Leesylvania

As I mentioned previously, on Sunday we went to Leesylvania State Park for a nice little hike.  We chose a 2 mile trail called Lee's Woods Trail.  Here is the description from the website:

"Lee's Woods Trail

The Lee's Woods Trail Is a 1.96 mile moderate difficulty trail with a hard-packed dirt and rock dust surface and terraced steps which is accessible from the road near the entrance to the picnic area. This interpretive trail loops through historic ground including the sites of the homesteads of the Fairfax and Lee families, the Lee family cemetery and gardens, and Free Stone Point. As the trail loops out to Free Stone Point, you are walking the same ground where, General Robert E. Lee ordered the blockade of the Potomac during the Civil War hoping to cut off the North's water access to Washington D.C. Free Stone Point offered an elevated position where a battery of 32 pound cannons was positioned. At the point, you can see a cannon and imagine the deadly plunging fire the South could rain down upon approaching ships."

We happened to take the trail backwards, not that it really matters.  I snapped a bunch of pictures during the walk. It was definitely challenging at times- some of the hills were very steep.  If it had been a trail run it would have kicked my a$$. Luckily we were walking and taking in the sights, too.  On the way there, we stopped at Wawa and got lunch and I packed it into my little backpack so we could stop and eat if we got hungry.  We didn't end up stopping, but it was nice to have our food along with us.  I will definitely do this again, maybe on a different trail(s) next time!

First picture is one of the many bald eagles we saw.  He's that black/white spec in the middle of the pic ;)

This is all that remains of the Henry Fairfax house, which overlooked the river.  It's the chimney.  You can see both floors' fireplaces.  The artist's rendering of the house was really beautiful.  They were definitely rich.

Joey is walking in the grass:

The Fairfax house is to the right, and this is looking over the ridge onto the Potomac and also where the truck was parked:

One of my favorite stops on the trail is the Lee- Fairfax Cemetary.  If you read the below plaques, you will see that they know Henry and Elizabeth Fairfax are buried there within the fenced in area, and that Henry and Lucy Lee are buried somewhere around that area.  Creepy.

As you can see, the trail gets a little steep/rough.  Although I think this picture was taken when we realized we were no longer on the right trail....

One of the times I whipped out my camera for insurance purposes in case Joey fell while doing something stupid...

Hanging out in Lucy's gardens. Big tree fall hard.

You can see some of her Daffodils blooming in the background of the below picture.  It was really cool to think that they had been planted 300 years ago, and they still come back every year.  The forest has obviously grown up around the gardens since then, so there are random daffodils growing everywhere.  It was really obvious they were planted there on purpose:

Such a shame that someone in the 1950's authorized construction and ultimately, the demolition of the Lee home site.

All that remains are some stones from the foundation, marked by those signs.  In case you are confused, this in the house of Henry Lee II, whose son, Harry, was the father of Robert E. Lee, Civil War General.  So it's Bobby Lee's Granddaddy's house.

This was their front yard. How beautiful. They walked outside to this every day. The well was up on the right hand side of this picture. It is always hauntingly beautiful to walk on the same grounds as such significant people did hundreds of years ago.

AAANNNDDDD then we found a vine.

Luckily we survived hanging from a random vine and made it back to the Fairfax house, where we decided it was too windy to eat lunch by the water and headed home for Nascar.

I definitely recommend doing this or any of the trails in Leesylvania. It's $5 to get into the park and there are plenty of things to do and look at there.  Major bonus is it's 5 miles from our house.  Now we just need to get a boat............ ;)

~SG

A Lovely Spring Weekend- Updated!

Wow! It’s been a while since I had a really great weekend that I thought was worth writing about.  This past weekend took the cake.

I even took tons of pictures, however I can’t upload them at the moment because of a little incident that happened yesterday.  Of course when I am at work and I see two missed calls and a “call me” text, I worry that some catastrophe has happened. So when my darling husband told me he dropped the laptop and broke the screen I burst out laughing.  However it was no longer funny when I realized I couldn’t load my pics L  Lucky for all of you, I did take some pictures on my phone, so this post isn’t totally ruined.  I'll try to come back later to add more pictures. 

