Easter fun

We are back from our trip to Smithfield, VA, home of Smithfield hams and also of Ben, Jen and Alison. We flew down Thursday morning and got back last night. We had such a great time, they are truly fun people to be with and are great hosts.

I suffered a bit of sunshine envy, though. Their apartment is not only huge and open and has two bathrooms, it’s also VERY sunny. Believe me, I soaked up all the sunshine I could get.

On the left, I’ve included a slide show of pictures from this past weekend. Some are from our trip Friday to see Jamestown. We took a ferry across the river and you’d be surprised how many cars they can pack on that ferry.

Saturday we split up a bit. Ben and Kent went to Wal-Mart, which is a semi treat for us since the nearest Wal-Mart is about an hour away from us in Boston. Jen and I headed out to get pedicures, check out a fabric store and also pick up some groceries. Well the pedicures were pretty interesting—the shop is owned by a Vietnamese woman and on the weekends her two high school aged daughters help out. The daughters actually did the pedicures and they were just enthralled with Jen. They wanted to know where she went to high school and were shocked she was not only out of high school but done with college. I think they mostly loved her blond hair and blue eyes. One of them told me she wished that any daughter she might have would also have blond hair and blue eyes. What normally takes about an hour ended up lasting about 90 minutes. I’m pretty sure they used twice the normal amount of lotion on us since my legs were quite sticky the next morning. Those two really didn't want to see Jen leave.

The fabric store we found is more accurately a quilt fabric store but had a really great selection that works for clothing, especially girl clothing. The woman who helped us said that’s because the owner has a granddaughter and wanted to have those kinds of materials for her to use in making quilts for her granddaughter. I got some more fabric to make a couple of things for Alison—another dress like the one I made her for Easter, plus a dress that has ducks as pockets and also a little bag that has slots for crayons. Jen and I saw one of the finished bags, and she commented that would be useful when they are traveling by car. Jen said Alison tends to lose her crayons so the bag will help plus I can use up extra material left over from other Alison projects.

We all checked out Saint Luke's church. From their website: It is the oldest existing church of English foundation in America and the nation's only surviving Gothic building. It was well worth seeing. I just wish it had been warmer on Saturday because the grounds were lovely and we would have all enjoyed walking around a little more.

Our trip home was sort of challenging. Even before we left for the airport, our flight was listed as nine minutes late. Actually we don’t know that it ever even went at all. Apparently Newark (where we were supposed to change planes) had dangerous wind conditions so at first it looked as though we wouldn’t get home. Then we were put on a later flight out of Newark although the ticket agent sounded dubious that we would even make the later flight. Once down at our gate, we were called up to the counter and told we were now on a US Air flight—so off we went back out through security to get to the correct concourse to catch a plane To Washington DC. We were supposed to fly from DC to Boston on a 9 PM flight but got on a much earlier flight only because it too was super late. Long story not quite so long (yes I know, too late)—we were home by 9:30. Hurrah!

Here’s a short video clip of Alison trying her very first Peep. You can see her Easter basket and she’s wearing the dress I made her, which makes me super proud that Jen liked it that much.