Out and About in Virginia

I found a groupon to visit the home of George Mason, a famous Virginian during the era of the Revolutionary War and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

 A view of the front of the mansion, which was completed in 1759.

 This view is from the back door, and the path leads to the Potomac River.

I thought the wall paper was pretty bold, but is true to the era of the 1700's.

 George Mason penned the Virginia Bill of Rights, which was later used as a type for the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

 This was taken upstairs overlooking the stairway. I'm not sure what Kent is taking a picture of.

 I thought this was cool, showing that George Mason was friends with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry, all Virginians.

This is the back view of the house.

 On the last weekend of October Kent and I took an overnight trip to the western part of Virginia.

 We went to see Crabtree Falls, a waterfall in the George Washington National Forest.

 You can see that the fall colors were in full swing.

I thought we had a picture of Kent and I standing in front of this sign, but I couldn't find it.

 Here are a few photos of the fall colors as we drove along.

 We spent the night at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Virginia.

 This was our view out our hotel window.

 This is the ballroom.

 The comfortable front "porch."

 The fall colors weren't quite as vibrant as they were two years ago when we stayed at the Homestead.

 This waterfall is called Falling Springs Falls.

 We're still terrible at taking selfies, but we tried!

Our last stop was at Natural Chimneys state park, very close to the West Virginia border.

 They're natural rock formations that look like chimneys.

 When we drove into the park it was very crowded because there was a Halloween party going on in the park.

We didn't stay too long--just looked at the rock formations and headed back towards home.

Twins' Blessings in Alabama

Kent and I flew together to Dothan, Alabama on October 5th--over the Columbus day weekend--to visit Tyler and Rachel's family at Fort Rucker.

It was the first time Kent got to meet the Melody and Christian.

They were just five weeks old, so still pretty little.

The fun of having two babies is that's there more opportunity to hold a baby!

 This is a sweet picture of Andrew cuddling with Christian.

Andrew and Sylvia received their Halloween costumes in the mail while they were there, so they modeled them for us. Andrew is a Ninja Turtle and Sylvia is a My Little Pony.

Andrew even wore his costume as we went on a walk later.

Sylvia's bike had a pole in the back so she could get a push.

Rachel was able to get both babies in to her moby wrap, which I thought was very impressive.

Rachel's parents came in just for Saturday and Sunday to be there for the blessings.

The only time we had a picture of all of us together with the Judds.

The happy family of six!!

I asked Rachel if it would be okay if I made the blessing outfits, and she didn't mind.

The twins are lying on knitted blankets that my mom made, which is pretty special.

In this picture they're lying on the blessing blanket that I knitted before Kiera was born. All the grandchildren have been wrapped in it when they've been blessed.

I love that Sylvia and Andrew wanted to get down and snuggle with their younger siblings.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post about visiting in August was that I gave Tyler and Rachel's kids their family quiet book.

 For the cover I used a sail boat scene I smocked for an outfit for Tyler to wear when he was about two. I'm not sure if he ever even wore it--I don't have any pictures of him in it. I kept the outfit, but took out the smocked piece and was inspired to use it as the Quiet book's cover for Tyler's kids.

 A new page I haven't done for any of the other books was an "I spy" in a helicopter.

The frog with a zipper mouth is also a new page.

In this picture Andrew and Sylvia are working on a craft project that the Judds brought for them.

Kent brought his bag of Granddad tricks, so he and Grandpa Judd shot off some alka-seltzer rockets with Andrew and Sylvia.

Here Sylvia and Andrew are waiting anxiously for the rockets to pop. It's always a kid-pleaser.

                                                                 

Me with Christian and Kent with Melody.

Getting the twins ready in their stroller to go for an outing to the Helicopter Museum on Fort Rucker.

It's a favorite place for Andrew and Sylvia to go with their parents, so we're glad we could go with them, too.

Andrew and Sylvia both loved pretending to fly the helicopters. It was a special weekend with a special family. We're so grateful for our wonderful eternal family!