Friday I did a flex day at work- I left around noon and had zero plans.  I got Chik Fil A for lunch, went home to my pins, and (tried to) take a nap.  The weather was gorgeous so I sat out on the back porch while the dogs ran around the yard (well not the whole yard, just the fenced-in part).  Joey came home at the normal time, and by then we had decided to make plans with our friends Amanda and Ryan, and their two dogs.  Jax and Nyx are Thai Ridgebacks-beautiful dogs- one is an adult and one is a pup, and we weren’t really sure how they’d get along with the Min Pins.  Turned out they got along GREAT!

After nearly burning down the house with the fire pit (it was a liiiittle too windy), drinking beverages, ordering Chinese food (twice), and playing Disney Cranium, we called it a night.

Next morning, we decided to have a “nice little Saturday” and headed to Lowes where we bought a bunch of flowers, mulch and accessories for the yard.  We spent the majority of the day outside, planting night-shade violas, petunias, and FINALLY mulching around those damn trees out front where the burlap has been creeping through for the past two years and driving me NUTS.

We Joey also installed the under-window planters that we’ve desperately needed for so long- not because I really wanted under-window planters.  No, quite the opposite.  See, the idiots who lived in our home last, decided to install the brackets for THEIR under-window planters with drywall anchors, which basically ruined the siding on the house.  My choices were to have a) brackets sticking out of my siding b) huge holes in my siding c) new under-window planters with pretty flowers in them.  As you can imagine, I chose option C.

Saturday night we were hankerin for some crab legs, so we headed up to PJ Skidoos in Fairfax where we always get the crab legs appetizer as our meals.  In the worst possible turn of events, Skidoos had removed crab legs from their menu… THE DAY BEFORE.  Bummed is an understatement.  We decided to drown our sorrows in cider and headed home….

….on the way home, we stopped by and visited our old stomping grounds, The Mews.  Joey lived there in college and I spent quite a bit of time there myself.  Then, in a totally unforeseen turn of events, we somehow ended up at Patriots, probably the last remaining hole-in-the-wall dive bar in Fairfax.  We used to frequent this smoky, delightfully trashy joint for it’s $4 pitchers and bad karaoke singers.  Our friends Ryan and Jason met us there and we had a grand old time people watching and being thankful we’d all graduated and gotten good jobs.

The Mews

Patriots

Sunday we had a nice, relaxing morning. The weather was again, gorgeous, and we opened the back door, sipped coffee, and let the dogs run around.  Around 10 we headed over to Leesylvania Park, sans dogs, for a 2 mile hike through some beautiful historical sites.  We saw several bald eagles, climbed to the edge of the cliff, and swung from vines like Tarzan.  We saw the home site of Henry Lee II (Robert E. Lee’s Grandfather), his wife Lucy’s gardens (the daffodils STILL come back every year. She had a heck of a green thumb!), their front yard, the former home of the Fairfax Family (oh yes, they lived in Prince William County! SO THERE!), and some beautiful trees, wild flowers, and a lovely view of the Potomac River.

*I'm going to do an entirely separate post on this little outing.

Burial site of CAPT Henry Fairfax and his wife, Elizabeth. Henry Lee II and his wife Lucy are also buried on the premesis.

We came home to watch NASCAR and generally enjoyed a lazy Sunday which we ended by steaming crab legs (that I bought at the grocery store) 

What a wonderful, SPRINGY, weekend.  I’m looking forward to many more weekends like this in the future.  Hope you all had a GREAT weekend too!

~SG

Book and Wine Club

I don't think I ever told you guys that I joined a book club.

I know, totally suburban housewife of me, right??

But here's the thing, it's a book AND WINE club. So that makes it okay.

I was inspired by a couple New Year's Resolution posts to read more books.  I don't necessarily set resolutions for myself, but I do agree that I need to be reading more.  When my friend Christina set up a book club for wine lovers, I thought it was too fortuitous to ignore.  We also are choosing Virginia authors and Virginia wines, as homage to our "home state" *yes Mom, I know it's not my home state.

Our first book was The Merlot Murders, and we obviously paired it with Merlot for our first meeting at one of the girls' houses.

Our second book was Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl, so we decided to meet at a local Winery to celebrate the "farm" lifestyle and also pair our meeting with her beloved Chardonnay (and a lot of other wine...).

