past week

Hi y'all.

The past week has been really pretty chilled:) We have done a lot of hanging out with friends and a bit of shopping.

Yesterday was the meeting, so we did the weekly grocery shop quick-sticks and then finished of our Watchtowers before heading out to the meeting. Phil gave a really good talk, and after the meeting we went home to make  a salad and change before heading off to a congregation farewell for a couple who had been serving in Leesburg South for about 6 years. There was so much food!

We went home with the twins and then the football had started, so we spent the rest of the evening with them; painting nails, hanging out, laughing at the guys and watching football. Thankfully the Redskins won!

Tomorrow we leave for New York, which is bittersweet because it's going to be awesome but it means we're so close to the end of our trip:( Excited for all the things we're going to see!

Brief update

Ahh, so with all the snow getting around has been quite problematic at times. We have, however, spent some quality time with some new friends; just hanging out and playing cards or drawing pictures with lots of laughing and talking:)

Yesterday we took the Metro back into D.C and spent the afternoon dashing between various museums before having dinner and collecting some craft supplies to make a banner for a special couple...

Today we did actual house-to-house in the morning, had lunch and did some shopping:D Woo hoo! Then we dashed home and dressed up to go the afore-mentioned special couple's 10 year surprise anniversary party:) Awww. it was so special to join in on that.

No pictures right now, but eventually they shall arrive, have no fear. Tomorrow is another snowy morning which means hanging out and catching up on journals, blogs and accounts and doing Watchtowers, etc:)

Snow pictures! (and a video)

As promised, here are the pictures from yesterdays snow :D It snowed until after dark (which is about 5 or 5:30pm here), and there was exceptionally heavy fog through the night. The snow is still out today but it's melting really quickly as the sun is out and shining today and it's a bit warmer.

This is the snow on the trampoline after only about 15 or 20 minutes!

One of Tarissa's snow balls.

Mmmm yum, Milo with marshmallows after playing in the snow.

Mr. Jude seeing the " 'no" hehehe.

The scene on the way to spend the day with the Nordgrens:)

We built a Table Mountain 'snow man'. Bringing a bit of Cape Town to Leesburg!

Here is a video Taris took just before we built the snowman:

We made little snowmen (and a painting) INSIDE to escape the cold. From left to right: Tarissa's, Bradley's, Rebecka's (below), mine, Kaylee's, Rachel's (below) and finally Jude's.

The snow this morning:)

And that's that! Apparently there is more snow expected later this week.

SNOW

We have snow! Yay! Pictures to come later:)

Target practice, DC and bowling.

After the awesome 'chilledness' of Wednesday, Thursday saw us getting down and dirty!

Uncle Tim gave us a brief lesson on hunting weaponry, and then let us have it with some target practice. Tons of fun, but it was so cold that my fingers got all stiff. When we eventually got to try the gun with the scope, we were almost deafened by how loud it was. We learnt that we aren't such bad shots when shooting at a stationary piece of cardboard!

As we finished up there it started raining... but we still went 4-wheeling! It was so cool to open up the throttle in the corn field and and through a part of the forest. Awesome; except that raindrops kept flying into my eyeballs.

That evening we had the meeting, which also happened to be little Reef's first meeting!! How cute. He was well behaved.



The twins got to wear the waistcoats- so adorable, and they fit perfectly.

friday was a quiet day which saw us heading back to Rev and Daniel's place and making some yum tacos for supper, and then doing a little shopping and browsing at a local mall.

Saturday was the day we visited D.C! It was freezing because of the wind, but we dressed up nice and warm. Our first stop was the Washington Monument- it's exactly as tall as it looks in movies!- and then we got to get pretty close to the White House! 

After that we went to one of my favourite stops- the Centre for American Art and Portraiture. I had so much fun! Taris of course didn't, LOL.

I got to see two Edward Hopper paintings! They aren't my favourite ones, but they're still pretty cool.

