Horses on the Beach

We spent the weekend in Virginia Beach. Ashlyn had her last State Conference there this weekend as a State Officer. She's been involved in FCCLA since middle school, starting out as a State Officer for Georgia, then twice here in Virginia. She's had a super time, grown tremendously and has become a young adult while involved in this terrific organization. Being a graduating senior this year, she won't be able to run as a State Officer again but can still be involved in many different capacities.

We had a few breaks from the festivities and saw these horses while sitting on the pier!

Rural Thursday - Blog Hop #14

Dalton with his big catch!

We went to Craig Creek on Easter Sunday. The water is still too cold to swim in but Dalton can spend hours fishing patiently. Braden on the other hand cannot and will choose to fish only after Dalton catches one like it is some sort of competition but Braden lacks the patience Dalton has and gives up after about 5 minutes. "To the victor goes the spoils".

It's been and is still a very busy week so I haven't had time to visit much and I apologize! Things *should* return back to normal Monday!

Linking with Rural Thursday :)

Black & White Wednesday

An old house we pass on the way to Craig Creek, in Botetourt County. I really love this place!

Linking with Black and White Wednesday!

Barn Charm Tuesday

Honestly...I didn't know what to do with this picture lol...I was so disappointed. A couple of weeks ago when we went to Cascade Falls there were SO MANY great barns along the way and I just snapped and snapped excitedly knowing that I was adding all these super barns to my "Barn Charm" back up file for those rainy days. Got home and they were awful...super blurry, but then they were drive by's after-all, but I thought they would be spectacular since I had the cam set to "blur reduction" ha! Anyway, I played with this on picmonkey while drinking a glass of wine and this was the best I could do and I hate to be left out on Barn Charm day so there it is, take it or leave it.... BUT we plan to get back in that area soon so this time I'll make the husband S.T.O.P.! in front of the barns!

This barn is somewhere between Botetourt County and Giles County...I lost track!

Go on and check out more barns!

And while posting this I have noticed Blogger changed things around yet AGAIN so my paragraphs are not working so I have to go back and figure out how to make that happen...AGAIN...hopefully they didn't enable word verification this time...if so, please let me know.

Cascade Falls

Cascade Falls is a 69 foot waterfall in Giles Co, Va. The hike to view it is a pretty easy 2 mile walk. Definitely worth it!

Friday Fences # 5

We pass this neat old gate on the way to our spot on Craig Creek. I love this gate!

Linking up with Friday Fences...have a great weekend :)

Rural Thursday - Blog Hop # 12

This cute little store is located in Giles County, Va. We passed it on Sunday while headed to Cascade Falls. We hiked a 2 mile trek up to the falls and wow, was it beautiful! You know I'll have pics of the falls to share eventually!

In other haps around here, Ashlyn, our oldest, 17, totaled her truck a little over a week ago. Thank goodness she wasn't hurt. She was heading home from her boyfriend's house, a very dark, rural road and swerved to avoid some deer but hit an embankment. Her truck (a full size F150) caught air and took her through trees, she took out a cable that holds the telephone pole in place and eventually stopped, (got stuck), right before hitting a big tree full on. She called me to tell me that she had wrecked, was ok, but her truck was stuck. I went out to pick her up and was shocked by what I had seen, where her tracks had lead. So very thankful that she is A-OK! So now we have been car shopping for her and hopefully she will be a bit more careful out there on the road! Teenage drivers...so scary!


Linking up with Rural Thursday...join along!

Black & White Wednesday

The "Walton's" kitchen @ Walton's Mountain Museum .

Barn Charm Tuesday

Giles County, on the road to Cascade Falls, which we hiked to on Sunday....beautiful!

Linking to Barn Charm, of course!

Old Country Store

Built in 1908/1909 in Nellysford, Nelson County, Virginia. There is a nice picnic area out back and pretty walking trails. We stopped here and picnicked on bbq pulled pork sandwiches that we picked up from Blue Ridge Pig after leaving Walton's Mountain and after we were finished eating we walked some of those calories off on those pretty trails!

*This store wasn't open when we were there and we peeked in the windows and didn't see anything but some boxes. I read online while researching that it was being used as an art museum but I am not sure if they are still using it as one. Obviously the building and grounds are very well taken care of though!

Linking up with Our World!

