Roanoke, Family, and Friends!

The past couple weeks have been busy ones, filled with family and friends. 

George is finally home from Roanoke! While he was there, the boys and I drove down to visit him on Wednesday afternoon about two weeks ago. Our good friend Emily lives there, so we got to spend the night with her. It was so nice to see George and hang out with Emily. A perfect way to break up a lonely week in Charlottesville.

While in Roanoke, we got to see George's room where he slept. It was in the hospital on a patient floor. In fact, it was a patient room with real patients about 4 doors down the hall! He said it wasn't terrible, the only downside being the pages that went off on the overhead during the night. 

We went out to eat at a great Mexican restaurant in downtown Roanoke and then walked around the mall for a bit. 

 Lance had fun riding the little mall rides...

...while George and Jude enjoyed some ice cream. 

Lance saw this great trampoline and we thought it looked like fun, too. He caught a lot of air as he bounced away! (That's the second floor balcony right there.)

We got "caught" by the people in the booths while we were there and after some intense haggling, we got a great fingernail polishing kit, refills, and lotion for $20. Not too bad, seeing as they were trying to sell it to us for $60. Thanks George!

We spent the night together at Emily's house. After I drove George back to the hospital, the boys and I relaxed in the morning with Emily and her kiddos before driving back to Charlottesville. It was so good to see her!

Jude was sick for a few days, but Lance and I found ways to keep busy. We did an art project I saw online and it turned out really cute. We made fall trees by using the boys' hands as the tree trunks.

 Lance started his tree out, but asked me to finish.

Done!

We've been doing some Christmas shopping, too, and I've been trying to get Lance to tell me what he wants to put on his list. He and Killian looked at the Toys 'R Us catalog for probably close to an hour one afternoon.

Last Wednesday, the boys and I drove up to Northern VA to visit my family. Lance was with his dad for the weekend, but I got to see most of my family. Amy had Veteren's Day off (Thursday) and hung out with us. She and Jason made a great chicken soup that really hit the spot on a chilly evening.

 Jude thought the chicken was fantastic and demolished this whole drumstick!

 Vera is a great dog! Jude loves her and tries to play with her all the time. 

Thursday night, Chad rode the train into DC from NYC so he could interview in Washington on Saturday for an Orthodontic program. It was so nice to see him and spend some time together.

Chad and Mason.

Friday afternoon, Jude and I drove back to Charlottesville to see George and get ready for Emily! She had come up to see some friends and got to spend the night at our house Friday night! We had a great time getting dinner and dessert with her on the Downtown Mall and then chatting with some friends before bed that night. George's parents were also in town to watch Nate perform with the Jazz Ensemble that night. It was a very busy Friday!

Saturday was great. George was finally home for good from Roanoke and we got to spend a leisurely day together. We slept in, took naps, went shopping, walked around the Mall just the two of us (hooray for date night!) and then enjoyed watching "Overboard" after Jude went to bed. It was a great day!

Sunday, we hosted a potluck breakfast-themed dinner for several of our friends. It turned out great! We had a fun time eating tasty fruit, pumpkin pancakes, and fruit smoothies.

Somehow the guys migrated to the kiddie table while they discussed the pros and cons of their various hospital rotations. 

And thus begins another week here in Charlottesville. George has his Family Medicine rotation for the next four weeks. With clinic hours just Monday through Friday and a whole week off for Thanksgiving, it's going to be a vacation!

Happy Halloween!

We got to be together as a family for about 1 hour on Halloween before George had to leave again for Roanoke. Lance had been with his dad the whole weekend and came home around 7:30 p.m. that night. We attempted a family picture around our pumpkin and this is the best we could manage:

Happy Halloween!

The Rally to Restore Sanity

This past Saturday George, Jude, and I got to attend a great rally in Washington DC--The Rally to Restore Sanity.

I'm beginning this post with the end speech by Jon Stewart. If you only get this far into this post,  I want this to be what you see. This is why we went--to show that we can all work together for the greater good, despite our differences of opinions/faiths/ideologies/political platforms.

Fantastic speech.

So... the day of the rally, we accidentally slept in and didn't get on the road until after 9. Seeing as the rally began at 12, it didn't bode well for us. Apparently, we were not alone.

This is us in a line of cars from several different states trying to get TO the Metro station.

Once we got to the Metro station, we had to wait in a line to get INTO the Metro station to buy fare cards. Jude was a great sport.

It was cold!

A long, long line.

(You can see the lines on the opposite side of 66, also waiting to get into the Metro station)

We finally made it into the Metro station just to wait in another line to buy the fare cards.

Apparently, even Captain America had to wait...

Yum?

Waiting in line to get ON the Metro...

Finally ON the Metro (around 1:00 p.m.)

While on the Metro, we saw a good friend of ours from High School. It was fun to run into her!

Tired boy.

And... OFF the Metro to get in another line.

We finally made it to the Mall for the last hour of the rally. It was REALLY crowded!

I, of course, had to video tape our adventure, and George took off to take pictures of the various signs people made. There were a few inappropriate ones (that will no doubt make their way to news stations), but most were fairly "sane".

Just a few of our favorites. :)

While we were there, guess who we found?

After the rally was over, we walked around the Mall for a couple hours while people cleared out and then walked to Union Station to attempt the Metro ride back to our car.

We had a great time! It was a neat experience to be there with so many people who feel the same way we do. Several of our friends from Charlottesville and Ashburn were there as well, but with the crowd being so large and the cell phones not working, we were not able to find any of them. It was still nice to know they were in the crowd with us supporting the cause! Hooray for Sanity!