Chris and I decided to go to DC for our anniversary this year, and there was more than a little nerdy museum-going and a lot of airplanes. Like this one!

 And this one.

And all these! This is the new extension of the Air and Space Museum that was built out by Dulles on enough land that they can always expand. Well, depending on the money. It's a really well done space, because the hangar allows so many layers of planes, but they have catwalks so you can get up close to the ones hanging from the ceiling. 

And this one...wait. That's the space shuttle Discovery. For reals.

Really really cool. Can't explain how cool it was to be that close to a REAL space shuttle. 

Tiles! Yay materials science!

Our hotel (go Groupon!) was only 2 blocks from the Capitol building.

Remember that hat Chris hijacked from me at Christmas? He really needed it. It was very very cold, which would have been tolerable if we hadn't been walking through the wind. But we strove on and had a good time!

And I got to use my orange coat with its marvelous tall collar.

Go tigers!

For some reason I got fixated on Sputnik on this trip. It amazes me that you could see this from earth when it's only the size of a basketball. Or a little bigger. 

While there, we got to visit some friends from Clemson who live in Maryland now, which was nice, but I didn't get a picture of them. Just take my word for it.

Oh, also, if you ask Chris about our trip, his story will likely start with how bad the roads up there are. Granted, we were in his car, which isn't exactly a floating cloud, but the roads were pretty rough.

Happy Holidays

Okay, so it's May, but I came across the holiday photos and thought I'd share. I'll do our vacation from March in the next post. :) Lucky thing I'm not paid by the blog post or something.

A few photos from Christmas at the Hills'...

Not drinking it, just making sauce. Really...

This one is my favorite, because of the photo-bombers in the background. 

Pardon the poor lighting, but this is our lovely Christmas tree with its new tree skirt. It's reversible, so the other side is green. Oh, and I made it.

Some photos of the sunrise over Mt. LeConte.

The annual hike in the woods. This year, it was actually cold, instead of being tee-shirt weather. Somewhere toward the end of this hike, Chris adopted the snowflake hat (not the one he's wearing) I had just finished making, and he hasn't given it back. This from the guy who doesn't want me to knit him anything.

Miss Wendy, rocking her new pink cowl. All the knitting ladies in the family put in a few rows to make it for her. 

We made one for Serena too, but she didn't like it. She was an excellent reading buddy in the mountains. Serena, you need a book read? Just call cousin Laura, mmkay?

I'm sure this was a serious conversation. I'm pretty sure he was giving her a talk about the safety of walking on those rocks. 

And, well, this just pretty much sums it all up. 

So, happy holidays in May!

Lucky 2013

It's been go-go-go all fall. Lucky we had that nice vacation to tide us over, because we've been busy since then.

There seem to have been an inordinate amount of cars in the last six months. First, there was the NASCAR thing. Mom and Dad and Chris and I drove up to Charlotte for the boys to do the NASCAR experience. There were a lot of grown men acting like boys, and two of them were ours. They had a great time, Mom and I enjoyed watching them and acting like their paparazzi, and Chris even got to drive Jimmie Johnson's car!

 

After all the racing, Chris and I had the chance to visit his grandparents, the Goodwins, since they live in the Charlotte area. It's always nice to have a chance to see them, and this time we remembered to take pictures of us together!

I managed to get us hill tickets for the first home game this season, and it was about a million degrees out. Granted, it usually is. Perhaps we're getting old. Anyway. We sat on the hill for a while, then snuck over to some empty seats nearby. Because they were empty. It was a pretty good season for our Tigers, and it ended with an exceptionally nice bowl game win against LSU. Woo! 

We are blessed to be a part of a great small group. Usually our gatherings are simpler, such as game nights and knit night, but we took advantage of some great weather this fall to go apple picking together.

Don't be fooled. I didn't pull the wagon. Just holding the handle out of the mud. 

Susan kindly put this photo of the group online. And I kindly borrowed it. :) We are certainly fans of these folks!

 In October, we went with some friends to Road Atlanta for the Petit Le Mans. Cars. Fast cars. Like I said, lots of cars.

My future ride. According to Chris. I'm not opposed. 

And if Patrick Dempsey wants to come along, I wouldn't be opposed to that either.

Like I said, we went with friends. Friends like Jen. This is Jen. She makes me feel short. 

I met Bib. He's a Clemson fan!

The boys played with tiny racing cars.

We watched the real things.

The food was excellent, BTW.

I haven't gotten my pictures from the holidays uploaded yet, so here is a silly outtake from our Christmas photos. Gracias to Amy for taking the pictures and putting up with her models. She deserves a gold star!