Middle of November

I had such a good time in Virginia - after I made it to Charlottesville - We had a tour planned that started at 2 pm and you needed to be up by the house around 1:45 pm in preparation for the tour- the plan was that I would fly from Philadelphia to Richmond and then we would rent a car and all drive down to Charlottesville - they  had been in Richmond since Friday - I was to land at 10:22 am and that would give us plenty of time to drive- I landed at 12:30 p.m instead and they waited for me until noon but if they had not left me in Richmond they would not have made the tour so I told them that if I did not land by noon to go ahead without me... so you have to realize that I was going on barely any sleep with the baby here. It took me 2.5 hours to drive to Disneyland to  pick up Adrienne and then another hour to the airport... I made it into Philadelphia at 5:36 am- it was supposed to land around 7 am but we were early and then the time change so I sat in the airport exhausted not sure when my flight to Richmond was going to be leaving.. not sure if I should just rent a car in Philadelphia and drive down.. or was there a plane going straight to Charlottesville? could I get my bags off the broken plane ? but finally they decided to get a different aircraft and I made it to Richmond but then everyone  had left .. so I rented a car and headed out... its about an hour and half drive to Charlottesville and I actually made it 20 minutes after the tour started but they don't allow you to join late so I stayed in the parking lot... walked around a bit.. I could not get up to see the house without a pass but the visitor center and parking lot were so beautiful I cannot even describe the colors of the trees and the whole drive from Richmond was beautiful... I sat outside at the cafe waiting for the ladies and ended up talking with a lady who  lived in the area and had hiked up the trails and was taking a break.. we had such a nice conversation.. about the area and  history and about 4 pm on Sunday I caught up with Darlene, Nancy and Breanna... we drove the cars down to the hotel... the English Inn of Charlottesville... very nice we had the two bedroom suite and Nancy and I shared and Breanna and Darlene shared the rooms each had a king size bed in them so it was very pleasant.. We had behind the scene tour tickets for Monday at 2:30 pm but we went up early to walk around the grounds and tour the bottom area.. then we went to Michies Tavern which has been there since the late 1700's and they do a buffet lunch of southern food and I mean good southern food.. then back for the tour at Monticello and it was about 2.5 hours.. very indepth... super good tour.. each evening we would head down to the historic downtown mall area and eat dinner.. and then come back and visit in our jammies and talk about the books and what we learned each day.. We also visited Montpelier - James Madison and James Monroe's guest house that he had built while he was president and we did the slavery tour up at Monticello on Tuesday.. I had a mishap at the Kroger on Monday night and twisted my ankle.. they had watered the plants and flowers and so there was water on the floor as well as grapes that had fallen from the fruit area on the other side.. I did not even pay attention when I walked in.. we had the cab waiting  and I was in a hurry and down I went... Nancy had went the other way but she heard me say " No, I'm not OK". I was not but we iced it that night and I just did the best I could on Tuesday I did not want to hold anyone back but it was hurting.. I had stopped at CVS to get some ice packs so in between tours I was icing it.. I think it hurt the most with my three flights home.. by the time I drove back to Richmond on Wednesday morning - to Charlotte , NC and then over to Las Vegas and then into LAX with a drive back to the house because I had left the car at the airport.. I was pretty worn out.. but would not have changed anything.. it was a great trip... talking about trips we are headed up to Anchorage for Thanksgiving.. and then 5 days later back up to Anchorage for Rainey's school testing and meeting with her counselor. I am a bit behind... on her schoolwork because of the trip and baby being here. We are starting the week with needing 1 hour of music and 2 hours of math... but it should not be hard to catch up. We bought an electric piano from Costco but it is still in the box.. right now we are just learning to play the recorder.. which reminds me I was going to  order  her a new recorder... they have to have nicer ones than just the cheapy one that sounds awful... I am going to do that right now before I forget.