Wedding in the 'Noke

I attended the wedding of one of my best friends from college this weekend in beautiful Roanoke, VA. What a fun time! A bunch of our friends from college are married or dating but only one of the husbands/boyfriends out of our group could make the trip to this wedding...It ended up as an awesome girls reunion!!





Here are some highlights from the weekend...

We stayed here.



We could walk to the rehearsal dinner at the Taubman Museum of Art - what a cool building!



The rehearsal dinner was held in the main hallway between the galleries...here are some interior pics.







The groom painted this picture of a dock on his family's property in the 5th grade. It ended up being the place where he proposed! His parents put it up as you walked into the rehearsal dinner as if it had a permanent place in the museum - too cute :)



One of the bride's favorite movies is the Sound of Music so the bridesmaids incorporated a song into their toast to her. Here they are performing :)





The groom participates in one of the toasts...



The beautiful bride after she reclaimed her nite-nite...The bridesmaids stole it from her and dressed it up for their toast :)



There was an after party in the hotel that included lots of dancing!





The wedding reception was held out at a beautiful old farmhouse in the foothills of the mountains outside of town....





There was a cool bluegrass band during the cocktail hour...



Cute details...





A great band for dancing as well...





Lots of time with friends :)







Including the beautiful bride.



Our friend Walker was the token husband for the weekend :)



The bride threw her bouquet...



And left to sparklers...



We capped off the weekend with a trip to the Texas Tavern...



Yum - Cheesy Westerns :)



It was so nice to come home for a visit and great to spend time with old friends!

Fourth of July

Our last visitors had the shortest distance to travel, but it took them the longest to reach us! Our friends Southern in the City and husband (plus Bailey!) braved the holiday traffic from NYC to spend the weekend of the 4th of July with us. Their 5 hour drive turned into 10...oh my...but it was worth it in the end! It was a perfect weekend - sunny and 80 degrees both days, boat in the water, hamburgers on the grill, and lots of relaxing on the porch!

I tried to take lots of pics but missed some of the fun....check out Southern in the City's blog for all the other highlights!

The boys spent a few hours each day mountain biking - Matt's peer pressure finally worked and he convinced his city friend to buy a new bike :) The girls spent time at the lake in our bathing suits hanging out with the dogs.



In honor of the 4th of July holiday, I hung my mom's HUGE American flag...we thought we'd use it as a backdrop for some pics.





My cousin and friend joined us for the celebration...



The husband attempted to figure out our cow puzzle. I can proudly say that even after the attempts of all of our visitors, I'm still the only one to solve it!



I love this series. Cute Bailey couldn't resist the smell of the tasty burger meat on the counter...





Matt took some time to explain the septic system - the boys took it very seriously.



Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me for Bailey's first swim! Willow tried to show her the ropes and she was brave enough to venture in with a little coaxing. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen!

The boys went swimming as well :) Against my wishes, they jumped from the top platform of the stairs...Here they are afterwards.



Lastly, we took some beautiful sunset pics! Ahhh - one of my favorite parts of a lake weekend.





We were so excited to have you guys come visit - come again in the fall and experience another Vermont season! Can't wait to see you soon!

xoxo

Visitors Round 2 - Part II

I'm slowly catching the blog up to the present...I'm back in Virginia for the next week and headed to a girlfriend's wedding this weekend - what fun!

Back to Round 2 of visitors and the rest of our week of Vermont fun :)

The day after Montreal, we decided to leave the lake to explore some more of Vermont. It was rainy and a little chilly (60s in July as Liz and Maegan enjoyed pointing out) so we started at the Ben and Jerry's Factory in Waterbury.






It was crowded so we were all a little skeptical of being herded around on the Factory tour but it was totally worth it to see everything! They don't allow photos of the workrooms (maybe they're afraid someone will steal their ice cream packaging design or maybe the workers just need their privacy?), but we did get pictures everywhere else.

In the big cookie :)





The wall of currently available flavors - they only make 2 flavors a day...the day we were there they were making a new one - milk and cookies - delicious!



The flavor graveyard - where all the retired flavors are put to rest.



The tasting room! I have to note that we all started eating at the same time and of course I was the only one sucking the rest of my ice cream out of the cup at the time of this picture :)



Maegan pushed aside a small child for this photo opportunity.



After Ben and Jerry's we headed down to the Waterbury Farmers' Market where the local Rotary had a band playing. It was a popular event and Maegan and Liz kept pointing out potential friends for us! Ha!



That night Maegan just HAD TO eat at American Flatbread :) We had no problem with that because it's always delicious and so fun to go!





Afterwards we headed to Bluegrass Thursdays at Nectars...





