A Perfect Friday Morning In Virginia

Jill and Halle, The Hairdresser

Evie And The Girls

Up at 6:20 to a sunny morning, a quiet house, as everyone is still sleeping.  I finally woke Jill and Hayden up at 6:30, so they have time to get ready for school.  Halle does not have to leave until 8:40 so she gets to sleep in, a lucky girl.

Yesterday started with a couple cups of coffee, as usual, with Evie having to convince Hayden that she was well enough to go to school.  The age old ruse of 'I don't feel well' did not work on Granny.  So off she went at 7:30, just as young Halle was getting up.  Evie made Halle breakfast, oatmeal and strawberries, and I drove her to school at 8:40, one of many cars in a line to drop of a child.  It was too hot and humid to walk her to school.  Jill left about the same time, but I got a call from her around 9:00 because she had forgotten her real estate text for her class.  So I took off again, to drop off the book at her real estate office.  I am beginning to feel like a 'driver.'

My Sister, Ellen, At Home, With Her Amazing Peonies

Around 11:00, my sister Ellen came over to visit.  She lives about forty five minutes away in the town of Herndon, VA.  She is a master gardener, loves flowers and gardens, and her house is a show piece as well.  She also has a blog called In And Out Of The Garden
 - http://ellen-inandoutofthegarden.blogspot.com - which you might want to visit if you like flowers and gardens...amazing photos because she's also a great photographer.  We sat around and talked and caught up, then had a great lunch of BLT's.  Because Evie is in the process of putting together a photo book on Shutterfly, an online photo album app, Ellen brought over the two photo books she made for her two kids, of their first twenty one years of life, which she gave them for Christmas.  They are both really fun books, filled with pictures of each child from birth to twenty one, lots of time and love put into each one of course.  She stayed until about 3:00, heading home just before the kids returned home from school to avoid the traffic.  It's nice to have her nearby when we visit Jill and family.

Hayden Rocks

Hayden came home at 3:30, had dance at 5:15, so Evie made her some dinner, home fries, her favorite, as a snack, along with some frozen pizza.  I picked Halle up from school at 4:40 because she stayed after for an after school activity.  At 5:50, I took Hayden and a fellow dancer to their three hour class, about twenty minutes away, at a dance studio.  I was back around 6:30, opened a nice bottle of wine, just as Drew returned home from work.  So we all relaxed for a bit with wine or beer, as Evie put together our dinner, of sausages, home fries and salad.  Dinner was great and Drew told us all about his visit to nuclear plant in Limestone, PA, where they went through the process if there were a nuclear emergency.  It involved FBI, HomeLand Security, as well as local police and fire departments.  It's nice to see they are thinking ahead, rather than waiting for something to happen.

TGIF

Around 9:00, Drew picked up the girls from dance, getting home around 9:30, another late and busy day and night for Hayden.  We stayed up till 10:45, watching the first half of the NBA finals, a pretty good game, then all of us went up to bed.

Today is our last day with the girls, as we leave for Chautauqua tomorrow morning, so we better get our granddaughter fix today.  Both should be home this afternoon, though Hayden is going off to see the movie The Fault In Our Stars at 4:00, as its opening and all her friends want to see it.  It's based on John Green's book of the same name, also read by Hayden and all Book Girls Everywhere.

See article about Book Girls from NPR:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/06/05/319064976/the-muscle-flexing-mind-blowing-book-girls-will-inherit-the-earth?