We are the sort of people that not only like having projects around our house, we will come help you with projects at your house too. This last week has been spring break for Edie, meaning we aren’t tied down to the homestead and we can take the show on the road.

After spending some quality time working on the neighborhood chicken coop in Brian’s back yard (there will be chickens this spring, just as soon as Brian & I can figure out what kind we want!), we hit the road to visit friends in Harrisonburg.  There was a most lovely Sunday Funday party, where it was commented that the last time some of those folks had seen me I had taken over the same friend’s kitchen and baked to my heart’s content, as I did this time.

What can I say?  It is what I do.

I think most of our friends like this about me, especially considering I usually leave the kitchen cleaner than I find it and I leave fresh baked treats.  In this case it was chocolate chip cookies and a few loaves of bread – some black olive & rosemary, as well as some just plain rosemary loaves, as I hadn’t noticed  Edie had chopped up most of the olives I had on hand while making dinner the night before.  I’ve found that’s a great new way to get her to stop complaining about dinner taking so long, is to get her to lend a hand towards the prep.  So far, it’s worked.  But you know kids, once you think you have a handle on whatever the current stage is, they mix it up and confuse you again.

We also headed to see friends in north western Virginia.  The idea was to make their farm home base while we took some day trips into the city.   Earning our keep there meant doing things like checking the chicken coop for eggs and bottle feeding the lambs. 

Amazing how you can be doing something like that and just a short time later, you can watch people flying kites on the National Mall.

Since Edie was in preschool, her spring break has consisted of the two of us heading to a city to take in the art museums.  Spring break has always coincided with Pat’s job picking up steam, and being an environmental educator and the schools across the state having different spring break schedules meant he was generally pretty busy, sometimes even out of town himself.  I’m not a big fan of sitting around the house, playing single mom, especially when all her pals are out of town too, so packing up and hitting the road always seemed like a better idea.  Pat’s job change last spring however, meant he doesn’t take other people’s kids out on field trips anymore.  It means he could take off and go with us this spring break.  I have to admit, it did sort of throw me.  Edie and I have a routine down.  I know if we have to run to catch a train, she can keep up, carting her own suitcase if need be.  In my super big mom bag, I will have a brown bag lunch packed, snacks and water bottles.  We like to find a nice bench and eat lunch and people watch.  I love my husband, but he’s not a city boy.  He agreed to ride the metro as driving in DC with me always means taking a wrong turn somewhere, circling around the monuments a few times, inexplicably ending up at the Pentagon where I get my bearings and then can get us to anywhere we want to go.  But first, I must circle the monuments and end up at the Pentagon.  Always.  Doesn’t matter which one of us is driving, I could be asleep in the car and this will happen.  Always. It happened to me & Pat just last summer, with a GPS, printed directions and a map in hand.  I swear, the magnetic north of my internal compass is set for the Pentagon.  To avoid this, we take the metro from the furthest point we can into the city.  It’s safer that way.

Pat thought we were being silly with the brown bag lunches I dragged along.  He felt we were missing an opportunity to discover some fun new lunch spot, heck, why not try some of the museum cafe food?  Through experience, I have yet to find anything affordable that I really like near the mall in DC – if someone knows of any, please let me know.  The people watching on the mall is just fantastic though.  I could make a day out of just sitting there and people watching the entire day.  Large school groups in matching T-shirts, even the parent chaperones wearing matching colors.  We saw families in matching ensembles, prompting me to suggest we do that for our next family field trip.  That went over about as well as you can expect.

As we sat on our bench, Pat suggested we make time for the Natural History Museum.  Oh, that one I pointed out?  The one with all the buses cued up in front, the steps absolutely crawling in school groups in matching T-shirts?  Maybe next time when it’s not field trip central.

Over the last few spring breaks, Edie & I have taken in some really great exhibits.  There was the Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA a few years back that gave us an excuse to take the train up to NYC.  Last year was the Picasso exhibit over in Richmond.  This year, I had read about this exhibit that started at the Frick in NYC

and was pleased to discover it was coming to DC and would be there over spring break.  I thought that since Edie declared Picasso “The artist that makes me feel the most”, she’d want to go see this. 

