Summer Squeeze!

It's Mid-August, and I'm sitting in my front room at 5 pm with the door wide open because it is the most gorgeous day outside. Clear blue sky, a light breeze, and I'm in shorts and bare feet. I wish everyday could be like this. Even the business has been a little more mellow today. Stuff to do of course, but sailing rather smoothly. It amazes me to think that summer has come and almost gone. It's been such a busy one that I haven't even had the chance to squeeze in post about some of the really fun things we did!

At the beginning of June I bought us tickets for half price to see The Mikado at Wolf Trap. We doubled up with Curtis and Melinda and hung out on the lawn. We packed picnic dinners and staked out a spot early to get a good spot to see the show. Although visibility isn't as great on the lawn, it's good enough and it's nice to enjoy the weather with my handsome man.

We've also been dying to go to the drive-in movie ever since we found out there was one near Winchester. It's always a double feature for $8 a piece. What a steal! Especially in this area. They change the movies every week, so it's hard to find a week we are free AND that we want to see the movies they are showing. When we did go, they were showing Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University. We loved them. They were really fun shows. I forgot to take any pictures of us at that date night.

Sometimes the stresses of the business can really get to us, and especially to Ryan as he bears the brunt of any difficult situation. It's not an easy job, by any means. We miss doing fun things because we don't have time, and when we do have time, we are usually too tired. But a couple weeks ago, Curtis and Melinda called us up and invited us on an impromptu canoeing adventure. We actually were free, so we jumped on it. The canoe struggled to hold all 4 of us afloat, and we struggled in the shallow areas as we put so much weight in the boat we couldn't get over some of the rocks! We canoed down a tributary to the Potomac and then found a place to dock and explore. As we were doing so, we could see the sky was getting dark, not only with evening, but with oncoming rain. The lightning started and we decided we ought to head back to our starting point. We struggled with the shallows even more this time as we were going upstream! Melinda and I ended up pretty wet from having to pull the boat and the guys ended up getting a pretty good workout rowing the boat both ways for us. We made it back and got the canoe back to the house just before the storm broke and the rain started to come. It was exactly the kind of adventure we needed that night.

This last weekend we did a camping trip with some of our friends up at Harper's Ferry. Harper's is probably one of my favorite places to go from where we live. It's only about 45 minutes away, and it is absolutely beautiful! The first campsite we tried was a total fail. It ended up being a big muddy field at the end of a street of houses! We drove around and ended up asking in at a bar where the nearest campsite was. We camped that night in Antietam, the site of the civil war battle. I'd have loved to drive around and explore there, but I got outvoted. We headed into the town of Harper's and Ryan and I took the crew to see this old abandoned hotel that we found last year. It's absolutely beautiful and it sits on an overlook right above the Potomac River. It's a shame it's fallen into such disrepair. Ryan has been dying to explore it, so we poked around it a little more than before. We also found some other old abandoned houses that were super fun to explore around. Everything is locked up of course, but it's fun to look in the windows and stuff.

Then we went into another part of the town and grabbed some ice cream and walked around. We found a tunnel that the guys were quick to scale a wall to reach. I'm curious what it was for.

Shoes are not necessary to scaling rock walls

Why would a tunnel possibly dead end 18 feet above the ground?

We crossed the river on a foot bridge that parallels the train track. There was so much left to explore still, but time got late and we all had to head back home. Though the trip was short, it amazes me how helpful and necessary it is to sometimes escape everyday life and have an adventure to clear out stress and feel rejuvenated.

Tim, Alisha, Curtis, Melinda, Shauna, Ryan, Dan, and Erin