Horticulture Gardens

One of the many perks working for Virginia Tech is access to the Horticulture Gardens. Well, actually, as a state university it's open to the public but I just never knew it was there until I started working here. With Horticulture as one of the majors VT offers you can imagine that the gardens are well-tended. Intended for meetings, peaceful lunches, and weddings, we honestly most often use it as an outdoor playground. The boys love the little stream and waterfalls and also the well-stocked ponds. I enjoy looking at all the different varieties of flowers that I'll never have a prayer of growing in my own yard.

We snapped these pictures when we had a few minutes to kill between daycare and our appointments to get the flu vaccine. The boys had no idea what was coming! At least they enjoyed the gardens before we surprised them with the visit to the doctor!

More fun on the boat....

I honestly can't even remember when the pictures were taken, but it was sometime in September on a random trip out on the boat. We've enjoyed that boat even more than we thought we would this year! It was definitely a good impulse purchase!

My captain and me.

The ducks hoping for a little treat...

Poppaw and Grayson checking out how the motor works.

A Visit from the Walkers

Jennifer and Erik endured the long drive from DC to our place last weekend. It's always so much fun to spend the weekend with the Walkers and their two boys. There's nothing more comfortable than an old friend and Jennifer and I have been friends now for over 20 years. Life has certainly thrown us some curves and landed us five hours apart, but when we get together now, each with our own two boys, it could be 20 years ago riding to school together. Hard to believe that much time has passed.

For this get together I had planned a lovely day at Sinkland Farms (the local pumpkin patch) and lots of time hanging out in the backyard. Turns out Mother Nature had other plans with high wind warnings and a high of 47 for the weekend. Despite the frigid temps for early October, we braved the weather and still spent a couple of hours at Sinkland.
Practically as soon as we parked the three of the boys and Steve ran into the corn maze. By the time I had purchased the tickets they were nowhere to be seen and I thought it best if I just wait at the entrance. It was windy and, therefore, hard to hear and I had visions of all three boys running in different directions and Steve losing one or two. I could just picture Luke crouched in a corner somewhere crying and us not hearing him. Turns out my worries were unnecessary. Steve emerged about 15 minutes later with all three boys in tow!

You never know exactly what you might seen at Sinkland. This year we saw the Iron Hokie. He's a regular around these parts.The boys were entertained for a few moments in the toddler maze.

Luke and Grayson snagged a quick pony ride. Luke really seems to love animals so this smile never left his face while riding that pony.

Lincoln had an assignment from school to take pictures with his classroom "Flat Stanley." I understand this Stanley has been to faraway places like China. Fortunately for a four year old Southwest Virginia probably seems equally exotic.

They had their biggest pumpkin displayed along with directions of how to grow your own giant pumpkins!

They had all sorts of pumpkins in carts to take home with you.

But the most fun was taking the hayride out to the pumpkin patch and picking your own!Jennifer kept Berkeley nice and snug and all bundled up. I think any of us would have traded places with Berkeley out there that day!


I love this picture of Lincoln searching for the perfect pumpkin.

And Luke was very excited to get to pick one of his own.

Grayson just likes it when you take his picture.Back at home we tried to play outside, but it was just too windy. They boys did fly kites for just a little while.

Inside the boys enjoyed just hanging out with each other. Berkeley is such a cutie pie! Much to my dismay, though, he's a true momma's boy and doesn't really dig on squeezes and snuggles from anyone else. It was hard to resist.

He did, however, climb right up in Grayson's lap for a prime seat for a Handy Manny viewing.

Until he saw Luke on the table and decided to join him there.

And you can only rely on TV for so long. Eventually we decided to break out a project. My boys aren't particularly into crafty things so luckily I remembered I had some leftover Home Depot Do-It-Yourself projects.
Steve helped Luke build his football helmet bookends.

I dug up a glue-it-yourself fighter jet (from Michael's for $1) for Grayson. I really thought it would be too hard for him but it turned out great.

