slingshots and using them in ways that didn’t go over so well with grandma or her brother, picking rhododendron blossoms, and sitting on the porch singing together as a family in the evening.

She continues with their progressive visits to grandma’s as “the mountain magic” grabbed them. She brings her sweetheart to her special place. Eventually their children (and their cousins) get to experience the mountains, creek and crickets, just as she did growing up.

“The mountains always refreshed our spirits. . .. And in time, another generation joined our song.”

Inviting You To Become FRIENDS With The Family of 7 and Form Your Own Memories While Engaging  Mountain Magic:

Feel, Relate, Imagine, Explore, Navigate, Develop, Share
From the 7 suggestions, select the questions and activities that best fit your audience:

F- What place makes you feel nostalgic? Take your kids to that special place if possible or show them your pictures of it.

R- When can you relate to feeling excited about the first time you went somewhere new on a trip? Where did you go? Who and what made the trip special?

I- Imagine that you could go to any mountainous place. What state or country would you want to visit? Why?

E- Explore the name, height, and surrounding areas of the place with the mountain range you selected in the question above.

N- Navigate through a mountain range by designing mountains, creeks, rocks, and grass by using craft supplies or food!

D- Develop your own summer memories as a family that will give your kids a sense of nostalgia when they grow up. Try to recall special things from your younger years. Simple things are sometimes the most memorable: baking a summer apple pie together, going to an orchard to pick berries, building a fort out of sheets in your living room, putting a tent in your back yard or on your porch, taking nature walks around a local park and/or star gazing on your lawn before bed.

S- Share a special song from your childhood with your kids and teach them to sing it. Pass it on for future generations.

Our family did the F & N activities:

My husband just returned from Scotland where he hiked the Highlands for over 10 hours. We welcomed him home with an interesting dessert:  Mint-Chocolate Chip Mountains with Marshmallow Cream Snow Tops, Graham Cracker Crumb Paths, and Star Marshmallow Sky.

I showed our kids pictures from our last trip home to Virginia:

My former art teacher, Janet Wimmer, paints scenes on site from the Blue Ridge Mountains almost daily and posts them on: janetwimmer.blogspot.com & on Facebook at Blue Ridge Daily Painter
When my mom moved in with us during her final stages of cancer, I purchased one picture from each season to remind us of home. The Four Seasons of “My Mountain Mama”

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