The collection wasn’t big, three small rooms of early sketches.  And I do mean early.  There was a sketch he did when he was 9, one when he was 11, in which the raw talent was amazing.  You could see a noticeable maturity of his talent in those two ages.  There was a watercolor sketch he did of his father when he was 15 that blew me away.  I also learned his father was an artist as well – I had not known that.

I think she was bummed I didn’t buy her the catalog as we exited this exhibit the way I did with last year’s Picasso exhibit.  I will get it for her, but a friend who works for museums tipped me off that you can find catalogs at reduced prices after the exhibit closes, so I think I’ll go that route this time.  I do understand a girl needs as many Picasso books as she can get, especially when they are catalogs of the exhibits she has seen.

As we left that exhibit, we stumbled onto the next one. We had meant to just breeze through it on our way to the next building, but it stopped us in our tracks.

Wow.  Seriously WOW.

This is the first time these paintings have been seen outside of Japan.  They apparently were just restored – they are all painted on silk panels.  They are only there for 4 weeks through the end of April and if you can get to the National Gallery of Art in DC before then, then do so.  This exhibit is worth it.   These paintings are exquisite.

This is the second time we’ve gone to DC to see an exhibition, only to stumble upon another one that we walked away talking about more.  The first time, it was the Van Gogh Exhibit, way back in 1998.  That was pretty amazing, but then across the mall we found a Star Wars prop and costume exhibit at the National Air & Space Museum.   All these years later, we are STILL talking about how flipping cool that Star Wars exhibit was.   

We had fun with the triangles in the concourse between the West and East wings of the National Gallery.

While in the East building, we came across the Mel Bochner exhibition going on in the tower.  I liked it, probably because of the color usage. Pat & Edie not so much.  I snapped a quick shot before the docent told me no pictures please.  Whoops.  So of course I have to post my illegal shot.

 We exited the East Wing of the NGA and headed across the mall to the Museum of the Native American.

Pat had heard great things about the food in their cafe and really wanted to eat there.

Until he saw the prices. 

He suddenly got why I had so quickly dismissed the idea of museum cafe food.

That’s okay, there were other things to do and see there.

Like a VW bug covered in tiny seed beads. 

I think the hubcaps were my favorite.

I wonder how they would look on my car.

Edie wanted her picture taken by the tipi in the Song for the Horse Nation exhibition.  I liked the way this one turned out. I have talked here before how my camera is great with natural light, crummy with any other sort of light.  One of these days I will get a fabulous camera that’s not a point and shoot that can take pictures in all sorts of light.  Until then, I just live with it and appreciate the unique perspectives. I think the shadow in front of the tipi is more fitting anyway.

Finally, after a long day of walking up and down the mall, we made it back to the Metro station.

And before long, we were back to lovely scenes like this through our windows.

I do love the rolling hills of western Virginia. 

When we arrived back at the farm, the sheep were waiting for us in the driveway.  They were quite welcoming.  Those little lambs are just darling.

Twilight, with the not-quite-full-moon rising over the Blue Ridge, just to the east.

That’s the view our friends have from their front porch. 

Pasture, rolling hills and mountains.

I think it’s quite lovely.

Their house belonged to Ryan’s grandparents.  His father was born in that house. 

That view has been part of his life as long as he can remember.

You can see his parent’s house across the pasture. 

That’s the view out back from their kitchen window.  The free range sheep and chickens hanging out with the rabbits in their cages.  Just to the left of that is a pasture that had cows, horses and Ryan’s dad’s sheep grazing. Everywhere you looked was some sort of animal.  We even saw some deer frolicing.

We talked about heading back into the city for another day of museum hopping, but frankly, we were wiped out after the day we had had, and did I mention Pat’s not a city guy?  He wasn’t overly excited about it, so we had a lazy morning on the farm before heading home to start knocking out some of our own projects, like maybe get some of those plants sitting on the kitchen counter into the ground and figuring out if a long, slow deep watering will make the butterfly bush perk up or if I shouldn’t just hack it back and see how that goes.

Stay tuned. 

That’s Edie’s Valentine this year, made with a few images she found on the internet, some Photoshop skills and Daddy’s iphone.  Personally, I think it turned out sort of brilliant, although I really didn’t know where she was going with it until I saw the finished product.  The greeting on the back was a simple “Happy Valentines Day”, in an Edwardian font.  She was quite specific about using that font.