We met at local Paradise Springs Winery on Saturday, and took the $25 wine tour.  We were given access to the old cabin from the 1700s, had multiple photo shoots, witnessed a marriage proposal, drank wayyyy to much wine, ate a ton of cheese and crackers, and had more photo shoots.  Luckily, we weren't the most obnoxious ones.... It was a great time and I wanted to share some of it with you all.  I definitely recommend doing the tour if you go to this winery. I think the tour was a great way to learn about the history of the winery. Also the wine samples are very, very generous!

SO DRAMATIC

The room where the proposal happened.

 

Early 1700s Chandelier. That I LOVED.



Posing with the Staircase



Amanda is being dramatic with the wine barrels

Cheers!!!!

Our list of wines for the day

I thought it was cool that one barrel was pink.

The entire group.

If you want to read along, our next book is Sophie's Choice, or you can contact me to find out how to join our club! All are welcome!! :)

~SG

I cannot even make this up if I tried...

So this morning around 8:15 (yeah, I was running a little late) I was just standing in line in the Mark Center Starbucks.  If you aren't from around here, the area is a suburban Washington hotspot for Government agencies.  The Starbucks in question has been known to host some riff raff from time to time, but at this hour of the day it is mainly frequented by business people who NEED their morning mocha.

As I said, I was in line behind two ladies, both dressed for work.  There were a few snippy words exchanged when one tried to order (Lady #1) and I guess the other one (Lady #2) snapped that she was there first and proceeded to order.  Lady #2 had finished ordering but she hadn’t moved out of the way yet and I guess Lady #1 felt slighted so she stepped up right into the personal space of Lady #2 and started ordering loudly.  Well, Lady #2 was not happy about that and pushed right by the Lady #1 between her and the cash register, and (if you are lost just keep reading for the good part) suddenly their purses were on the ground and they were yelling and punching each other!!!!!!!!!!! I'm talking a knock down, drag out, hair pulling, fight.

The manager (who remained remarkably calm) came over and yelled at them with the phone in his hand, saying the police were being called and told them both to leave immediately.

Not something I'd expect on a Thursday morning in the burbs.... Woodbridge, maybe ;)

Laura's Island Oasis

As you may know, my sister is in her senior year at PSU.  A couple weeks ago, it was time for spring break, but she had nowhere to go :( 

I decided to save the day by inviting her to our place for a couple of days.  I then went completely overboard in my planning, however I'm still really proud of myself for being such an awesome big sis.

As you may or may not know, I often refer to our house as "The Gish Hotel" because we have a lot of bedrooms and enjoy hosting parties and guests.  I decided to set Laura up with a reservation from The Gish Hotel and then went slightly overboard and created an entire website for our hotel...

After making sure she recieved her reservation confirmation, I went to work creating a little bit of an Island Paradise right here in Woodbridge. 

I left a huge bag of goodies in her room to include a beach towel, flip flops, a visor, a couple fruity drinks, and a gift certificate to the local tanning salon.

I also put another goody bag in the bathroom with some coconut and other island-y shower gel, lotion, and candles.

We weren't expecting her until Wednesday night, but I was so excited when everything arrived on Tuesday that I set everything up right away.  It was a good thing I did all of this early because then Snowpocalypse II happened.  Wednesday morning we had a bunch of snow on the ground, work and schools were all canceled, and I told Laura that if she didn't come to our house ASAP, that she'd be stuck at her friend Katie's in Fairfax until Friday.  Unfortunately I happened to be wrong (I'm blaming the meteorologists), but she got her butt over to our house and we got to play in the snow together all day.

We also played Disney Cranium

The dogs tried to help

After a long day of sledding down our ivy patch, it was time for early bedtime because we had to go back to work in the morning.

Thursday, Laura stayed at home with the Pins while we went to work. 

Friday, I took the day off and surprised her with a massage and took her to use her tanning gift certificate.

Then we baked cupcakes for Joey's birthday party at the bowling alley before heading out to a local brew house where we all tried a bunch of really alcoholic beers.

Saturday we checked out a local winery with Lydia before heading home to get ready for the big birthday party.

It was GREAT to have my sister here and we will be seeing her again at The Gish Hotel very soon!

~SG

PS: For reservations, contact me!

Happy Birthday Joey!

Another year, another birthday.  This year I organized a little field trip down I-95 to Splitsville- it's not what it sounds like! It's a huge popular awesome bowling alley/movie theater complete with a full bar inside.  There is actually one in Disney World too, but we've never been because why would you go see a movie or go bowling while you are at WDW??  We heard it was really cool, so we decided it was worth the trip!

