daycay: roanoke, va

We have been wanting to explore Roanoke for quite some time now. It's only about an hour away from us, and we had heard there was a fun downtown scene to explore. So, since yesterday was warm and sunny and Susan Ada hadn't left Lynchburg in a month. . .we took a day trip to Roanoke. The drive there is quite pretty as the mountains get a little closer with every passing mile. We were a little surprised at just how bustling the downtown was. It felt like a real city! They had a wonderful market downtown with lots of shops to visit. We had a nice lunch then wandered around. They also have a pedestrian bridge that goes over a massive maze of train tracks. We enjoyed watching the train go under us.



Bye bye train!

There is another town on the outskirts of Roanoke that we had heard of as well so we decided to drive over and take a look. On the way there, what to our wondering eyes did appear, but a Krispy Kreme with fresh doughnuts! We were so excited that we stopped and purchased a full dozen. . .and promptly shoved hot melty doughnuts in our faces. Delicious!!!

I had to do a close-up of my new boots and the skirt I just made to go with them. . .

Then we continued on to Salem. It was a nice town, but very small and not quite as exciting as we had expected. Just in case you forgot where you were, you could go to the benches outside the library and be reminded. . .

We stopped in Roanoke again on the way back home for a yummy Mexican dinner. Brad Paisley was having a concert there that evening so the dining crowd was pretty entertaining. When we arrived home we discovered that the little dress elves had visited again. . .

Always nice to end a good day with a giggle.

my knight in shining armor!

When Curt heard about the package kidnapping he replied with utter confidence that he was certain he could get the package out of our mailbox. Knowing the challenge before him, I told him I would believe it when I saw it. So, this morning we went downstairs to face the enemy. It was a brutal battle, but Curt prevailed!!


He simply cut the package open while it was still in our mailbox. Those engineer minds just live to solve the problems of life. That's not all, though. Turns out, the package was amazing!! When I lived in India, there was a VERY spicy pepper that was delicious and I talk about it every time we eat Indian food. Curt's dad currently has some Nepali students so Curt asked one of them if he could get me some of this yumminess. Apparently they had all been working on this since last October and the student's parents brought me some Dallay corsani pickle from Nepal!! I seriously have the most thoughtful husband ever. . .and a pretty great father-in-law to boot. Guess what these Hamiltons will be having for dinner this week. . .

this done beat all

What momentous occasion hath occurred that would break our 2-month hiatus from the blog?? Ummmm, our postal service is officially for the birds. I preface this post with informing you that I regularly have to call the post office and remind them to match the unit number on the envelope to the unit number on the mailbox. I thought that was understood. We regularly receive our neighbors' mail or have someone come find us with our past due bills, dividend checks, W2's, 3 days of Wall Street Journals, etc. This is always AFTER I have cancelled said check or complained to the WSJ or stalked my former employer. It's like musical chairs, mailbox edition. Today, however, took the cake. I will admit that I'm a little edgy because my sweet husband has been out of town all week and I miss him!!! I go to check the mailbox and all of our mail is shoved in the top. I pull it out to realize that we have a package!! At which point I get very excited. So, I try to reach in and grab it, but I cannot get my fingers around it. Determined, I establish the tightest grip I can and pull with all my might. Multiple skinned knuckles later, I admit defeat. It's like a Chinese finger trap in our mailbox - with an actual treat!! How heartless is that?? So now I get to call the post office and remind them that the mailboxes are bigger when the big door is open because when you close it, the trim around all the individual boxes takes up space and thus kidnaps our packages. And, to top it all off, the postman tore off the front cover of my magazine. I shake my head.

our first christmas tree!!!

Saturday we embarked on quite the Christmas adventure. We started the morning by walking down to our local market. . .not many veggies, but tons of wreaths, swags, greenery, etc. After purchasing our first sprig of mistletoe, we hurried home and hopped in the Jeep to embark on our search for our first Christmas tree. We chose a place that was cheap, but in the middle of nowhere. We're talking miles and miles of unmarked and unpaved roads. Then, all of a sudden, we arrived at this little unpretentious shack on top of a hill. A nice gentleman handed us a saw and a buggy, and we were off! To be honest, most of their trees were pretty barren and unkempt so we wandered through all their fields until we found this beast:


As you can see it is a spruce pine that is over twice the height of Susan Ada. 11 ft to be precise. We currently have 12 ft ceilings and doubt we'll ever have the opportunity to have such a massive tree again, so we went for it! Curt sawed it down and hauled it back to the shack. The boys were barely able to shove it through the baler. They all persevered and loaded up on our Jeep.


So, we're driving home, pleased as punch to find a tree with such character (for only $35), thinking that our day can't get much better. . .when it started snowing!!! Can we say picturesque? We stopped by the Appomattox Court House on our way home. . .because we live in Virginia and there is always a Civil War site handy:


Curt unloaded our tree (at this point, I'm beginning to think we need to name our gentle giant), sawed it off, and got it standing upright in our living room. Susan Ada was quite impressed!! We were still very excited with our find. . .until we pulled out our ornaments. . .all 13 of them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that is barely 1 ornament per foot of tree. Oh dear. Let the ornament-making frenzy begin!! Susan Ada sprayed loads of pine cone in metallic gold, glittered them, and filled in most of the gaps. Everything's better with a little sparkle.

a free date

Tonight we went on a little holiday excursion. There was an ad in our local magazine for a free brass ensemble and handbell choir Christmas concert at Lynchburg College. We are pretty much always up for a free concert so we decided to give it a try. Welllllll, ya win some and ya lose some. It wasn't terrible, but it was definitely lacking star quality. Our first tip was when the handbell choir began playing The Lion King Suite. . .complete with "Hakuna Matata" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" I am very sorry for this representation, Elton. If you look closely at the brass ensemble on the left you will see the most well-behaved seeing-eye dog. He dozed there the entire time and we enjoyed having him.