Edie had a sleepover last weekend, so Pat & I took the opportunity to go to Beer Run for beers & nachos.  We don’t always make Valentines a big deal, but  it is special to us.  And I do love that we still celebrate with nachos and beer.  Although you’d think that after all these years, he wouldn’t be surprised at how I will eat nachos every chance I get.

Mostly what I like about Valentines Day is that it was an excuse for a boy to call a girl. And that girl still thinks that hearing his voice at the end of the day is the best way to end a day.  Every day.

My husband is cute, smart, witty, loves the great outdoors,and really is one of those people that when other people meet him, they fall madly in love with him on the spot, myself included.  He has some very special friendships with other males that definitely fall into the ‘bromance’ category.  He has one friend in particular, that the friendship is extended to a circle of male friends.  The love between them is strong.  So strong, that our families get together several times a year.  Thankfully, their wives and kids are equally kick-ass, so much so that when we get together we call it ‘cousins weekends’.  I’ve realized recently, that we are a sisterhood in our own right.  I’ve named us “The Sisterhood of the Bromance” and we all agree, it’s fitting.  I might not be friends with them if it weren’t for our husbands, but thanks to our husbands, I have gotten to know these women, whom I adore.  Who else understands that PTO events sometimes require a flask?  They do.

The last weekend in January is one of those weekends each year that is set aside for a ‘cousins weekend’.  Last year, I went ahead and told everyone that I was going to steer it this year, because it was going to be Pat’s 40th birthday, and we were going to have a fest.  We rented Dunlodge, a PATC ‘cabin’, that is tucked away behind UVa.  It is an amazing house.  It was the perfect venue.  I wanted there to be enough room for the brotherhood for the weekend, plus we wanted to be able to invite a few of our local Cville friends for a small celebration one evening.

I had in my mind I had to plan not just the party, but the entire weekend.  I had gotten some emails and phone calls from the sisterhood, asking about details and I told them all, let me get through Edie’s birthday….so day between their actual birthdays, I got an email out.  I’m not sure why I was so worried and felt I had so much to do, because not only did the girls respond quickly with what booze and food they were bringing, I realized that our style of potlucking it and pulling together whatever we have on hand works beautifully.  Our husbands all manage to wing it and we have found ourselves equally adept, maybe even more so.   Mollie has often told us we are the family they choose to have and I feel the same way.  It extends to the kids, too. 

Between the sisterhood and the extended bromance, the weekend was absolutely spectacular.  The weather was wonderful, the house amazing, everyone showed up determined to throw something in to Pat’s party.   I decided we needed 3 cakes to properly celebrate, why, I’m not sure.  Friday, at our house, as there was epic  failure of a pound cake, Rieman just so happened to call and assured me, she would fix it with frosting when she arrived.  Thankfully, Mollie & family just happened to pull in and further pulled me off the ledge of baking fail.  Saturday brought cake failure number two, when I realized I put way more rum into the pineapple upside down cake than was called for. It tasted heavily of Capt. Morgan’s, but hey, there are worse things than too much rum in the cake.  I think the hot fudge chocolate pudding cake may have gotten a tad overbaked, but it was still okay and at that point, the chocolate martinis Rieman was pouring made it all much better.  I seriously could not have pulled off this party for Pat without any of them.  The highpoint of every weekend that we get together with them is our Saturday afternoons in the kitchen, were we ladies retreat with drinks and pull dinner together.  This weekend was no different, only this time there was cake involved.  The boys & kids wandered in & out and all of them commented on what a good feeling was coming from the kitchen.  Indeed.

Outside, the men cleaned the patios, built a fire in the firepit and built a fort for the kids.  We declared Nick a member of the sisterhood, because he called last week, offering to bring his soup pot and make brunswick stew for Saturday dinner.  Bringing your own cookware is one of the things the sisterhood does.  The first time I met Nick, he helped me can peaches.  Sisterhood candidate indeed. 

Blogger wouldn’t let me load pictures in the order I wanted, but here are the highlights of the weekend, in no particular order.

Pound Cake Fail. 

After baking it for the correct time and pulling it out, letting it cool, I dumped it out, which is when I discovered the middle was still raw.  In trying to put it back in the pan, it fell apart.  I dumped the raw batter on top, rebaked it.  When I pulled it out and dumped it again, it fell apart, again.  At least it was cooked this time though.

