Luray Virginia

So our fabulous weekend has unfortunately come to a close. The weather forecast called for rain all weekend, and we really lucked out. It rained here and there, but never for very long. The cabin was set back in the mountains, amongst the trees and cows.....yes, cows. But, as silly as it sounds, the cows were adorable and gave us all a good laugh. I took a bunch of pictures (upwards of 400 pictures...did you really expect any different?)

Below I have included several photos from our weekend...

We took a drive on Skyline Drive on the 4th of July. It was beautiful with mountains as far as you could see. Aida came along for the ride, but enjoyed riding with Grandma and Grandpa more than Ben, Daniel, Nathan, Liz and I. It started to drizzle towards the end of our drive, but it was still a very pretty view.

Here is the view from our cabin.

I have lots of pictures of the cows. There was an apple tree in the front yard of the cabin and those cows loved the apples.

The boys set off fireworks on the 4th of July and the last night (after Nate and Ben purchased more). This picture is of Ben and Daniel frolicking in the haze of a smoke bomb with sparklers.

The Luray Caverns were one of my favorite activities from the trip. It was unbelievable. I have tons of pictures from the caverns, so if anyone wants to see more stalactites and stalagmites :) just let me know. And Dad has just as many pics...Ben kept calling him Ansel Adams because of all the photos he was taking.

Although Ben's birthday isn't until the 17th, we all wanted to have a little celebration for him. So I had picked up a banana cream pie and decorated it. After the Happy Birthday song and pie we all played a big game of Cranium and of course laughed a lot.

I just thought this was a really cute picture. Aida was very happy to see the family and loved hanging out with Mom and Dad.

This photo is also from Skyline Drive.

All in all, we had a great vacation. The weekend seemed to go by way too fast. Sadly we did not see a bear, even with the trail of chum that i left from the fishing pond to the cabin's fence. But we did see some deer, rabbits and of course the cows. :)

The best end to the vacation came when Ben and I convinced (it didn't take much) Mom, Dad and Daniel to come back to our place for the night. We stopped at a little BBQ stand for lunch that we had been wanting to take the family to. After lunch we came back to the apartment and relaxed. Dad took a nap, Ben and Daniel played a video game, and mom and I researched wineries for their October trip with Aunt Martha and Uncle Larry. For dinner we took them (we drove, they payed :) ) to Fireworks pizza in Leesburg. It was a big hit.

We played Cranium again, and got guaranteed laughs. Mom honed her humming skills for the many humdingers and Dad brushed up on his silent acting.

Unfortunately, they left this morning. But it was very nice to have the extra time with them.

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!