Camping at Lake Moomaw

These are pictures from a little trip David and I took at the end of June.  I know, what the heck have I been doing the last 4 months!  I'm not even sure, it's all a blur.  

Lake Moomaw sits on the border of West Virginia and Virginia.  It's the first place I've been in a very long time where there is no Verizon cellular reception.  Beautiful and peaceful, and we met our good friends Josh and Leah there.  A couple months prior, Leah had emailed me to let me know they would be here camping, and we could join them if we wanted.  After a little misreading of directions on my part, for some reason I thought they were 2.5/3 hours from us but it was a tad further than that!  

The hammock got a lot of use.  Riley napped in it a couple of times. 

The site setup.

The kids had a great time.  Camping with Joshua wasn't easy but it wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done.  It took a little to figure out how to get him to sleep.  He didn't like our tent for some reason.  But once we figured that out, life was much better.  

Some relaxing by the water.  As usual in lakes, I was nibbled on by a fish a couple of times.  I know because I saw it happen the second time.  It always startles me!

More napping

There aren't many pictures of Hannah because she spent a lot of time out swimming with Josh and Leah's niece, Ava.  

Another nap!

David loves camp cooking.  

Here's Hannah, out with the doggies and Ava.  

The Josh's 

We spent 4 days camping with them.  It's been awhile since we've camped, and we do love it so much.  It's a little more taxing with kids because you have to bring so much stuff!  The van was stuffed to the brim.  But I'm glad we did it.  We don't see Josh and Leah as much as I'd like, so it was nice to spend time around them.  And it was good to be out in our tent again.  The last time was last Easter when our trip ended disastrously because both girls had fever's over 104.  

Scenes from the last month

I've been busy.  Mostly feeling miserable with unpleasant pregnancies.  In the moments I do have when I feel good, I try to take advantage of them.  So here's some of the stuff we've been up to.  

Roller Blade Hannah.  We're making progress!

Lots of water time.  But that was before the rainstorm that has fallen upon the entire state for the last month.  

We lost power in the middle of cooking dinner.  So David and his dad pulled out the camping equipment and and cooked in the garage.  

We made it to the park.  

We enjoyed a week of vacation bible school.  

The girls were up to their usual silly behaviors at home.  

More chaos at vacation bible school.  

We hung out with Ethan.

We spent the 4th of July at our nation's capitol. 

We spent our anniversary off the Chesapeake bay.  

David received a promotion.  

Hannah and Riley performed a birthday parade for David.  

We made it back out to the park.  

New Years Eve

Josh and Leah decided to come in for New Years, and we also had Noelle and Jared over with Kadence.  It was a full house, with a lot of fun.  But I'm jumping ahead.  

The evening started late, since New Years Eve was on a Monday.  David and Noelle had to work, so they didn't get home until after 6 p.m.  And then the guys all wanted to go geocache.  They left a little after 8 I think, with a promise of being back before midnight.  

While they were gone, Noelle, Leah and I chatted over a bottle, ok maybe two, of wine. The guys got back, after having to give up on a cache so they could make it home in time to ring in the New Years.  

We had drinks, and played games.  We played Compatibility, and Loaded Questions.  

The pictures are blurry.  

We had so much fun, and laughed so much!  It was one of those nights where your abdomen hurts from laughing so much.  

Somewhere in their we also called my sister to FaceTime.  She was in the same condition as we all were.  Which made for some very interesting conversations.  

I don't remember who won the games.  I don't remember a lot of what was said but I remember the laughing.  

We somehow managed to stay awake until 5 am, which was quite the accomplishment for us all.  However, we weren't very productive on New Years Day.  

A D.C. Thanksgiving

We broke tradition this year.  For thanksgiving, we opted out of spending it with family and went to D.C. to spend it with some wonderful friends.  

The day was crazy hectic.  We had to get out of the house for Aunt Debbie's cleaning lady.  Then David had to submit a urine sample for a drug test, and I had to drop my car off to get a small repair done.  And we had to be on the road to the airport by 2.  Oh yeah, and all the packing since we were headed to out of Aunt Debbie's house for good the day after we got back from D.C. 

The result was that David and I didn't eat anything after about 8 am, when we had breakfast.  The result was that we ended up at the airport STARVING.  Not a good place to be starving.   

We paid way too much money for Chili's food and horrible service.  Riley, chowing down on some chips.  

This photo is dark but you can see David's mouth hanging open.  Riley is passed out on his chest.  Hannah happily stared out the window for the entire hour and a half flight.  I did school work.  

We lost no time, and got right down to business.  With a pumpkin cappuccino and a vanilla latte.  And then a bottle of wine.  

And then the hot tub.  The wonderfully anticipated hot tub.  

These pictures need no words! 

Thanksgiving morning dip with Hannah.  

This is Liberty and George (as in George Washington).  George is younger, by about a year, he's the one sitting on the other dog.  

The girls watching Brave during our Norton blind taste test.  

Here's Josh, lining things up for us.  

The Norton grape, according to DeLong's Varietal Table.  

The 

Norton

was

AWFUL!!

Most of the wines had been sitting, properly stored, for about 2 years.  Our conclusion is that Norton wines are not designed to sit because Josh and Leah would not buy wine that tasted this bad.  And it was bad.  Like take a sniff and gag bad.  

All the bottles we tried.  Not one of us had the equivalent of 1 glass of wine.  The 2nd 3rd bottle from the left, Chrysalis, was the only wine we determined we would all drink.  

However, no one wanted anything to drink after that.  So we took pictures and laughed about what happened instead.  

Snack night on Friday. 

Which also included an intense game of Risk, then Monopoly.  Josh beat David at Risk in under 10 minutes, then David beat Josh at Monopoly.  

Hannah and Liberty, out geocaching.  

Saturday we went to see Cinderella at a local theater.

This was after Cinderella, at Il Pizzico.  The food here is phenomenal.  Hannah, Leah and I ordered a few dishes and shared them all.  We had ravioli with mushrooms and pistachios, risotto with prosecution and peas, and gnocchi with gorgonzola and truffle oil.  It was all fabulous.  Really, really fabulous.

Hannah with George and Liberty.  Boy did she have fun playing with them.  

The visit was great.  It was incredibly relaxing, especially for a holiday that is normally not relaxing.  It was nice to sit around the table and catch up with Josh and Leah.  It's a reminder of how we, as in people in general, need to make time for the people close to them outside of their family.