Bullets over VA

I'm never going to get caught up on our trip to Virginia last week if I don't just dive in and hit the highlights. So . . .

One of our friends emailed me this photo of Fred and me at Wednesday night's formal, and I thought it was pretty good:

On Thursday, Annabelle was feeling sick, so she stayed back at the hotel while Mike and I toured UVA. Very impressive! All of these college tours make me wish I could get a do-over on college.

Friday morning we met Fred's big brother from his fraternity at Bodo's for breakfast:



Fred's conference ended around noon. After lunch we drove up to NoVA to hang out with my friend Miki and her family.

Virginia seems to have better pumpkin patches than Kentucky, so we headed out to one Saturday morning for a souvenir gourd. We took advantage of the colorful scenery to get a couple family photos:





(These photos are making me ponder the idea of sending Halloween cards instead of Christmas cards this year. Hmmmm . . . )

Mike, Annabelle, and Miki's daughter Victoria posed for this picture to commemorate their long-standing devotion to Godzilla:



And Mike found a tiny house to hang out in:

The kids are past the age where they grow that quickly, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get our traditional back-to-back pictures:





You can see the pictures from June here Or, if you really want a shock, go here to see the back-to-back pics from when he deployed to Iraq in 2004.

My favorite Thai restaurant in the entire world is House of Siam in Springfield. Their pork with garlic sauce sets the standard by which all others are judged. From 1995 to 1997, I ate their at least once a week, or rather I would get carry-out, which I would enjoy while Annabelle took her nap and Mike vegged out in front of his afternoon TV shows. Any time we go back to NoVA for a visit, I have to eat there at least once, and they always remember us and are just so nice. The owner was horrified to hear that Fred isn't allowed to drink in Afghanistan, so he insisted on treating him to a beer:

We dropped Fred off at the airport Saturday night. Seven more months until R&R, which he is taking late in order to be here for Mike's graduation in May.

I meant to blog all this last night, but after driving 600+ miles in one day, I couldn't summon up the energy to do more than veg out in front of the TV. The kids had one final day of fall break today, which they spent working on homework (Annabelle) and college applications (Mike). I'm glad this will be a short week!