10 (really 11) years!!

My classes this semester are tough and my motivation is waning (4 full years of grad school with one semester off to give birth is rough!) so, I'm way behind in blogging but certainly don't want to forget these awesome events, so late is better than never!!

So, in October, I was able to meet up with my closest college friends along with husbands and kids at William and Mary for our 10 year reunion!!  It was WONDERFUL.  Such an amazing thing that we pulled it off!  We were able to get a timeshare a few minutes from campus and stay in the same building (baby monitors reached far enough for us to all hang out together each night-it really was ideal!)  Considering we all came from Richmond, VA Beach, Baltimore, Boston, and Nashville and have 9 kids 5 and under between us, it really was amazing that this happened! So thankful to have these women still in my life!

Turning 30 did something to all of us-5 of the 6 of us had babies last year!!!! Maggie, Joe, Henry, Elsa, and Sadie!!

CHEEEEEEESE SHOPPE!!!!!!!!!!! I think most of us were excited to see each other first, and to eat Cheese Shoppe second.  YUMMMM.  My order from college was still as tasty-turkey with havarti on french with sprouts and house (dressing) :-)

Jennifer and Jeremy teaching Henry young :-)

Annie, Jennifer, me, Kathy, Libby, Meredith. 

All the girls!!!  Most of us were roommates at some point, we all did Bible Study together and I still talk to some of these girls every week! Amazing Friends.

The big kids had fun too :-)

I took Ella to see my old Mailbox.  I mentioned that I still use my mailbox # as my password for almost everything and Kathy said she does too!  See how much we love W&M?  We're weirdly linked to it still :-)

Those are my feet-and yes, I actually graduated 11 years ago but I started with all these girls in 1997 I just accidentally graduated a year early (stupid AP classes in high school hijacked my college career).

Ella decided on this trip she likes getting her picture taken!  Wahoo!!  I've waited 6 years for this.  Well, not this face exactly but looking at the camera is a huge step forward :-)

Thomas, Will, and Ella.  Will and Ella are exactly a month apart in age.

I feel like we look like a stroller commercial here ;-)

Sadie LOVES holding hands with other kids. Maggie's not so sure.

I told Ella this is old-school time out.

 

Family Pic Fail

Sure do love this girl.

I pretended to be taking a picture of the tree to snap this pic of the colonial dude on his cell phone.  Cracked me up!

Ella actually took this pic!

It was a WONDERFUL trip and we all vowed it will not be another ten years til we all get together again!

Back in the 'Burg

Because of my fabulous college years at W&M, we've loved to visit Williamsburg since we moved back to the East Coast 5 years ago.  I've blogged about the trips here and here and here .  This was Ella's 3rd visit in her short 5 year life!  This time, the trip came as a response to an invitation from my dear friend Ana (I can't believe we've been friends from 8 years already!) who was able to get two timeshare units right next to each other and asked us to join her family for a long weekend trip!  

Ana and me enjoying Cracker Barrel!

We had really fabulous time.  Traveling with friends and 3 kids under 6 could have been disastrous hard but it really was so much fun! Ana and Jonny are so sweet and our families meshed together so easily!  What a blessing.  Ella and their sweet son Daniel (3 years old) played well together the entire time despite the age and gender difference.  We were so happy to see them spontaneously holding hands and really enjoying each other all weekend!

 

 We had a great time in Colonial Williamsburg checking out the sights...

 

  Sadie was cranky the first day until we realized she had a fever! Poor thing! After that she returned to being pretty easy going and slept SO much better than we expected in an unfamiliar place.  She napped and slept through the night really well!  She did however discover the new skill of shrieking on this trip.  Mostly when food isn't coming at her fast enough.  Oh dear Lord let this shrieking phase be short. Good thing I love her so stinkin' much!

I got to give a little tour of part of William and Mary's campus which made me giddy with all the great memories I have there...

entering the Wren building

Sadie looking regal on an ancient chair in the Wren Building

next to the Sunken Gardens

  

Back at the Timeshare (which was spectacular-I highly recommend the Marriott Manor Club at Ford's Colony) we got to do a lot of relaxing as well as swim...

 And had an amazing picnic dinner in the gazebo right outside our front door...

Jonny was our gracious chef!

 

And snagged as many family and group pics as we could...

It really was a great trip and we are so thankful for great friends.  Excited to share and create more memories like these!

Nostalgia and Newness

The week after Christmas we took a trip to Williamsburg, the lovely home of my alma mater :-) I CANNOT believe I graduated TEN years ago. Insanity. But I digress. Even though I'm old and the college kids there look like middle schoolers to me, we love going back there. Chris and I dated for almost 2 years while I was there and have lots of great memories there. It's so sweet to have a place full of nostalgic, positive, fun memories that I can go visit and show to Ella!
Along with all the "old" things we do everytime we're there (Colonial Williamsburg, the campus at W&M, Cracker Barrel, Sal's etc.) we also tried some new things like an aquarium/zoo, Busch Gardens Christmas World, new shopping areas and the new, fancy movie theater :-)

Since we were having a really good, relaxing time we ended up being able to extend the trip and stay almost a full week instead of a few days. God really blessed the time with rest and fun renewed our spirits to start the new year.

Ella insisted on eating sherbert for her "treat" at Busch Gardens even though it was 40 degrees outside

We were all fascinate by this roller coaster and watched the whole time Ella ate her ice cream. Chris experimented with the camera and got some awesome, in-motion shots! That red blur is the coaster car with all the people in it!

We saw a Christmas Show with traditional Christmas music but freaky-monk-Darth Vader-like costumes

Once it got dark they turned on snow machines and thousands of Christmas lights!


The Sesame Street Christmas show was REALLY cute! (and we got to be warm inside for a whole 30 minutes!)

For some reason I really wanted my picture taken in this phone booth. Maybe my recent desire to go to Europe was aroused or something :-)

Ok, this is getting really long...more later!