Failed pound cake fixed with whipped cream.

Dunlodge. Cville peeps, check it out next time you need to put up a bunch of out of towners.  It’s fabulous, in a great spot, just behind UVa, near STAB. 

Pineapple upside down Capt. Morgans cake.

The men, cleaning the patio in front of the guest cottage and building a fire in the outdoor pit.

Nick’s contribution, 15 gallons of brunswick stew in the turkey cooker.

The Fort.

The fort under construction.

All the kiddies in the fort – with Edie, the oldest, feeding popcorn to Teal, the youngest.

Back view of the fort.  Seriously cool, isn’t it?

Eric brought cheese, sausage & crackers. 

We found a tray, added some apples and I cracked open a jar of bacon jam.

Yum.

Poundcake after I doused it with blueberries & strawberries I picked last summer and froze.

Ryan made a fabulous sauce to go with it, from the juice left in the bowl after the berries defrosted.  So good, we had it for breakfast the next morning.

Cousins pile. 

Edie, 10.

Abigail, 6.5.

Gus, 6.

Owen, 4.

Teddy, 3.

Action shot of cousins pile.

Nick’s brunswick stew. So tasty.

One of Rieman’s martinis.  Not sure if it was the chocolate or the pama one.  They were both good.

And I no longer cared about cake fail after them.

The hot fudge pudding cake covered in sprinkles that resembled a peace sign.  At least, we all thought so. 

Thanks everyone that came out, that pitched in and made it so awesome.  It was definitely one of those worlds colliding evenings, where our everyday neighborhood world got to spend quality time with our cousins world.  There were oysters, there was guitar playing, banjo picking,  there was good bourbon being passed around and just lots of good fun.  Everyone said how brilliant it was to have the party at another location in town,  seeing how our house is too small to really have any sort of party at during the winter. I received a number of compliments, but honestly, all I did was line up a house and then threw it up to everyone we invited. I couldn’t have planned a party that good, because you just can’t plan fun.  Fun happens.

And my dear husband is one of those people who just happens to have fun with everything. I am lucky to have him. 

Betty’s home for Christmas. Actually, Betty’s home for good. NYC was great, but Charlottesville called.  And so all is right with my world.

Somehow, Christmas Eve,  I ended up completely re-doing the Christmas lights on Betty’s tree (oh, my Christmas OCD kicking in….) while Edie came down and helped her put the tree up. 

And Pat came down and helped decorate the rest of her house.

  

I can’t remember a Christmas eve, or a Christmas really, that wasn’t punctuated by ‘check-ins’ with Betty of all sorts.  Phone calls, walks down the street, helping each other do last minute    decorations/wrapping/santapresentbuilding/baking/shopping/just visiting with breakfast/lunch/dinner/drinks/just visiting always happening at some point…..And to have her home after months of being away, knowing she was home to stay?  

There was much joy and merriment.

The ladybug hat was a hit. 

And for the first time EVER, I managed to make some pretty kick-ass looking cinnamon buns for Christmas breakfast.  I started them way ahead of time and let them rise Christmas Eve, before I popped them in the fridge to bake in the morning.  It made a big difference.   

Pat made me that for Christmas.  Isn’t it cool?  I told him I wanted a floor lamp for the dining room – it gets no direct natural light and therefore is unbearably dark this time of year. So he made me one out of a poplar tree branch he found on the ground at the park.  And the lampshade was an old one lying around that he redid.  He asked me for fabric – I was sort of consulted every step of the way of his creation, so it wasn’t a surprise, still it was fun to design something with my honey.  I love how it turned out.  He’s awesome.

The fabric is a knock-off Lily, with embroidered palm trees.  It was in the stash and I was torn between that and a darker, heavier linen.  The palm trees are good.

It was a lovely, lazy Christmas day, with friends & neighbors popping in & out.  I hadn’t put a menu together, but when I did, I found my notes from last year and realized it was exactly the same.  I remembered thinking to myself last year, it was the best menu ever.  Clearly, it was.  I think we have this Christmas thing down.  We have spent the days since lazing around, eating leftover chocolate cake and popcorn.  Other leftovers too, but to be honest, that was dinner the day after Christmas. 

It’s that time of year again.  Oysterfest.

One of the best festivals that ever was.