Friday Fences # 4

Craig Creek, Craig County, Va

Linking up with Friday Fences :)

On a side note, do you see an outline of a box in the upper right sidebar? It keeps showing up and I have no idea what it is. Sometimes it is there, sometimes not. I deleted a bunch of stuff but it still pulls up....has this happened to anyone? It's driving me crazy! (or crazier!)

Rural Thursday - Blog Hop # 11

On Saturday morning we drove up to Schuyler, Va to visit Walton's Mountain Museum. Did you know the actual family "The Waltons" is fictional, based on the real family, The Hamners? Earl Hamner, aka: John Boy wrote a book based on his childhood, which was then made into the tv show, The Waltons. It wasn't as simple as that but that is the cliff note version.

We took a tour of the museum which I linked above which is NOT part of the house tour. The tour we took is housed in his old elementary school (and that was pretty neat!) with rooms set up like different rooms of the house from the show. The museum and owner of the house should get together and combine the tour as we were a bit confused and after paying for the museum tour we felt we didn't really need to pay to see the inside of the house now too so I just snapped a photo of it from the outside and we left and picked up some lunch! It is pretty though isn't it?!

You can read about the house here and see some pictures of what the inside looks like. I'll show more pictures from the inside of the museum in the upcoming days, aren't you excited?! haha

And it's Thursday so of course I'm linking up with Rural Thursday Blog Hop! Come along!

Black & White Wednesday

We went to Walton's Mountain Museum on Saturday and I saw this neat old RC Cola Cooler. I just knew I had to take its picture for Black and White Wed!

Barn Charm Tuesday

Near Craig Creek, Craig County, Va

Macro Monday # 2

The Azaleas are all a'bloom!

Linking to Macro Monday

Friday Fences # 3

Drive-by along Blacksburg Road, Fincastle....

Today marks the first day of spring break. What happened to our warm temps? Yesterday was only about 50 and rainy...today is sunny at least but only reaching the mid 60's...I want our mid 70's to 80 temps back please!

Linking with Friday Fences!

Have a happy Good Friday :)

Rural Thursday - Blog Hop #10

On Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Martinsville for the Nascar race. We loaded up my mini van with coolers, put Ozzy in the yard and hit the road. About 5 miles out my poor little vehicle started to over-heat so back home we went. Got home and Nick lifted the hood to check out what was going on underneath and twisted his back in a weird way that he knew it was on the verge of going out. He decided that wasn't going to stop us and had the kids transfer all the stuff over to Ashlyn's truck, and away we went....again!

When we arrived at the place we park, we immediately started on our breakfast of blt's. I had cooked the bacon and toast the night before and wrapped the bacon in foil so the only thing we needed to do was to warm it on the grill and then assemble the sandwiches. After we finished eating, we went in and checked out the vendors then came back out to the truck and grilled hot dogs to take inside. We all bring in our own little cooler with a few drinks, hot dogs, pizza (which we picked up the night before and individually wrapped) sunflower seeds, nachos (I bag tortilla chips, individually and then pack everyone a small container of cheese dip) and peanuts. Nick and I bring our own beer in our cooler and we don't have to buy a thing inside the race except this time we saw someone selling boiled peanuts, which we haven't had since leaving Georgia, so we did buy those, oh, and cotton candy, although I'm not a fan of that really, but everyone else is.

After the race, we went back to the truck and Braden and Dalton grilled us some hamburgers for dinner. This works out great so you don't get stuck in tons of traffic and can just chill out for a while. Ashlyn drove us home, my first time to ride with her on the interstate. She did good, but I couldn't help being a little afraid!

Had my mini-van towed to Firestone and it turned out to be a leaky water pump. So grateful to have "Betsy" back home and running again!

Today is the last day of school and then spring break begins! We really have no plans but Ashlyn is going to be leaving for Virginia Beach on Sunday with a friend and her family. I will miss her but know that she will have a blast!

And that's what's happening in my corner of the world!

Visit Rural Thursday and see what's happening in other corners of the world!

Black & White Wednesday

Trestle bridge of old Winchester & Potomac Railroad, in Harpers Ferry, WV





Visit the 2 links above for more black & white!

Barn Charm Tuesday

A little, old barn somewhere on Catawba...Botetourt Co, Va

To see more barns, visit BARN CHARM!

April Theme Day - Cobblestones

Harpers Ferry, WV


To see more cobbles, visit here!

We're headed to Martinsville for the race so I'll catch up with everyone during the week! :)

So happy that CDP is back up!
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