Celebration and Family Time

Although there are many times I miss Knoxville on a weekly basis, it is wonderful that I have my sister Kelly who lives only an hour and a half away in Stafford, Virginia and my first cousin Leigh and her family living only an hour away in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I am close to family now and get to see them on a regular basis which is so wonderful. This past weekend my dad and Pam flew into Washington DC from Florida to visit Kelly for her birthday. On Saturday they all came down to Charlottesville with Kelly's husband Leif. We had a wonderful celebration of Kelly's birthday together at Devil's Backbone and Bold Rock Cidery. It was so much fun to spend the day with everyone and I look forward to Thanksgiving when they will be coming to visit us again.

 Posing with Mimi at Devil's Backbone

 Auntie Kells the birthday girl!

 Mimi and her girls at Bold Rock!

 Being silly with Mimi and G-Daddy

 The birthday girl with Leif and Mimi and G-Daddy

 Daughters and granddaughters.

 An Avery Family Photo

All in the Family photo.

Country Living

Although the  city of Charlottesville is relatively small (think population 60K,) it has all that a big city has to offer with restaurants, shopping, entertainment . . . as well as loads of local charm and uniqueness. Howie and I both work in Charlottesville and get our weekly fill of "city life."

 But our home resides in the country town of Crozet, just right outside the Charlottesville city limits. The area all around Charlottesville including Crozet is very pastoral with farms and mountain chains as far as the eye can see. 

 It's really quite peaceful to live in such an amazingly beautiful area of the country and to experience a bit of "country living."

Just to be clear, Crozet is not only comprised of farms, there is plenty to do and we actually live in a village community with lot of amenities that make living surrounded by country very doable for "city" folk like me. 

Old With New

When we moved to Virginia last August, 2015, we needed to get settled and use to our new home, state, city, school . . . before we began to add in extracurricular activities that we had once done in Knoxville. The girls had been involved in many activities, yet in our new home we decided to take a break and add things back in very slowly. The girls tried some new activities through their school's "Bee Program" as well as some activities they had never done in Knoxville such as golf and horse back riding lessons.

 Now that we have lived here for one year and have adjusted to our new life, the girls have started asking if they can do some of the things that they were involved in when we lived in Knoxville. They have also added new activities such as theater and film classes. Both girls have begun taking piano lessons again and Sophie has begun her sixth year of ballet classes.

It is fun to see what truly interests the girls now instead of their original involvement being led by what I decided to enroll them in to take. Emma-Caroline will be taking horse back ridding lessons though the fall as well as taking piano and doing theater. Sophie will take golf lessons and do dance and piano. They will also be involved in after school activities. The most important thing is that they are enjoying their activities and making lots of new friends.