Taking on the Falcons

September 22nd & 23rd

Another weekend of tailgating and football. This weekend Tech played the Bowling Green Falcons in Lane Stadium. Jed and I started Saturday bright and early for the breakfast portion of the tailgate at 8am. It was early but we had a great time hanging out, enjoying the great weather, friends and breakfast tacos. Breakfast tacos always remind me of Mathis and Nicki and how they should be doing this with us. :) Your breakfast tacos were way better, obviously.

The game was a lot of fun. It was Military Appreciation Game and the team honored the troops with camo helmets and numbers on their jerseys. They looked great! It was really windy but the sun was out. I was successful in getting the half face and neck sunburn.This week Calvin was able to come to the game with me and Peter and Miriam joined us when they could in the 3rd quarter.

It was great to see the Hokies get there running game going and find a rhythm. I am hopefully they will be able to carry this into our next game in DC.

After the game, we headed back out to our cars and pulled out all our tailgating stuff for the lunch/dinner part of the tailgating party. Burker, Sar-john & Lindsey brought their leftover food from the LAX dinner the night before and it was enough food to feed half the football stadium and it was really good! We spend most of that late afternoon and early evening just hanging out and talking.


In our Military Appreciation Hats

After the tailgating we headed home to watch more football. It was the perfect football day.

On Sunday, Jed and I headed down to Charlotte to spend some time with his family. His mom had flown to Charlotte from LA so we wanted to take advantage of everyone being there. It was so fun to hang out with my niece's and catch up on life with friends and family. It was a quick trip but definitely worth it.

Two Road Trip Weekend

September 14 - 16th

This weekend started off a little early. Danielle and I took a half day off and started our drive to Pittsburgh so we could enjoy a little dinner and friends on Friday night. The drive was pretty uneventful and pretty quick.

We met up with my family and then went to pick up Jed and Brian from the team hotel. I am so glad that Tom did all the driving downtown, it was crazy confusing. So many people had recommended a sandwich place that we had to try, Primanti Bros.

The place was really fun and the food was really good. If you are in Pittsburgh, you really should try it. I loved all the art work on the walls and the very relaxed atmosphere inside. You just read the menu on the wall and pick what you want. They told us that it would not be good if you asked to add or subtract to your sandwich so we all played by that rule.


After Primanti Bros we wanted to go hang out at a Sports Bar for a little bit but had a really difficult time finding one. We ended up back at the team hotel and went to the TGI Friday's that was across the street for a few drinks before we called it a night.

Saturday... Saturday I wish we could redo but there were some highlights. Danielle & I headed to the game pretty early. We found parking fairly easily but it was around a lot of Pitt fans. They started to give us a hard time as soon as we got out of the car. They ended up being pretty cool in the end and we stuck around and hung out with them for a little while.

We headed to go find my family after a while, we walked around and ended up at the river. It was pretty and so neat to see the skyline. It seems like there is so much to Pittsburgh that we haven't had the chance to explore. There were rows of boats lining the river. They come and camp out so they can "tailgate" for the Steele's game that is on Sunday. There boats are all decked out with black and yellow. I bet Sunday down there would be a lot of fun. We even made a friend with one of the guys on the boat. He said he had to bring his boat down on Monday to get a spot for the game on Sunday. Must be nice to have the week to hang out on the boat.

We walked along the river til we got to Heinz Field. The Pittsburgh Panthers and the Pittsburgh Steele's both share the field. It is a really cool field but I had forgotten how small it was. It didn't look small but it holds almost the same amount of people as Lane Stadium.

The game was pretty difficult. Pitt did a great job and played a good game. They were a better team then us that day and they came out with the win. After the game, we just wanted to be back home so we headed straight to the car to start the six hour drive home. When we got to the car, our tailgating friend, Bob, was back at his car cleaning up. We talked for a bit and swapped info so we could return the hospitality next year when Pitt comes to Tech.

The drive home and the rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. I am glad that I made the trip up to Pitt. I was still proud of my Hokies and even when many had changed the channel or turned the game off at there homes, they never gave up. They kept fighting.

Sunday was a new day and a day that we were going to go out and have fun.So that morning, we took off on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were going to do a little hiking before lunch but the weather won't cooperate so we just enjoyed the ride and headed to Roanoke. We learned the week before that this weekend was the Roanoke Greek Festival.

The festival started at noon and by the time we got there at 12:06 the place was PACKED! They had live music, a little shopping, great food and dancing. Thankfully the weather had started to clear up so we didn't get too wet checking everything out. Lunch was amazing and it brought back so many great memories of our trip to Greece a few summers ago. After lunch, we walked though there shopping area grabbed some baklava for the road and headed to our next adventure.

Not too far from the Natural Bridge is a place called Foamhenge. This place was everything I hoped it to be and so much more. It has been there for years and I am quite disappointed that it too us this long to know it was there and then get to it. It was so fun to see and imagine what it took to build Stonehenge, daydream about one day going to Stonehenge and then stopping a seeing the beautiful area that was already around us. For most of our time at Foamhenge it was just the two of us and just a perfect, fun experience.

