Summer Vacation 2012 - Blacksburg

The drive from Florida all the way back to Cleveland is long... too long! So we listened to a book on CD, "Killing Lincoln" about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln instead of just music. It was great! Can't wait for the "Killing Kennedy" book to come out this year. After a 12 hour drive we broke up our trip with a last night stop over at our favorite place...



We had a lovely Virginia last-day-of-our-vacation day with some shopping, walking around campus, and a lovely lunch outside at The Cellar. Oh, how I love vacation!

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi!

We headed South this past weekend. Back to Virginia Tech to visit with friends and see the Hokies play. Unfortunately we had a late start into town on Friday, a ton of traffic, cold and rainy weather, and the saddest of all... a Hokie loss.

But we made the most of it. Friday night we headed downtown and hung out at Awful Arthur's with one of my college roomies, Courtney.

We listened to a band, enjoyed some tasty beverages, and ended the night with none other than Gumbi's Pizza Pokey sticks!

On Saturday we tailgated for hours on end, one of my favorite things to do! Catching up with another roommate of mine, Alissa...

along with her husband Stefano, son Vincent, Sean, Jill, their baby girl Charlotte, and a few other friends. We ran into sorority sisters, fraternity brothers, tailgated with our family friends the Ratcliffes, and hung out with Matt and Shannon, friends from Cleveland that are Hokies too!

During the game we even caught up with another college roommate of mine, Veronica, who was in town from Tennessee!

It was ridiculously windy, cloudy, dreary with spitting rain. And the game sure didn't go as we hoped... losing to Clemson 23-3. Ouch! But it was still Virginia Tech... still beautiful... still so much fun...

First Weekend of Fall

We spent the first weekend of Fall at home in Cleveland and it was gorgeous! I was about to get webbed feet from the amount of rain we have been having lately. Luckily, the sunshine was saved for the weekend. Friday night was just chilly enough to throw on a cardigan sweater and scarf (still no sock weather, thank goodness!) and head to our favorite place for Happy Hour by the falls with our friends Katie and Jen.

Saturday we had the wedding of our friends Megan and Alex where it seems they planned the day perfectly, with the wedding at 2pm...

and a break before the reception with almost enough time to watch the whole Virginia Tech game. After another Hokie win, we headed to Windows on the River to dance late into the night and celebrate with our friends. They even had a photo booth...   

 Happy beginning of Fall!

Hokie Football 2011

We travelled all over last weekend, as usual! The Labor Day holiday gave us one extra day to squeeze in not only a trip to Blacksburg, but to Richmond and Northern Virginia as well.
Thursday night was really the start of the weekend and more importantly, the start of J's most favorite time of year, College Football Season! Oh, how he loves those Hokies. I made a lovely football themed meal of mexican dip appetizers, hot dogs, corn on the cobb, beans, and of course, beer. We hit the road bright and early on Friday to our most favorite place, Blacksburg, Virginia.  

Our good friends, Dr. C and Mrs. S met us for the weekend so you know we had a blast! We spent the evening catching up at Poor Billy's bar downtown and had entirely too much fun...



























drinking wine, amongst many other things, way into the late hours of the night... or should I say morning...

Saturday was Game Day... and we were hurting. Too much fun the night before inhibited our pre-game festivities. We missed the SigEp groundbreaking for the new on campus house. We missed stopping by my APhi sister's tailgate, and nearly missed making it to J's pledge brother's tailgate before we had to get to the game. But we did see the Hokie Bird on the way!

And the game, it was so freakin' H-O-T HOT, HOT, HOT!! I honestly don't know how we made it through the whole thing. We all were not feeling good, cheering the team on and trying to endure the sweltering, humid weather... thank goodness we won!

We had a low key Saturday night. Eating pizza, staying in and watching all the college football games just the 4 of us. It was just as much fun as the night before had been... with a lot more water! 

August Vacation {Part 3 - Biltmore Estate & Hokie Town}

On our way home from our South Carolina/North Carolina trip, we ended up with an extra day. With no plans in particular we ended up here for the night... 

But on our way we stopped in Ashville, NC on a little detour when we missed our exit and visited the Biltmore Estate. Who knew we had castle like buildings here in the USA? Not me anyway.

It was a gorgeous day spent admiring the huge house, gardens, winery, inn and landscape built by the Vanderbilt family.

I especially loved the room in the conservatory that was dedicated to orchids! Sooo beautiful!

It was an unexpected adventure on our little August vacation. Oh, how I wish we had more time (and money!) to do things like this every month! So much fun.

Spring Game

This past Saturday we took J's cousin for a tour at our most favorite place on Earth.

It was a day trip. A LONG trip but a fun one. We took the official tour of campus where J and I were giant cheeseballs and couldn't help but chime in on answers to questions that visitors asked.

You would think after my many, many years at Virginia Tech I would have been to the spring game. I had just never gotten around to it... until now...

There sure was a great turnout for a scrimmage!

And J's cousin seemed to enjoy the trip. Maybe one day he will be a Hokie too. :)

Catching Up with October

Back in mid October we had one of our more traditional football weekends, which also happened to be Homecoming for Virginia Tech. We went to Jared's old fraternity house to start off Game Day.

It was a little sad since Sig Ep is moving on campus (like Alpha Phi did soon after I left) but it sure was fun to walk through and remember all the crazy parties and late nights where we spent entirely too much time.  Ah, the memories!

And even though none of my roomies or sorority sister's were in town, our time was full of tailgating with some great old friends...

and new! I just happened to meet Tyrod Taylor at TOTS and snapped this pic!

But this has to be one of my most favorite parts of every visit to Virginia Tech...

Go Hokies!

Just The Two of Us

This past weekend Jared and I visited our Alma mater, Virginia Tech. Normally our football weekend visits are filled with running around from tailgate to tailgate to catch up with friends from the past. This weekend was different. It was just the two of us.

The weather was gorgeous! We had the best time, no plans, just the game and walking around the place where we fell in love.

 We were so silly... it was perfect!

 Go Hokies!