In true Luke fashion, he decided to paint his helmets pink and purple.

Erik got the short end of the stick and ended up with the wheelbarrow project with Lincoln. It involved hammering. Lincoln actually ended up doing a great job with the hammering so maybe watching Handy Manny paid off after all!
Lincoln's paint job took about 30 seconds. Turns out he's about as into crafts as my boys.

All in all a great weekend, albeit one stuck indoors for most of the weekend. The boys really got along well together and Jennifer and I always enjoy the time to catch up!

Birthday Pictures

Since the boys birthdays are only three months apart I try to schedule their annual pictures right in between the two birthdays. So these serve as Luke's 3 year pictures and Grayson's 5 year pictures. I was hoping for hoards of good pictures from our photo session, but we ended up with just these three - fortunately one decent shot from each boy! What I learned from this photo session - Grayson is a poser and is insistent on the "fake smile" and Luke laughs so hard that most of the time his eyes are squinted shut. But these three shots are almost perfect representations of what my two boys look like right now at this adorable point in their lives...

Trains, Trains, and More Trains!

To conclude my Girls' Weekend, Steve brought the boys down to meet me in Abingdon where Cathy's parents live. Cathy's Dad, Bart, is a train buff. (That would be an understatement.) He has an entire room devoted to his model trains and then another room where he tinkers with them and stores his collectibles. Grayson was in heaven. He now thinks Bart is quite possibly the luckiest man ever to have so many trains in his own house. Grayson kept asking us to move his stool from one vantage point to the next so he could keep watching the trains from different angles.

Better than a kid in a candy store...

Trey showed Grayson how to sneak under the table and get in the middle of all the trains.

Luke loves trains, too, but still prefers the personal tour...

It's Trey's Pappaw, so this is nothing new for Trey. Poor kid kept waiting and waiting for Grayson to play with him. Trey, buddy, you've got stiff competition with all those trains. I'm afraid Grayson would be perfectly content to sit there and watch those trains ALL DAY LONG.

Girls' Weekend in Asheville

Every year I'm reminded how blessed I am to have such amazing friends in my life. It's been 14 years since we graduated from William and Mary, but my girlfriends and I are still sticking with our commitment to get together at the very least on an annual basis. This year's long weekend destination was Asheville, NC where Emily's family has a vacation home. We've stayed there once before for a girls' weekend, but this time spent more time actually in Asheville and less time at the cabin.

With a view like this, though, I could probably just sit for days on the porch!

We began the weekend with a "Food Tour" of Asheville where we visited 7 different restaurants/food shops and sampled some of Asheville's best. With one exception, the shops and food were well amazing. Our favorites included Chai Pani, Green Sage, Olive & Kickin', and The Tea and Spice Exchange. After the good tour we happened upon their Friday evening festivities downtown and enjoyed sampling some of the local brews before heading to the cabin.
Back at the cabin we devoured Clare's homemade lasagna she had prepared in advance. Between conversation and laughter I think we lounged around the table for about 3 hours before calling it a night!

Saturday we all impressed ourselves by actually getting up and going for a hike before what we knew would be a day filled with fabulous food. After we finally made our way into town, we strolled through Asheville exploring the shops and hitting a few of the standout restaurants we had heard about. Brunch at Tupelo Honey Cafe complete with Mimosas and Bloody Mary's was a nice way to begin the day. Eventually we found ourselves at French Broad Chocolates which I have to name now as one of my all time favorite chocolate shops after sampling their Pots de Creme and heading home with two boxes of locally inspired chocolates. We topped off the day with dinner at the Grove Park Inn followed by a visit to what may have been quite possibly the oddest dueling piano bar around. We were clearly the entertainment of the evening. Whether or not the rest of the older, how do say, more reserved crowd appreciated us is still up for debate.

Kim, Kelly, Cathy, Emily, and Clare