Labor Day Weekend

The weather here in Virgina has been very nice these last few weeks. We have had highs in the 70s and low 80s. We had beautiful weather for Labor Day weekend and had a great time showing my parents some of the sights in the area. We visited a local park called Maymont. It is 50 acres of land donated to the city of Richmond by the Dooley family of the 1800's. The house was amazingly comfortable for a home of those times. They were millionaires and their estate was beautiful to tour. They also have two large gardens on the property with a waterfall, and animal exhibits of black bears, bald eagles, and many more. The children's farm is very cute; they can feed and pet many of the animals. Gary wasn't able to make it on the tour so I hope we can go back soon for a picnic in the Japanese garden!
The next full day we spent at Shenandoah National Park. We first stopped for a picnic then went on for a hike. We climbed a place called Bearfence. It was amazing. It had a 'rock scramble' that lead to a 360 degree view. The rock scramble was more like challenging rock climbing. I was so proud of my mom. For being so scared of heights she did an awesome job! Go Mom! (I'll have to get some pics on here for the full effect) While coming down off the trail we ran into a doe with her baby. We stayed and watched them for a while, then saw something none of us had ever seen before. The baby deer started nursing! It was quite something to see in the wild.

We then went fly fishing in some cool mountain streams. They men didn't catch any keepers but they had a lot of fun catching a few little ones. Then, we were off to find a black bear. We had not seen any bears all day, so we decided we would go cook them some pork chops and see if they would come out to eat. As we were driving back up the mountain for our cook-out, Mom spotted something black on a hill. There was a black bear invading someone's vegetable garden!! We watched him go in for a snack then went to cook our own meal. Our pork chops didn't attract any other bears, which is probably a good thing. We had pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy!! Yumm it was very good and a lot of fun to cook together outside.
We got back very late, so we slept in a bit the next day then it was off to Williamsburg. We went to the colonial part of the city and ate lunch at a tavern that was opened in 1766 by a man named Josiah Chowning. Then we found an old church and sat in George Washington's pue, Thomas Jefferson's pue, and even Patrick Henry's pue. It was neat to think we were in the same place those great men were so long ago. We then did a little shopping at the old candy shop and played with the toys in the old toy shop. By then we were getting hungry so we headed back to Chowning's tavern for dinner.

They had some musicians and a magician to bring you back to colonial times. The themed restaurants were a lot of fun. We then came back to the house but we didn't want our holiday to be over so soon, so we played cards until 3am!! The girls won of course! The next day we ate a great breakfast at the IHOP then we had to take my parents back to the airport =( The long weekend was a lot of fun, but it went much too fast!
Now we are back to everyday life again, which isn't bad in its self. Today we went for a bike ride around the lake after dinner! It was a blast! I hope we can make it a habit!