Taris felt like we were there forever, and everyone was getting pretty hungry so we headed to Chinatown and stopped at Potbelly for lunch-super yum and reasonably healthy  :)

After that, we carried on the tour. We drove past the Capitol building, which is much more impressive than the White House because it's enormous and you can see it down almost every street. After that we made the short journey to the Lincoln memorial... wow, it was really awesome. He really is enormous, and the memorial was designed to use space in a way to make it feel completely powerful inside.

By that time we were all frozen to death and starting to get really hungry so we met with a whole bunch at the Cheesecake Factory for supper- yum! I had to try the cheesecake afterwards, of course. I had the red velvet cheesecake mmmmmmmmmm....

Today was the meeting- so good to finally get to see the congregation we have been waiting to see! What a lovely talk about appreciating the provisions Jehovah provides for us.

After the meeting, we went bowling. What fun! We got to meet  a whole bunch of brothers and sisters we hadn't met before, as well as see some familiar faces. Lot's of fun!

Lot's more planned for tomorrow!

Back in Virginia

So we arrived back in Virginia this week, back to the cold, yay!
We only got to spend one day with Revi, and then we went off to Sarisha and Tim's place for a few days:) When we met up, we went to the store aaand...I found an awesome souvenir- Campbell's tomato soup! I bought a can and will possible paint it at some point.

 Today we went out in the field and we got to see Knynie using her little fieldies bag:) Taris also got to put gas in the car; I was too chicken hehehe.

After field we took a short walk and a steep climb up the tower to see the view of Edinburg and the Seven-bend river.

After that chilling experience, we went to warm up with some coffee and cake at a little coffee shop:) Yum yum.

The rest of the day we packed left overs from supper last night and headed off to spend the day with Googie and Taryn. We made yummy chicken pie for supper, and took a great walk up to the reservoir with Googie and the boys.

We just spent the rest of the evening chilling with everyone and eating the chicken pie.

Waterwall, Armadillo and more!

Right, so on Friday we visited the local high school as well as some awesome sights before heading to the Galleria- the biggest mall in Texas. We didn't even get to see most of it, we just ran out of time.

The first sight we saw was a giant armadillo, with shiny metal plating. It even had long-horns!!
Then we went to see something amazingly impressive- the waterwall! It was soo beautiful!

That evening we went over to Lorenzo and Kristen's place and met some pretty cool brothers and sisters. We all just hung out and sat in the hot tub for most of the night.

Saturday saw us consuming ENORMOUS amounts of food starting at Cracker Barrel and moving on to touring the Trader's Village where we had funnel cake, and later we had KFC for dinner...

But it's not over. After playing Rockband we headed off to Tony's, where we had about a million different deserts! I woke up the next morning and wasn't even hungry!

 

Sunday saw us sleepign incredibly late and then heading off to the meeting. After that we went off to the Mexican restaurant and then spent the evening playing cards and other games together.

 

 

 



Ranch, tours and museums

 Yesterday, we went to try Texan barbeque with Alexandria and Kristen. After that, we went to visit the ranch.We were the only four in our tour group which made it even more enjoyable.

There were five main areas of interest where tour guides told us the history of the family that had begun the ranch. There were four houses to tour, with guides in period costume, and we got to see the cowboys working with the cattle on their horses. It was fascinating, and we all agreed that the story should be turned into a movie at some point.

Today, we travelled to Rosenburg to see the Assembly Hall there. It was suuuper big, and so well arranged as you can expect from the organisation. Every last detail was taken into consideration, down to the direction of the sun on brothers and sisters in the classes when they were writing!

The brother who took us on the tour knew so much, and I think we all learned a lot. It took about two hours, which is a lot longer than the tour normally lasts. The weather is still great, so afterwards we stood on the bridge and fed the ducks and fish.

We had lunch at "What A Burger"... Taris and I are still sharing portions because they're so huge.

Following lunch we headed off to the Houston Museum of Fine Art. I had a blast as we wandered through the galleries, and saw some beautiful pieces:) Taris, on the other hand, got kinda bored. Art is not her thing!

All in all, it's been a good two days.