Sadly, Maegan had to leave the next morning :( Liz and Aaron hung out for one more day and we had time to eat lunch down by the harbor and go out in the boat for the afternoon!



Whew - I'm up to 4th of July weekend! It was HOT HOT and would only get even hotter from Saturday on through this week! I can't even explain what 96 feels like with no AC. Wow! It was enough to make us go buy a portable AC unit and lock Willow in the bedroom with it during the day. It's supposed to cool back down this weekend and next week though :)

FRIENDS - thanks for visiting! We had so much fun and can't wait to see you again - miss you already!

xoxo

Visitors Round 2 - Part I

We were lucky enough to have 3 friends from home come visit us after Meg left! I've known them since high school....Matt for way longer than that! We had an awesome week taking advantage of everything Vermont has to offer. There is so much to cover, I'm going to divide their trip into 2 posts! Given my role as the fabulous tour guide (right friends?) I did a much better job on their trip taking lots of pictures. Here you go....

Maegan arrived first, on the same day as Meg left...



Liz and Aaron flew in the next day - We started with a tour of Church Street, doing the tourist thing :)



Next we headed to the lake for a few days to escape the heat! Mom you will be excited to see that we made use of the fish bottle opener - probably a few more times than we should have :)



We spent LOTS of time relaxing on the porch and soaking in the view.



Everyone tried their best to conserve water, including using the outdoor shower, to avoid filling the septic tank. Here is Liz about to enjoy the Princeton spa experience.



"Talkin 'bout my beeesst friend." The boys were reunited at last. Here they are on their sunset kayak ride.



We rode the ferry over to Essex, NY...This is the same ferry we were stuck in front of a few days earlier :)





There was of course wine tasting at the Charlotte Village Winery. They also make delicious fruit wines here - the dry blueberry is my favorite!





Matt was able to break out of the office early to join us! Notice how I haven't mentioned my working at all? Ahhh....the summer life of a school OT.



We visited Montreal - only an hour and a half drive from us in VT! Maegan was really excited to use her new passport :) While we were there, everyone spoke to us in French. Luckily Liz speaks French so we didn't always have to reveal the fact that we were tourists, which made us feel cool. Ha!



In Montreal, we saw beautiful window boxes...



We also saw this car covered in fake grass...exciting stuff I know.



Don't worry, the fun didn't end there - be back soon with the rest of the week!

Meg!

Our first visitor (although she's not really a "visitor"...summer visits to the lake house are nothing new for her) was my sister Meg! She came up for a few days while my mom was still at the lake. It was so nice to spend time as the 3 of us! It was also nice to spend time as the 4 of us when Matt came out for the weekend :)

I must say I am ashamed of myself for taking ONLY ONE picture with her the entire time she was here. I WILL do better when she's here in August (and when my mom is back in a week). The truth is, she's a busy working girl (unlike some of us) and needed her rest. We had such a nice time relaxing time at the lake with my mom that I didn't even think to get out my camera. So here is our ONE pic from her trip.



I'll give you a quick run-down on some of our activities :)

We enjoyed a few beautiful sunny days! Lucky Meg they weren't too HOT (it's 95 here today - yikes!). On one of those days Meg assisted in fixing the doggie dock. The dogs don't have a good way to get in and out of the water around our dock so my mom lovingly built a doggie dock for them. Mr. Boo's favorite activity is now to stand on the doggie dock while chewing his sticks. He broke it the 2nd day.



Here's how it works....



She loves it!



We hung out with the grandparents...






Went antiquing and then had lunch here - too cute!

My mom taught us to play a new game and I'm hooked! It's so fun!



We had an adventure on the boat with my grandpa - we broke down in front of an oncoming ferry and had to paddle/then accept a tow from a sailboat in order to get out of the way - oops! A boat is not a bad place to be trapped while out on a hot sunny day though.

We ate dinner here...



We were out one day running and another dog bit Willow - Meg was quite traumatized by the event but Willow came out with only a small bite mark that's all healed up now.

We also ate cheese, drank wine, read, ate more cheese, talked, and ate cheese yet again. Yum - you can't live in Vermont and avoid eating and drinking :)

I was so sad to see her leave - I have the best sister anyone could dream of! I tried my best to convince her to just move here but she's a southerner at heart and I couldn't talk her into the long cold winters :)

Love you Meg! I can't wait for August!

I'm Back!

Hello blog readers! I hope you all had a happy 4th of July weekend! We have had a fun-filled 2 weeks with family and friends. We didn't actually go anywhere but I've been out of touch for a while! I promise I'll be back soon and will update you, starting from the beginning :)