Virginia Girls Weekend

Valentine's Day morning, Olivia and I left from Indy to go visit Amanda in Virginia for a long girls weekend. We just missed a big snow in VA the day before, but luckily our flight wasn't affected.  Amanda picked us up from the airport, we went out to lunch, planned our meals for the weekend and headed to the grocery store.  I never knew grocery shopping could be so much fun!

The house Amanda rents with 4 other girls

That night, we made dinner for Chris and two of Amanda's roommates, then painted nails and chatted until the wee hours of the morning.  I don't think I have talked or laughed so much in months!

Saturday, Aunt Martha invited us over to her convent in Woodbridge for lunch. She made us lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and eagle brand brownies. Such a treat!  After lunch, she took us in the backyard to show us this beauty...a snow sculpture of St. Michael the Archangel!  One of the sisters is quite the artist and spent a couple hours the night before sculpting this, with amazing detail.

After catching up, we played a new card game called May I with one of the other sisters who lives there, who is from a family of 10.  I think we were a little loud for Aunt Martha...she kept commenting on how crazy we were.  The other sister said she felt right at home.  What can I say...family brings out the crazy in you :)

As soon as we arrived and right before we left, Aunt Martha took us downstairs to make a chapel visit.  They have a chapel in their house!  She said on snow days, father will come to their house to say mass!  How awesome is that?!  What a unique blessing it is to have religious vocations in the family!!!

After we left Aunt Martha's, we drove around looking for all the supplies we needed to make the awesome craft we found on Pinterest.  After some searching, we found what we needed and put these little babies together while watching Catch Me If You Can.

And some fun pictures with our mugs...

Sunday, after mass, we drove to Alexandria and spent the day exploring little shops along the main drive.  Chris and a few of his buddies from Steubenville who were in town decided to join us.  We did a lot of antique store shopping where I happened to find some great books for the girls!  We grabbed a coffee (or tea) to warm ourselves up and even walked along the water.  Such a pretty place!

Adorable shops along King Street

The menu was spelled out in colorful magnetic letters at a little coffee shop we stopped at

A beautiful restaurant along the water

Chris insisted on carrying all our bags for us...such a gentleman

The adorable engaged couple

One shop we stopped in had these adorable pillows for each state.  I need to learn how to make one for myself.

Chris and his Steubenville buddies

On our way to the airport on Monday, we stopped by Amanda's favorite local bookstore called Hole in the Wall Books.  It is a tiny little shop packed full of gently used books at awesome prices.  It was easy to see why Amanda loved the place.  And now it is even more special to her since it is where Chris proposed to her last September!

Amanda in the corner where Chris popped the question

It really was so wonderful to have an adult, girly weekend with some of my favorite people.  Paul and the girls stayed in Carmel while I was gone, so I knew they were in good hands and having a blast, which made it all that much easier to enjoy myself.  We did miss Madeline not being there though, so I guess we will just have to do it again...bummer :)