Barns, Ballgames, and Bugs

I've said before how fortunate we feel to be a short 10-15 minutes from the country and a (sometimes not so-short) 10-15 minutes from the city. Loudoun County is a great location to enjoy the best of both worlds and these past two weeks, we did just that!

My parents came in for a visit and we kicked off their stay with dinner at an outdoor German Kielbasa restaurant in Leesburg (no pictures from that, we were all too busy with our pretzels, kielbasa, and German beverages). On Saturday, we headed out to Waterford for a strategically planned leg of the 2013 Loudoun County Farm Tour. The Farm Tour is a weekend when over 30 farms and maybe 20 wineries and breweries open up for visitors. The cousins hit the tour together (along with their parents and a very contented Grandmom and Grandpa Wintrode). First we visited a small local family farm with plenty of little animals to feed and pet and plenty of farm-hospitality as they grilled up hamburgers (made from their own beef) for all of their visitors.

Allie and Tim trying to wake-up 'Pig Pig,' the farm's 1,000lb pet pig.

The A-team (Allie and Alice) was glad to be together again.

Not exactly 'white as snow,' but you'll do quite nicely.

Little lambs at play.

If you look closely, you'll see a little bit of Suz and Jonathan in these struts.

Par for the course, Allie's jabbering about...something...and Alice is listening patiently before heading off to do something else.

Heeeerrreee, Pig Pig.

Don't worry, Daddy, I'm sure he'll fit in the Civic.

 We probably could have stayed there all morning and been content, but about 5 minutes away in another part of town, the Alpacas were waiting...

We checked out all kinds of Alpacas.

Wooley ones...

Baby ones...

And even alien ones.

Good thing this fence and my Grandpa's leg are here to protect me!

Alpaca some smiles in too while we're at it...:o).

Speaking of smiles, you can't see them, but I'm pretty sure these two grandparents were in Grandparent Heaven.

Last on the Farm Tour was a trip to a local Winery/Brewery. We started at the winery and lasted long enough to lose count of the number of breakable glasses and headed quickly over to the brewery to complete our tour with local brews, BBQ, cupcakes, and room for the cousins to run.

This is the only side of hops Grandmom's interested in, the side with her grandkids strolling alongside her.

Grandmom and her brood.

Unfortunately, only a few days later, a stomach bug decided to take its own tour of one, Allison Kathleen Eicholtz. As I post, our little patient is fast asleep in her bed, which she asked to climb into and where she fell immediately asleep...a sure sign that something is definitely 'off' with our little night-owl. I stayed home with her on Thursday and Chris was off on Friday for some Allie-Daddy bonding.

If you look closely, you'll see the princess dress she insisted on wearing during a spurt of energy before she crashed on the couch.

I'm pretty sure we saw this pose in the ultrasound. Some things never change.

 We thought we were in the clear the night before we had tickets with Grammy and Grandpop Shaiko to go to a Nats game on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, but the 72-hour virus (pegged by our doctor) seemed to be of the over-achieving sort and she was wiped out (or whiney) for most of the game. She did rally briefly throughout for a few snapshots and cheers, but mostly she was my little barnacle and slept through a nice outside dinner after the game. There are worse things :o). Hopefully this bug takes a hike so we can get back to normal and our girl can get some relief. All in all, though, it's been a great two weeks.

This will be a classic. Give that photographer a raise!

And another classic. I think she's mid-roar here.

Apparently the lion's tamed in this one.

'Ears to the Nationals!

Screech sighting! (Screech is the Nats' mascot, the friendly feathered eagle.)

Over there, Grandpop.

And apparently Screech has a smush-nose, because this was her impression of him.

Mustered up a quick cheer, but unfortunately...

That energy didn't last long. The Nats outfielders weren't the only ones catching flies that day.

May Flowers

We're a little delinquent on the posts over the past month(s), so when I checked out the camera, I found a pretty good mashup of the every-day-crazy that is Allie and pictures from a wonderful Mothers Day weekend. We are thoroughly enjoying Spring and counting down until summer fun when I can answer 'Nope!' when Allie asks me 'Mommy? You going to work?' Can't wait!

Chris and I ran in a neighborhood 5K in April and Allie held down the fort with her Grandpop just before getting her official diagnosis of Bronchitis. She's now a Claritin-kid, so that the allergy gunk doesn't get into her chest next time (or so we hope). All we can say is 'Thank Goodness the nebulizer is packed away...for now.' For Allie it's like an IV of Mountain Dew with a shot of espresso. It's ugly.

We explained that the numbers we were wearing were called 'bibs.' She corrected us and called them 'flags,' but made sure we knew that she wore bibs when she was a little girl...'yesterday.' (It's our current past-tense catch-all phrase.)

Bronchitis of the Princess

Never too sick to show off her belly during a dance-party in Daddy's shoes.

That's right.

Standing at attention, ready for her trunk to be inspected with Mowgli and the elephants while watching the Jungle Book (clearly elephants don't wear pants).

Catching a few rays...

(and slurps) with her pup.

I'm sorry, did you say there was a pancake beneath those chocolate chips?

Snuggle-time with a few close friends.

Saturday morning of Mother's Day weekend, we were fortunate enough to catch a rare sighting of some of our favorites, Erin (my roommate from Duke) and her husband Dan who were in town from Montana for a wedding. We took Guy Fieri's advice and met up at Metro Diner 29 in Arlington, which, for you Diner's Drive-Ins, and Dives fans, was totally worth the trip for the French Toast. Only bummer was that we didn't get a Franny sighting, but I'm sure there's a diner in Montana Guy could recommend...

Suz, Erin and Al.

This smile was brought to you by Erin, Dan...and bacon.

Lots of bacon.

 Speaking of breakfast foods, what's a better way to follow brunch than with brunch? We celebrated with half of our moms with a Mothers Day Brunch at our place and then we treated Barb and Steve to a day of hard labor to beautify our front yard and our neighbor's. Fortunately, I'm blessed to have a wonderful Mother-in-law who thinks that this is the PERFECT way to spend her special day and I still take sneak peaks out the front door to look at our pretty flowers.

Chris pulling my Mothers Day gifts.

Allie wished me an energetic 'Happy Mothers Day, Mommy!,' followed by a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday to You!' I'll take it.

Allie was in charge of the men and the brown-sugar banana biscuits.

Easy does it on the sugar, Grandpop. I'm (usually) sweet enough.

Before...

'Everybody helps.'

Ready for gardening...and any emergency call for controlling air traffic.

Shoveling mulch into the grass is essential to a well-manicured lawn.

Watch-out weeds.

This was just before Grammy saved the day and volunteered to take someone to the playground so the progress could continue.

After :o). Please note the pouting boxer peaking out the front door window.