July 4, 2011

It was a rainy 4th of July, so we ate inside and played inside.

Rummikub anyone?

Lots of good food to choose from!

Good friends and family, too!

Every time I see this picture of Beth (purple shirt) I think it's Jessica. :)

Ben with the Chicks

This was taken a month or so ago. These chicks are now two months old.

Ben letting one of the chicks perch on his hand.

The one out front stretching her wings is Frost...Ben's chick. The one in the "first row" in the center is Parfait...Beth's chick.

Ben had a piano recital back in the spring.

Here he is playing...it's a bit dark, but you can see his white shirt. :)

The Ongoing Journey

I'm still going to Weight Watchers and although the weight loss has slowed down, it's still going in the right direction. I've now lost about 27 lbs. I still have a long way to go, but that's okay...I didn't gain it overnight and I'm not going to lose it overnight!

I'll try to add a picture later. :)

A Little Get-Away

Neal and I were blessed with a little mini-vacation last weekend. We had a wonderful time getting away together. (I feel the need to mention that while we were having such a nice time away from home, we didn't know that my dear friend, Perri, was fighting for her life! You can read her incredible story here.) Anyway, it had been too long since Neal and I had gone away alone, so we decided to take a drive up in the mountains and spend the night in Charlottesville. Usually when we go on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we have a certain route we take and we always cover the same area. This time we turned right instead of left. :) And we thoroughly enjoyed the breathtaking views along the way.

There was a spot that had a Mountain History Museum and a recreated homestead. This is the chicken coop.

They had 7 chickens

This was an original cabin from the early-mid 1900's. Two adults and five children lived in this one room cabin with loft.

They moved this cabin from another part of the mountains and added a porch. There were several things they had to do to fix it up, but they've maintained the time period with this building.

This was on Skyline Drive. They made special note of the "hand carved tunnel" and we just knew it was going to be incredible. Well, as you can see, it isn't very long at all. When we saw daylight before we even reached it, we were a bit disappointed. I'm sure it was spectacular in the 1930's though!

These guys were repelling at one of the overlooks on Skyline Drive

Gorgeous!

Me and my wonderful hubby, Neal.

In addition to traveling in the mountains, we spent the night in Charlottesville. One of my favorite stores, Whole Foods, is there, so we spent a couple of hours looking at all the interesting foods. We bought various dried beans and sprouts, locally roasted coffee, Blue Agave syrup, trail mix and several flavors of tea. We also ate supper at a local Mexican restaurant. Their food was really, really good! Then the following day we had lunch at an Indian restaurant. They had a lunch buffet, so we were able to sample everything. It was good, but I prefer Mexican. :)

I'm so thankful for my husband and for the fact that we love spending time together!