Then, a few minutes later the brass ensemble played The Pink Panther. By this point, we had gotten smart and were prepared to make a video. If you make it all the way to the end, notice the french hornist on the far right proceed to take off his jacket and head over to the handbell side of the stage so he could participate with them. Quite professional. We were a little concerned the first time, but by the end of the performance we hardly noticed anymore.



To end the performance, the handbell choir all simultaneously reached under the table to retrieve a Santa hat which they all donned for a lively rendition of "Jingle Bells." They strongly encouraged the audience to sing along, and all 20 of us tried our best, but I don't think we mustered up quite enough enthusiasm for them. However, I must admit, we left with a smile.


The smiles continued when we pulled up to our house and saw. . .you guessed it!. . .a new dress display!! I guess these are their Christmas party ideas:

Had to show off our festive selves:


And we're off to bed. Farewell November. Let the Christmastide joys begin!!

a lynchburg listing. . .

We're behind again, so let's just make a list for efficiency's sake:

1. The ugly dresses downstairs just keep coming. . .

In case you can't tell, those are indeed stripes of solid silver sequins going around a purple mermaid dress with a huge rosette on the right shoulder. We stand amazed.

2. Across the street there is a restaurant called Main Street Eatery. It is owned by a German couple, but we hadn't been because it is quite expensive. However, they had a traditional Oktoberfest menu for most of October and November. It was a bit cheaper than their usual fare and our curiosity finally got the best of us:

Susan Ada ate this. . .really can't remember what it was called. . .Chicken cutlets sauteed with mushrooms and served with cooked cabbage and German dumplings. Delicious!

Curt had Wienerschnitzel. . .basically a fried meat patty served with french fries. Unique, but not quite as tasty.


3. Curt bought Susan Ada birds for her birthday!! She saw zebra finches on our honeymoon and had been begging for them ever since. The night of her birthday we went to the store to buy them, but they had another kind of finch (Orange Waxbill) that had been bullied and were missing some feathers so they were giving them away for free. Sooooo, we got all 3 and brought them home. So far their names are Cheeky, Molty, and Ollie. . .but those are subject to change at Susan Ada's whim. Here is Cheeky (and that's Molty fearing for his life in the back. . .they're a little flighty):

They have red tail feathers:


4. Curt's parents came to visit us. They were our first guests and we really enjoyed having folks to come stay in our home. We wandered around town, went to the local globe museum, relaxed, and ate yummy food. While they were here we cooked our first pumpkin of the year. . .and roasted the seeds. Delicious!


5. We went to visit our babies in Greenville, SC. Kate informed us today that she turned 4 1/2 yesterday. My goodness, the milestones. We had a blast with them and enjoyed raking leaves, helping them carve their pumpkins, and spending all weekend playing.



6. We got new neighbors so now when we open our apartment door this is what we see:


Yes, that is indeed a plastic rat in the bottom right corner. . .

We don't exactly share similar tastes in decor. Yippy. Perhaps this will just give us something else to blog about come Christmas.

7. Curt got to visit his first nuclear power plant for work! Let's just say he had to take a few precautionary measures:


8. Someday you are going to believe us. There really is an unlimited supply of these things:

Just to be clear, that is a layer of pink tulle upon layer of yellow tulle upon layer of blue tulle with a pastel 80's print bodice, sparkle boobs, and a very large flower on the hip. And with that, we must leave you. Hope the nightmares are bearable.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

getting behind so soon. . .

We have been up to lots of fun things in the past few weeks. . .we just haven't taken the time to write about them. Two weekends ago we went to the Sheek's mountain place to pick apples from their orchard so we could make fresh cider! Before we get to that, however, we want to show you just what it looks like for us to load up our car for a weekend trip. Our loft has this rinky-dink shopping cart that everyone uses when they have big loads to take upstairs/downstairs. We often try to fit our entire weekend on one cartload so we can get on the road more quickly. That said, here is Curt. . .


When we got to the orchard, Curt miraculously transformed into a monkey. It was quite alarming. Even Steve commented that Curt didn't leave a single apple on the trees when he was done with them.


Pretty apples!! I think we had 11 of these crates plus a huge washbin full of apples!!


Now, it's time to make fresh apple cider! The loveliest assistants washing away all the dirt:


First, you turn a crank to grind up all the apples into mush - skin, cores, and all. Don't be fooled. . .that cranking is WAY harder than it looks!!


Then, you slide the barrel of apple mush to the end of the trough and crank down a lid that squeezes all the juice out. And that's how it's done. . .there is nothing like sticking a cup in that fresh stream of golden goodness. You can either can the juice or freeze it and it will keep all year!


Apparently we were too distracted drinking the delicious cider to take any pictures of us enjoying it. Know that we drank way more than we should have and are still enjoying it now. This past weekend we went to a pumpkin-carving party hosted by one of Curt's co-workers. We enjoyed getting outside and meeting some new people. Curt scooped out all the slimies!!


Basically, we took a screwdriver to the poor pumpkin and wreaked havoc. It's actually quite pretty when it's lit. Maybe next year we do the entire thing with only a screwdriver. . .


Sunday we drove out to the Parkway with some friends and hiked Sharptop Mountain. The trail was quite crowded and steep, but the 360 degree views at the top were worth fighting the masses. That's about it. Although, I think we just may have another adventure in the very near future. . .