Valentine's Day Weekend

Tommy and I made our way to the Outer Banks to meet Mimi, Pa, GG, and some family friends for Valentine's Day weekend. Sadly, Daddy had to stay behind to catch up on work since all the snow had pushed things back a bit. Friday evening was spent at the Belcher's with the whole gang. We had a wonderful dinner, and Tommy had a great time playing with everyone.

Saturday was freezing so we stayed inside most of the day. Tommy had fun playing with his trucks and golf clubs and trains and watching the snow come down outside the window. That afternoon, we decided to brave the cold, so we bundled up and headed down to see the ocean. If you look closely in the pictures below, you can see the snow blowing by Tommy's blue sweatpants! It was so cold, so we only stayed long enough to find a few pretty shells before heading back up to the beach house.

On Sunday, Pa had big plans for Valentine's Day, so he disappeared for a few hours to do his shopping. That night, he sent all the girls (GG, Mimi, Kathy, Suzanne, and I) out to the hot tub while he and Tommy cooked dinner and got everything ready in the house. When we got outside, we found the hot tub surrounded by candles and rose petals, and a few minutes later, Pa and Tommy came down wearing white gloves to bring us champagne, shrimp cocktail, and flowers. After our nice warm soak, we headed upstairs for champagne shrimp and pasta. Everything was delicious, and the waiters were very handsome :) Wish Pete and Cath could have joined us for our night of fun!

Monday was beautiful (of course, on the day we were leaving!) so we headed down to the beach for a while before hitting the road. Tommy found lots of nice shells and got to spend a little more time with everyone. We had a wonderful weekend, but wish Daddy could have been there with us!

Funny Faces

More SNOW!

What a wonderful SNOWY winter it's been here in central Virginia!! After the foot of snow we got in December, January felt like it had to keep up and brought it's own foot on the very last weekend. Not to be outdone, February has started off with a bang dropping ~4 inches of snow (on top of the 4 that never melted from last weekend) and a few inches of freezing rain mixed in for good measure. The following pictures are from January's snow since we haven't been out in February's yet.

That Saturday morning, Tommy woke up still feeling a little under the weather from his cold and was obviously in no mood to take pictures. Daddy turned that frown upside down with a little tickle/wrestling match! After that, Tommy was back to his old self and asked to make a "choo choo train track." Out came the Brio tracks, a fantastic maze was built, and voila: a couple hours of quiet entertainment. Snowy Saturdays are great days for playing with choo choo trains.

On Sunday, Tommy was feeling much better so we bundled up and headed outside. We had spent the week before looking for a sled, but it seems that the city of Richmond and all surrounding areas are completely sold out! So we improvised and got out a cookie sheet :) It worked out a lot better than I thought! After spending about an hour outside, we headed back in for hot chocolate...and more trains.

Even MORE Christmas Pictures

This third installment of Christmas pictures comes from beautiful Cotton Plains Farm with the Butler family. We had a fantastic few days riding and climbing on tractors, playing with dogs and kitties, spinning around on the Gator, eating way too much food (one million black olives), opening even more presents, and spending lots of time with family. Uncle Joe even lit us a huge bonfire to warm us up on one cold Virginia night. We had a fantastic few days, but we so missed you Grampa. Love you.

Hopefully next year our little family of three will also be able to travel up to Massachusetts to spend time with the Krohn family. Can't wait to see Nanny and all this summer!

*Special thanks to Aunt T for sending me many of the following pictures!