A weekend with friends

How do you know someone is a real friend? If after 12 years you still want to hang out and find ways to see each other even though you live states away. Nolan Madge and Andrew Connors are just such friends. Andrew (aka Louie) was in our High School class and when we graduated he and George decided to room together at UVa. Nolan was randomly put in their suite and they became friends. These three roomed together for their first two years of college and have been friends ever since.

Nolan now lives in New Hampshire, but on October 19th he and his girlfriend Amanda drove down to Virginia to visit. I've hung out with Nolan a handful of times (he even came to our wedding!) and think he's great. It was fun to meet Amanda for the first time, too. George and I both agree that Nolan needs to lock that down before she escapes. She's awesome. 

While they were in town, we took them up to Carter Mountain to pick some apples. 

This time we found a better area that had tons of apples just begging to be picked. It was a blessing and a curse, really. The apples were easy for the kids to pick which meant within 5 minutes we had about 15 lbs of apples and kids that still wanted to pick. I think we walked away with almost 20 lbs of apples and we still had to drag the kids away from the trees.

Nolan and Amanda

And of course we had to try for another family picture.

I'll take it!

Preggo belly hanging out. I think I'm almost 29 weeks in this picture.

Ellie came with us too! She was an angel and just hung out munching on crackers and apple cores. 

Later that night, we drove a couple hours to Christiansburg Virginia to meet up with Louie, his wife Allie and their cute son Jefferson.

They treated us to s'mores and snacks around the fire.

It was cold! Luckily I had several blankets in the car. 

Roomies!

It was great to catch up with these guys! And thanks Nolan and Amanda for making the 14 hour drive down to spend the weekend with us. We really need to find a way to get together more often!