Where we eat lots of yummy oysters.

And I do mean lots.  There were multiple coolers full of oysters for the grilling.

And we can’t forget the fried food that line the streets of town and scent the air.

Everything you can think of is battered and deep fried.

 What’s the other 4%?  Dare we ask? 

Best sign, hands down.

Footlong Corn Dogs for everyone!

Well, not everyone.  I decided an oyster po-boy was the way to go.

You know, to break up the grilled oysters. 

This year, we went a whole day early because our girl Abigail was in the Miss Spat contest and we had to be there to see her on stage, answering her question about what was her favorite part of being in the Miss Spat and Oyster Queen competition.  (“Being with her friends and spending time with her queen, Emily”.)

I have no good shots of Abigail on stage because we were so excited for her. So when she was named “Miss Spat”, some of us (Edie), went nuts.  (Edie says this was the highpoint of Oysterfest for her this year.)

As soon as the crowning was over, Edie had to run backstage to congratulate her friend and get a good shot of our very own Miss Spat.

Then it was back to the house for celebration.  This was about the point this year’s festival was deemed “Epic” by Anne.  The celebration was big.  There was a lot of shucking going on. 

Mollie made Abigail a Miss Spat pumpkin pie, complete with crown.

Friday night is the Fire Truck Parade. The most fun parade, ever.  I took a few videos of it this year that I’ll get around to posting.  It’s the loudest parade you’ve ever heard.  60+  firetrucks, with their sirens blazing. 

Saturday morning we woke up to Miss Piggy on the grill.  (Look back up at the header of this blog.  See that pig?  She’s on the grill.).  Ryan said he got 350 pounds of meat back from the butcher when he took her to slaughter.  Edie kept patting her belly saying “Miss Piggy died and went to heaven.”.  We had bacon, brats and a few types of sausage.  She was tasty.

One of these days, I’m getting the oyster necklace.

The lone funnel cake I had all weekend.  Shared with Rieman and maybe some of the kids.

Saturday’s parade saw Abigail riding the Oyster Queen float.

By this point, our crew was large.  With a sign.

That Edie spearheaded and let the boys help.  I’m not sure that Teddy, Owen or Gus really followed instructions and I’m pretty sure at one point they really interfered with her artist vision.  But, she was a trooper and rolled with it.  It was a fantastic sign and it kept the four of them busy most of the morning.

The mom and grandparents lined up to get pictures of Miss Spat as her float came through. 

(Part of the epicness was Mimi & Woodpop and Paw & Dodie coming for the festival to see Miss Spat. There was also a grill of epic set-up proportions and an RV thrown into the mix.)

Parade was a popular game the rest of the weekend.  Here Teal gets her turn on the ‘float’.

The kids even had some personal time with a Shriner clown. 

Chocolate covered frozen cheesecake on a stick. 

Bucket of shells from Saturday afternoon. 

We ate some oysters.

Oysterfest is always a good time to catch up with friends.

And eat oysters every way you can imagine.

Those were some of Ryan’s Rockefeller style, with cheese.

It’s also a good time to try new liquors.

And to be handed mini’s by complete strangers in the drug store, as you are getting your kids ice cream at the old soda fountain counter because you might look like you need a drink.

One more run to the field of fried food for that last corn dog.  That particular one was hands down, one of the best corn dogs ever. 

Not just the best sign of the festival, also the best fried food of the festival. 

We went through 3 bags of those pork rinds, cajun flavor.

Melt on your tongue goodness.  Don’t say you don’t like pork rinds until you’ve had Sparky’s.

We made a few converts this weekend. 

Sunday morning was the Bloody Mary table, for which I contributed pickled radish, pickled peppers and of course, my green bean pickles.  

Funny thing is, I’m not that wild about pickles or Bloody Marys.

But I make good ones of each.

Abigail decided to build her own float and have yet another parade.

Meanwhile, the rest of us stood around and watched Nick assess what needed to be done to fix the steps to the back door.  Nick, I’ll be needing you at my house next.  Thanks.

We decided we weren’t quite done with oysters, so we went down to the waterfront and grabbed some more.

On the dock at Christ Church.

Look at that one.  Mmm.

Meanwhile, the children played on the beach.  Despite our motherly attempts to get them to wear seasonal clothes, they insisted on stripping down and rolling around in the sand.