Vacation Season

Vacation season has arrived!

At the end of this month, I'm taking a road trip with my sister and her two girls out to Tennessee.
We'll be stopping at the Biltmore Estate to look at the beautiful gardens and home (and maybe pick out a few bottles of wine!):

Last time I was at the Biltmore, Spring hadn't quite fully sprung yet.  This time I hope to find more color!

We'll try our hands at gem mining, and maybe even strike it rich!  After we make our fortunes, we'll be amazed at the Ripley's Aquarium, where there are more fish than people living in Gatlinburg!   At the end of our trip we'll head to the Luray Caverns, and then work our way back home.

But I really won't be going home yet... I'll be going only partway, and then hitching a ride with my parents up to Pennsylvania for our huge family reunion on the family farm!  It's a fun time every year with fireworks and auctions and cows and FOOD!  Yummy, I can't wait!

After all that, I'll need a little break from the road, I'm sure!  Who knows what the month of July will bring though...

In August, I'll be going on a vacation with my family to Yellowstone National Park.  We haven't quite figured out what we want to do once we get there yet, but I'm sure whatever it is, it'll be breath-taking!

Maybe next year I'll have enough money to take a trip to England!  I would love to go see all the gardens over there!  And ever since I saw this ensemble put together at ModCloth, I've been dreaming of wearing it to walk through quaint little towns all day!  It's funny how an outfit can inspire different vacations...

For real or for imagination, where are you going this summer?

Family, Flowers, and Fotos

I feel like it's been forever since I've posted anything!  It's likely due to the fact that the past week has been incredibly busy. My parents host a reunion for my dad's side of the family every Memorial Day weekend, so all last week I was running around trying to get things cleaned and cooked and prettified.  Family started arriving around 9pm on Friday and by the time I woke up on Saturday, the house was full of aunts, uncles, cousins, and a proud grandmother!  We hit the beach before lunchtime, and unfortunately didn't stay long because of the weather.  Although, we did manage to pull out of the parking lot just as the rain fell out of the sky like a waterfall!  The rest of the weekend was spent poolside, feasting on BBQ and potato salad.  Before everyone hit the road again, we all went out to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens to take a family picture and enjoy the scenery:

I have to say, it's a little hectic getting this many people to all look at the same place and smile at the same time!  But I think Dan did a good job setting the camera up, and his mom did a nice job making everyone smile for the picture!

Here's another of the family, set at a long exposure, while we all tried to figure our way through the Butterfly Maze:

I love that my grandpa is the only one who stood still and so it looks like time is speeding up around him!

Working at the gardens, I encounter snakes quite often.  Most are just sunbathing on the hot pavement, some are hiding away in flower beds, and some are en route to new locations.  This very day I was out with my family taking pictures, I encountered another snake - NOT sunbathing or hiding or slithering away.  This snake was feasting!  EEEEEWWWW!!!  I even got the rattle-shake to warn me to get away from his dinner before he hobbled off into the meadow, rodent in mouth.  Fresh from that scene, Dan took this photo:

It's so nice to have him in town again!  And this time he's here for a month!  I don't feel like I have to rush our time together like I usually do. I know he'll still be here next week to go out to the movies with or take bike rides through the gardens or go to the zoo or the aquarium or the beach.  June is officially Date Month!  Hopefully I'll have lots to document while he's here, and honestly, I hope I don't have enough time to post anything til he's gone - because that means we're actually out doing things!  This next week is already mostly booked with fun things: drinks after work, a dance at the Hilton (we might have to brush up on our skills!), friends visiting from Blacksburg, bike night at the gardens... and that's all before my next weekend off!

I think June will be a good month!

Thank you to Dan for his photos on today's post!

Excitement Overload!

Wow!  What a fun week, and it's only Tuesday!!

On Sunday, I went to Northwest River Park with my friend and fellow blogger, Emily.  It was so fun catching up and finally getting to take a walk through the park with someone besides my imaginary friends!  We talked about many great things, like Land Before Time and old roommates.  It's funny how many similarities we share.  One thing I really hope I get to know is her cooking!  Her blog is filled with delicious meals that make me crave healthy eating (thanks, Emily!).  My favorite part about it?  She's like me... she's not someone who has money to just throw around on "being green" because it's the cool thing to do, instead she has to use her money wisely to make the best choices for her diet.  Her blog is proof that I can do the same on my wimpy income!

How I managed to get a picture of the Taxodiums, but not my outfit, is beyond me!

Why haven't I visited Northwest River Park more often??

