friends and family.

A couple posts ago, I said “These past two weeks have been such a whirlwind, it has been hard to find time to sit down and write anything! But more on all of that later!” Well, now is later and I am going to share a little bit about the craziness that has been happening here!!

A little background: I have these two GREAT friends from college, one whom I lived with (!!), who I haven’t seen for over a year! Since our time together then, we have all moved, married, or started new jobs that left us in three different states. Bummer. However, we have tried to make a point to see each other at least once a year whether it was in Chicago, Fort Wayne, or Cleveland! This year, Kaitlin and Emily decided to make the (long) trek out to Virginia to visit me! I was so excited and we were all counting down the days until their arrival!

The first night they got here M and I took them for some Virginia BBQ and then we may or may not have watched The Bachelorette while we talked, caught up on each others lives and just enjoyed being together!

The next day we did a lot of sight seeing and we almost ended up in Maryland…

First, we went to George Washington’s childhood home and we saw his birth place monument.

We enjoyed learning more about the area and almost getting attacked by a large black snake! We talked a lot about how neat it was to be walking where history was.

Kaitlin also made a new friend while we were there! 

After that, we went to Westmoreland Berry Farm to pick some black berries! After sweating profusely, we treated ourselves to their homemade Berry Sundaes and an ice cold bottle of water 🙂

…more on the berries later!

Our last stop for the day was Colonial Beach.

Although the sand felt like it was on fire, it was nice to sit in the sand and put our toes in the water.

Little did they know, but Kaitlin and Emily happened to come during the ‘heat wave’ in the south; it was the hottest and most humid day of the summer — we melted on that beach!

We traveled back home with our berries to M making dinner for us! (He’s the greatest!) That night, M made his sauce, homemade bread for us to have with spaghetti! YUM. While he was finishing up, we ran out to the store to get some ingredients to make blackberry cobbler with our fresh picked berries!

Holy goodness. We ate the whole thing 🙂

Wednesday, we spent some time around Fredericksburg. I showed them our church, a couple local landmarks and we walked around downtown for a while.

I took them to one of my most favorite spots in all of Fredericksburg, Chatham House!

The following morning, we had to say our goodbyes. We made promises to see each other soon, which made it a little bit easier! Love those girls!

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The second part of the craziness was Boston. The morning the girls left, I packed and quickly drove up to my parent’s house so we could drive to Boston for the weekend. My sweet cousin Tegan and her husband Toph are expecting their first child next month so we went up to celebrate new life!

The trip to Boston was LONG. We drove and drove and drove for what seemed like days but was actually only 11 hours. We got up there just in time to have dinner at 10 o’clock at night on Friday. Saturday, we spent time at Rockport Beach and a waterfront restaurant for lunch.

It was the MOST crowded beach I have ever seen! It felt like we were right on top of the people sitting next to us!

At lunch, my sister Bekah and I both tried an oyster for the first time. It was a very interesting taste and texture and I don’t know if I will have one again 🙂 But I did have the BEST lobster roll in the world.

Delicious.

We drove through some quaint, old towns in Massachusetts and saw some really neat buildings.

But the main reason we were there was for the baby shower!

Here are Tegan and Toph getting ready to open the gift from my aunt, cousin, me my mom and sister with the sweet baby banner I made Cole!

Look at these beautiful parents-to-be! Aren’t they the cutest?!

Sorry for the novel-like post, I had a lot to share! And check back soon for pictures from our beach vacation 🙂