We continued our road trip north with no definite destination in mind, which we love. That is when we came upon Layne's County Store. We passed by it at first but decided to turn around and check it out. I am so glad we did. It is a fun little family run fruit & veggie stand with lots of specialty jams & jellys, a deli, and they are one of the few places that has hoop cheese. We had no idea what hoop cheese was so we asked. And for the next 15 to 20 minutes we learned about hoop cheese and the store. The grand daughter told us fun storied and after about 30 seconds, it felt like we had know her and her family for years. It was so fun. It felt like we had stepped back in time. We hope to be able to find that little place again during future trips.

Our next stop ended up being downtown Lexington. We have come here a few times to meet up with friends and the little downtown always seemed so cute and fun but always closed when we were there. And this time was no different. It felt a little like a ghost town. No one was out walking around and none of the shops were opened. It was a bit of a bust so we hopped in the car and kept going.

We decided we would go to Staunton and get some dinner. This was another fun town that we had quickly stopped at a few years ago so we thought we would give it another try. It was a much bigger success the Lexington. There were a lot of fun little shops and a ton of restaurants. By the time we got there all the shops had closed but there were still plenty of people walking around and hanging out at different restaurants. We were a little disappointed we could wander through some of the stories but we couldn't expect too much being it was a Sunday evening. We decided on Byers Street Bistro for dinner. The food was great and it was quite entertaining to people watch and a perfect evening to sit outside and enjoy the great weather.

After dinner we started the drive home. It was such a fun day exploring areas that are just down the road and seeing what we could find. Can't wait for the next Sunday drive.

Weddings, Birthdays & Football

September 7 - 9th

Thursday night I headed to Virginia Beach to spend the weekend with my family. Friday was my niece's first birthday and I couldn't miss the party.

Friday we spent the day running around trying to get everything ready for the party that evening. That night was a great success. My niece was adorable and loved, loved, loved the little truck that her parents got her for her birthday.

She loved it so much that she refused to get out of it after to open other gifts, so Shelby just opened them by the truck and showed her. Nothing was more exciting then her truck.

When it time for the cake, we were all so excited to see what she would do. We got everything set up for a huge mess but she still wasn't ready to get out of her truck so her first birthday cake tasting will have to wait for another time.



Her "smash" cake




Cake for the rest of us



After a while she did decide to venture out of her truck, in her own time, and tried out many of her other toys. She is just too cute and I am so happy that I was able to be there to see it all and spend time with her.

On Saturday, I had the honor and privilege to wedding dress shop with one of my oldest and best friends. We had a great time laughing and being silly. She looked absolutely amazing in everything thing she tried on. She is going to be a beautiful bride come December. We took pictures of all the dresses but they are all top secret. After a week of shopping for dresses, she was able to found her dress this morning.

Heather, her mom, my mom and I all celebrated the purchase of the dress and talked wedding over lunch at Fire & Vine.

After lunch we headed to Ben & Shelby's for an afternoon of shopping for dresses for mom and I for Ben & Shelby's wedding in December. But before we hit the malls, we listened to the first half of the VT - Austin Peay football game on the radio since the game was not televised.

At the start of the second half of the game, we had hit the mall shopping and Ben & I relied entirely on Mathis giving us play by play text messages to keep up with the game. (Thank you Mathis!! You are a life saver!)

The game was a success, Tech bet Austin Peay 42-7 but the dress shopping was a complete failure. Mom and I both came up empty. Not even a trip to the outlets resulted in any dresses. But I had a great time hanging out with family and running around with my niece so it made it all ok.

It was so great to make the trip home to see family and friends and celebrate some super exciting things. Happy Birthday Ryn and Congratulations Heather & Walcy!

The Ramblin' Wreck

September 3rd

Lane Stadium

What a way to start off the football season! We had a great day. The first football game of the 2012 season started with a tailgate starting at 9am! Jed was able to spend the day hanging out at the tailgate and he thought it would be fun to try out the smoker Mathis & Nicki left for us. (Thanks guys!) So after a quick stop to get Carol Lee Donuts, we fired up the smoked and started cooking ribs and brisket.

We spent the entire day just hanging out as different people stopped by to hang out, grab some food and talk football. Many of the usuals were there and we had quite a few new Hokie fans stop to just check it all out.

The smoking was a success except for the food wasn't done until after Jed and everyone that works in his office had to leave to go to work. We did pull the brisket off and finish it on the grill so they could try some of it before they left. We ended up doing the same with the ribs a few hours later as well. But all and all the tailgate and the smoker was a success.

We packed up and headed into the game at 7 so we could see all the pregame videos Jed, Megan and Brian had been working on for months. They did an amazing job!!


View from our new seats

Jed had a great time being back into the swing of things with running around the stadium. And it was really fun to see him in action when he came by our area and had to push some rowdy guys around. He did end up taking a little spill at the beginning of the game and ended up with a HUGE bruise on his shoulder and down his arm and a big gash in his shin.



The Orange Effect Game

Our friends, Kevin & Stephanie joined us for the game this week. It was there first Tech game and I don't know that it could have been any better for a first game. I, on the other hand, lost at least a few years of my life stressing about the game. I am really glad Peter and Danielle were there. I do feel that I definitely did my part to help the team and got as loud as I possibly could. I think I was so loud that the guy sitting in front of me left at half time and didn't come back... Oops. I also couldn't talk at all the next day but it was worth it. I am so proud of the Hokies for being able to drive down the field and score the game tying field goal in only 44 seconds.

I am so glad I was able to be at the first overtime game in Lane Stadium. I hope it is a long time before we see another.