So then on Monday, my beloved day off, I had a busy day planned.  I woke up to find my niece, Samantha, in the kitchen doing homework (oh yeah, I did say I would watch her today, didn't I?!). As I fixed my breakfast and helped her finish her homework, we discussed the plans for the day.  I had an appointment to see an apartment in Virginia Beach in the morning, so we decided to go visit the gardens afterwards.  We packed a "fruit-full" picnic lunch and headed off.  The tour of the apartment went very well, both of us LOVED it!  Sami gave her nod of approval and we walked off to the park down the street, where she offered to take my outfit picture...

...let me insert a funny story here: a few weeks ago, I was outside taking pictures of my outfit, and Sami came out to see what I was doing.  Since my camera is small, and I had it on my tiny little tripod, sitting in the bed of the truck in the driveway, she really couldn't tell what I was doing!  She was convinced I was playing a game outside by myself.  I had to show her the camera to have her believe otherwise, but even then, she was sure I was playing a game!  I often wonder if other style bloggers have this problem...

Ok, back to the real story!  So she offered to take my outfit picture in the park:

Pretty good photography for an 8-year-old, huh?  Makes me proud!

After our little photo shoot, we walked back down the beach to my car and drove off to NBG.  We had so much fun at the gardens!  I especially enjoyed being there as visitor rather than an employee!  Normally I'm driving around in my golf-cart, flying by things so fast I don't even notice a lot of the things popping up out of the soil.  I really liked being able to explore the Children's Garden a little more!  Sami and I discovered a REALLY fun bridge, too!  We spent a good 20-minutes playing on this one, little 3-foot bridge before moving on.  We walked around the arboretum and smelled the sweet wisteria, I took a few more pictures of the Wildflower Meadow (keep an eye out for these pics, folks!  I'm attempting weekly photos to capture the gradual growth of the wildflowers from ankle-height to towering-above-your-head height!), we found a table in the Enchanted Forest to eat our picnic on, and then we stumbled on some gorgeous flowering Kwanzan Cherries!  Samantha loves climbing trees, so I snapped a few of her hanging from the beautiful limbs:

We also went up into the Nato Tower, which I haven't done in a long time!

Well, this is actually not in the tower, but it's close enough!

Then just before we got in the car to leave, we ran up on the airport berm and watched a plane take off!  I feel like that spot is one of the hidden treasures of the gardens.  While most of the time the airplanes are a big nuisance with all their noise (for those who don't know, the airport is located right nextdoor to the gardens!), it sure is fun to go up on the hill and watch them land and take off!

On Thursday I get to go biking around the gardens with my friend Jessica, then on Sunday I pack up and leave for Blacksburg!  I have a feeling these next few weeks (months, even!) are going to be kicking into overdrive!  So many fun things happen when the weather warms up, don't you think?!

Grandmother's Pretty Things

Every year for Easter, my family drives to Lumberton, NC to visit my Grandmother.  I've always loved going there to see her, and this year was certainly no exception!  Back in the day, her house would be filled with 12 grandchildren all under the age of 10 - talk about chaos!  But we all loved seeing each other and walking to the park to play on the merry-go-round (the older cousins would spin it as fast as they could, and us youger cousins would pretend we were on a train, traveling to far off places... like Disneyworld!).   As the years went by, and cousins started college and did real traveling to far off places, fewer and fewer cousins were able to make it to Lumberton for Easter.  This year, it was down to myself and two others.  It was a little sad and a little lonely, but I was grateful for the time I got to spend with the cousins I got to spend it with!
The emptier house also gave me a chance to actually notice lots of Grandmother's Pretty Little Things:

I told Grandmother that I would be happy to take those pink goblets off her hands any time!  She told me she hoped I hadn't taken any pictures of her shelf since she didn't have it arranged in a way she liked it yet...

Grandmother found this "sewing chair" at a church yard sale.  I think the greenness of it is wonderful.

"What'd you take a picture of that old tin for?!"  -Grandmother

I think it's beautiful.

Just one of the many things on the wall in the "pink room" which I love!

Pretty pink bedspread and pillows.. in the pink room!

Even the luggage stand at the foot of the bed was pretty!

Pretty floral curtains in the pink room.  I suppose if I were an old lady going on 90, I would redecorate a room in my house to be all pink and floral and frilly, too!

It just seemed so perfect when I walked by this room.

The lattice on the pagoda we built for her creates a gorgeous lace-like shadow in the afternoon!

Isn't my granddad a dreamboat?!  I love how my grandmother still talks about him all the time, they were so in love!

More from the weekend at Grandmother's to come!