potty people and the beach

because some of you are so anxious to see more pictures, i'm condensing day 2 and day 3 into one blog post! yay! these are two days that we didn't do TOO much, more leisurely kind of days. i had to start off with pictures that i knew some of you would get a kick out of:



full day number two would have been saturday. we rode the metro to the airport to pick up a car for the weekend. we drove down to williamsburg, VA, which should have taken 2.5 hours, but because of traffic (UGH), it took us another hour. because we got a late start (i.e we slept in, then we stopped to get breakfast at a grocery store. they had donuts the size of your outstretched hand. their slogan was, "colossal donuts: the donut that eats other donuts for breakfast" or something like that. this was part of my compromising, donuts are not a healthy breakfast. but add some yogurt and orange juice, well it leans a little bit more to the healthy side. but not really. but remember, we're compromising...) we didn't get there until 2:00 p.m. so we didn't get to spend near the time in williamsburg as we'd hoped. but by the end of the time there, we decided that the timing was about right.

so i took a lot of pictures of houses, gardens, and businesses in williamsburg. and once you've seen one old house, you've seen them all. so i'll show you a few and you'll get the idea. the one thing surprised me about williamsburg was how casual it all felt. we've been to a number of communities set up to reflect the past and this, the one that i thought would be the most rigid and formal setting, with character portrayal and all, was in fact the most laid back and informal. the people that work there don't pretend like they are from that time period, they just know a lot about the people and times they are representing. it was an interesting visit, not exactly what i was expecting.

house:


house with garden:


businesses:



here's the governer's palace. we didn't tour it, cost far too much to add that to our pass. but it is pretty from a distance.


the kids all locked up. as you can imagine, there was a line to get these pictures taken.



something really funny happened as we were getting ready to leave williamsburg. this guy was walking up the street, in traditional costume and kelly said, "take a picture." so i did. once he got up to where we were standing, he approached us, like he was going to start a conversation. he was really close, like you'd be talking in a small group. he said "hi." we said hey back and waited for him to say something. the next thing he did was veer in front of kelly and walk off. we just stood there, stunned. then started laughing. we decided he must have been the town kook. maybe it was one of those "you had to be there moments" huh?


leaving williamsburg we drove to norfolk, our hotel was right across the street from old dominion. kind of cool. the hotel, much to annie's delight had two fluffy queen beds and HGTV. so we got dinner from the hotel restaurant and watched a couple of home decorating shows then went to bed.

we got up the next morning and went to church then headed across chesapeake bay, much more of an experience than i would have ever imagined. we were on the bridge that turned into a in a tunnel that turned back into a bridge that turned back into a tunnel that turned back into a bridge for 20 minutes. i know that engineers are smart people, but by the time we were done with that trip across the water, i honestly had white knuckles. the only saving grace? the weather was lovely. i can't imagine driving across that when it's stormy.

we were headed to chincoteague island, home of misty and the other wild ponies. when annie was in elementary school she LOVED anything horse related. we had to stop at the famous island. we didn't see any wild ponies, but we did get to spend a great day playing in the sand and in the water. i took over a hundred pictures, but they are all mostly the same. water, sand, kids. so i'll just show you one and tell you how much our family loves the beach. we could live here on a permanent basis:


after the beach, we drove to annapolis and walked around for a while, decided we were too cheap to buy seafood for dinner, headed back to the airport, dropped off the car, rode the metro back to the hotel, and ordered pizza. it was a great weekend.

in honor of our 16th anniversary today, i leave you with a self portrait of kelly and myself, and the heart in the sand picture. i am one lucky gal to have found this guy. he's perfect for me.