Well, suffice it to say that the Fredericksburg Splitsville is nothing like the one in Disney or probably any other one in the company and is honestly a huge rip off.  They wanted us to pay a minimum of $90 to reserve 1 lane (8 people) for an hour and a half.  Well, we had closer to 20 people and I was not about to pay over $200 to reserve a lane, expecially when they were very clear on the phone that all you get for your money is the luxury of not having to wait.  You still have to pay for bowling, etc.

Strangely, their website states that reserving lanes gets you unlimited bowling and bottle service.  I was told by Splitsville in Fredericksburg that unlimited bowling and bottle service is for kids parties only.  Ummmmmmmmmmmmm.... I sure hope they are referring to bottles of milk.

So, after gathering at the bar and waiting over 2 hours for our lanes to be "ready", it was finally our turn.  Here are a few pictures from Joey's 28th birthday party.  We had a great time, but we'll be sticking to the local lanes from now on!

Duck Dynasty "themed" cupcakes (those are ducks)

We had a great time and now Joey is another year older.

I forgot to charge my camera so that's why these pictures all kind of suck. They came from my phone.

Happy Wednesday!

~SG

Sarah’s Top Ten for Looking Put Together When You’re Really Not

The book I’m currently reading concludes each chapter with a “Top Ten”, so I’ve been inspired by recent events to put one of my own together.

Daylight Saving Time has been really rough.  Losing that 1 hour of sleep has made me really groggy in the morning and it has become increasingly difficult to get out of bed.  This has left me scrambling to look awake and professional at work.  Since I’ve become pretty professional at faking it til I make it over the years, I thought I’d share some of my tips and tricks.  If anyone from work is reading this, I guess my secret is out. But hey, we are all tired and none of this is illegal. So without further ado…………………..

Sarah’s Top Ten for looking put together when you’re really not….

1.       Keep a few pairs of heels and a jacket in your office (or in your car if you don’t have an office).  It’s easy to grab the closest shoe to the front door, which in my case is usually uggs or flip flops.  Also?  That jacket is good when you are unexpectedly called down to meet with the CEO when you are wearing a Target shirt from 10 years ago.

2.       Jewelry.  Running late? Grab earrings, a necklace and a bracelet and put it on in the car.  Jewelry makes it appear that you took the time to care about your outfit and accessories, even if you didn’t.

3.       Wrinkled pants?  Solution: wear a dress, or better, a skirt suit.  I wear dresses approximately once per month, when my laundry bin is full.  Wearing a skirt suit on a Friday will make you look like an overachiever, even when the truth is your laundry pile is 10 feet high.

4.       Make Up.  I don’t wear make up to work. Ever. I don’t even wear concealer.  I sport those bags under my eyes with PRIDE.  If I were to pick ONE thing to wear, I’d always go with MASCARA.  Glob that baby on! The more mascara, the more it looks like you took “time” to put make up on, and also it draws attention away from those bags under your eyes…

5.       Hair. Greasy? Unruly? Frizzy?  Throwing it back into a ponytail or messy bun is always an option, but if I have an important meeting, I always go for the FRENCH BRAID.  Takes 5 minutes to do in the bathroom, and looks like you spent time putting together an elegant hairstyle that will almost always get compliments.

6.       Nails. Buy some Maybelline Express Finish and leave it in your desk drawer.  Brush it on while your boss is in a meeting, wait 60 seconds and voila! You look like you care.

7.       Hungover?  Here’s a tip: Don’t pour that third glass of wine on a weeknight.  But just in case you did, drink lots of water during the night and take a couple advil first thing in the morning.  Also? Make sure you clean that purple residue off your lips or else everyone in the office will know what’s up.

8.       Somewhere to be?  Walk quickly.  Studies show that people who walk quickly look busier.  Also, carry a notebook with you.

9.       Tired in a meeting?  Take notes.  Taking extensive notes will help keep you awake, as well as involved in the meeting.  Even if you are writing things that are completely unnecessary, it’s better than accidentally falling asleep, right??

10.   Be confident.  Rock whatever look you’ve decided to (or accidentally) wear that day.  Confidence is an accessory that is just as important as that necklace you grabbed that doesn’t match.  So when you are exhausted, wearing two different shoes and freaking out cause you forgot to let the dogs out, just put your chin in the air and own it!

