Back from Virginia

My trip to Virginia to visit my daughter and family was so wonderful.  The trip up was

so special, Kim and I got to know a lot about each other, we found out that we have

so many similarities about our lives, children, and life's experiences.  I count it a blessing

to now have her friendship in my life.  Upon arrival, Tina drove me around  to see some

of the recent damaged areas the was recently stricken by the Tornado that touched

down in her home town.  Unreal some of the sites, one in particular was a tree branch no larger

than the size of a pencil was embedded in the side of a brick building with not even a

broken twig, not to mention the roofs off buildings and store fronts that were gone. Living in

Florida with all the hurricane damages I have been through over the years, at least  you have

time to prepare and gather your things board up and evacuate, you have no warning to get

out of the path of a Tornado.  On Thursday after my arrival, we visited the Scrapbook Store

in Richmond that I dearly love,  "Memories Galore", where they have so many wonderful new

and latest scrapbooking items, it was so hard to choose and narrow down to just a few, of course

I went wildly crazy.  Friday was spent preparing for the birthday party for Madison.  Saturday of

course was the party,  it was so much fun, the kids were great together it was an outside event

and the weather was just perfect, breezy a little but mostly sunshine.  I have some wonderful

pictures to share.  The Saturday night birthday party sleepover  was a blast, the seven years old

out lasted us all, they were up till 1:30 a.m. they started out with pizza dinner, then the fun began,

they sang and danced with their "Hannah Montana" wigs and play guitars and we took videos of this

you would think this would tire them out, but no-  next we did a craft project that Tina prepared for

them, thought this would do the trick and soon would go to sleep, but no, so we put on movies that

Madison got for her birthday-popped popcorn, did this do the trick no, so we finally just turned the lights out

and soon they were fast asleep.  We were exhausted, next morning the party resumed with breakfast

playing dress-up and more outside fun  finally everyone went home by 2:30 in the afternoon.  But what a blast

I had didn't know it could be so much fun to be young again. Monday was our day to have fun, Tina and her

friends, Wati, Kylie (Wati's daughter), Sylvia, Janice and myself met at Panera Bread for Coffee, and then left

headed up to Fredricksburg, to shop at (2) Scrapbook Stores and AC Moore, we had a blast.  We headed back

to Richmond around 4:30 where we went back to "Memories Galore" for a special event from Quickutz, a

representative from Quickutz was there giving a presentation on the Silhouette Machine and give- a- ways.

The grand prize was $200 in Quickutz products, and Sylvia from our group won the grand prize so then she

proceeded to shop and spend her prize money she ended buying the Silhouette and other quickutz accessories

so we closed down this store, by the time we got back to Colonial Heights where we started from, we were

hungry so Janice, Tina and I closed down Applebees.  It was almost midnight when we finally got back home, but

what a fun day was had by all.   Tuesday was just a stay home, catch our second wind, day.  Wednesday Tina

and I finally started our little scrapbook project around 4:00 in the afternoon.  We scrapbooked some Thursday,

picked the kids up early from school and then went to the Strawberry Farm,  Tina's friend Wati met us there

with her two children, we took some awsome pictures at the Strawberry Patch, left there went back to

Memories Galore to exchange a duplicate purchase and pick up something being transferred from the other store

and ordered food out, went home and ate and back to scrapbooking our project,  Friday morning we finished up

our mini album birthday book project and Tina made Lasagna dinner for everyone,  and we were trying to cram all

of our last minute plans into Friday,  Wati and her children came by to say their goodbye's and we got to bed late

again.  I got up early Saturday and packed up and the tears started to roll as soon the wonderful visit would have

to soon end.  Arrived at the airport kind of late, due to construction in the area it was difficult to see the parking area

so we drove around a second time, and of course I had extra baggage at the baggage check so Tina had to take some

items out and she will have to mail them back to me.  Almost missed my plane, due to a flight change made it on board

with 3 minuets to spare.  Upon arriving in Orlando to retrieve my luggage, I found it went to Atlanta so they had to make arrangements to have my luggage sent to my home on Sunday.

I came home to a very sick husband, Sunday morning I spent all day in the emergency room and at 4:00 Mother's Day

my husband was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. He is doing some better, but it is a large size spot on his

lung and it will take lots of rest and meds I want to especially thank Penny for picking me up from the airport, I don't

know what I would have done with out her putting aside her time with  family on the weekend to drive over to Orlando on such short notice to pick me up, you will never know how much your friendship means to me.

My husband was planning to be there, but I really didn't know how sick he was until I cam home, he could not have

driven over in his conditions.