Harlem Shake

I shamelessly admit that while Joey was gone this weekend I spent my Friday night drinking merlot and trying to understand the Harlem Shake by watching 100 youtube videos.

I'm still confused as hell but here are the links to some of my favorites:

1. Funnier every time i see it. Confederate flag? omg. (I apologize in advance if this is offensive. Take it at face value.)

2. Major points for being under water.

3. Puppies.

4. Well played, WVU.

5. In honor of St. Patrick's day....

6. Because the FAA is investigating

8. hahahha this one is pretty fabulous

9. The difference when you become pro...

10. I don't care who you are. this is impressive:

and... for your finale, go to www.youtube.com and type "do the harlem shake" in the search bar. hit 'search' and wait.............. :)

Turkey Leg

When we visit Disney World we always buy stupid souvenirs that we normally would never pay money for... let alone Disney prices.............

This brings me to one of Joey's prized souvenirs- a "turkey leg" scented car air freshener.  (No I'm not making this up.)

via

It took us a while to unpack from our trip, but when we finally opened the suitcase the dogs found the air freshener right away.  We had to pull it out and put it on the dresser.

One day a couple weeks ago, Joey decided to take the thing out of its' wrapper.  Why, I don't know.  Because it was potent. The dogs were all over it.  Joey had it hanging on a kitchen cabinet for a hot second before I freaked out and told him to "get it out of my house this instant". 

Luckily for all of us, he obliged and went outside to put it in his car where it belonged.

The following Saturday I got in my car to run errands and it smelled faintly of vitamins.  I thought it was items from the care package I was getting ready to send to Afghanistan but when I went to put the keys in the ignition I felt the turkey leg that was hanging from the steering wheel.

 Joey wasn't home so instead of just putting it inside, I placed it carefully inside his work shoe.  I had to pile other shoes on top of it so the dogs wouldn't spoil the surprise.

Monday I got a nasty email about how he'd found it first thing in the morning and his shoe smelled more and more like turkey as the day went on.

I laughed.

Two weeks later and the turkey leg hasn't made another appearance.  This would  be fine if it wasn't missing.    I know my husband and I know its' somewhere waiting for me to discover it.  I've laid in bed wondering where the H it could be, and I honestly don't know.

The other night I asked again where it was and he said I'd likely "seen it already but not realized it". Um... how do you miss that!?!?

I'm freaking out wondering where it is and why I haven't noticed it yet.  Any suggestions are welcome.....

Things that go bump in the night Part....III?

Our house is kind of drafty.  At least the area where our stairwell/bedroom doors is.  We have double doors to our bedroom that don’t close firmly, so if the heat kicks on or someone opens a door downstairs, the change in air pressure causes the doors to rattle.  How softly or loudly they rattle depends on whether the heat kicked on or someone opened a door.

So, like many people who have learned to tell who is coming up the stairs depending on how they sound while doing so, I have learned to know the difference in the noise the doors make.  I can now tell when the heat kicks on in the middle of the night vs. when Joey opens the back door.

Wednesday morning, around 3am, someone opened the back door.  The doors rattled very loudly together which woke both me and Joey up.  I, startled, gasped just like my Mother used to when suddenly awoken (and we used to make fun of her too) and, I am proud to say, perfectly executed my escape plan WHICH I had never once tried out except for in my head while imagining what I would do if someone broke in.  I sleep on the left side of the bed, so I simply threw off the covers, rolled off the edge and hid in the area between the bed and the wall. 

Doc was standing up under the covers with his bleary eyes peeking out wondering why we’d woken him up.  Joey calmly reached over and turned on the light.  

“Bang! Chloe? You’re dead.”

It was in that moment that I realized Chloe had been missing from the picture.  Here she came, trotting back over to the bed, happy that she had successfully jumped on the doors to rattle them in order to wake us up so we could go downstairs and get her treats.

Have you ever heard of a dog that trained its’ humans??

Now you have.

 

Culprit

I guess I have to add another noise to that list: “Hungry Min Pin”.

(Side note: Lately Chloe has taken to getting up in the middle of the night and standing next to my side of the bed, barking.  Well, “boofing”.  You know, that slight bark/half woof noise they make? Well, It’s been getting her in trouble a lot lately and I guess she decided to kick it up a notch…)