Football & Busch Gardens (Take 2)

September 12th & 13th

I love that every year in September we find a weekend to cheer on the Hokies from Lane Stadium and then hop in the car and spend Sunday running around Busch Garden's for my niece's birthday. This year, we started the weekend off with a game again Furman University. I was so excited to bring a handful of friends and quite a few for there first Virginia Tech football game!

It was a perfect day for football and it was a great game and our first "W" of the season.

Immediately after the game, we hopped in the car and drive to Williamsburg. We were so excited to run around Busch Gardens and act like kids again.

At 4, my niece has decided that she is almost done with the little kid rides and is ready for some "real" roller coasters. Unfortunately, she is still too short to ride the real ones, but she was tall enough that there were a group of rides that were new to her from this time last year.

But I think her favorite was still the Land Of Dragons play ground. I think she and I played in there for a few hours while everyone else headed out. We had the best time running, chasing dragons, making up stories, looking for treasures and sliding down slides. It was a great time!

It is never fun to have to leave but I am so glad we do this each year. Can wait to see what rides she takes us on next year.

Let The Games Begin

September 7th

The first game of the season might be the biggest game ever in Lane Stadium. This year we play the National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes. We went to Ohio last year and walked away with a victory and the Buckeyes only loss last season. So there was a lot on the line this year.

Our great friend, Tim made the trip to watch the big game and while Jed was hard at work getting ready for the game, Tim and I explored campus and found fun things we never knew were there.

In typical fashion, the day of the game we tailgated and hung out with fellow Hokies before heading into the stadium for all the fun.

Unfortunately, we were not victorious this year but we put up a good fight.

We are very excited for the season and looking forward to many more games ahead.

The last adventure of the summer

July 24th-26th

Every August comes football and a lot of crazy so every year we try and get away just the two of us before it all gets here. This year we decided to check out Wilmington, NC.

After work on Friday, we hopped in the car and headed south for the weekend. We made it to Wilmington in time to grab dinner at the Copper Penny and explore Historic Downtown but most things had closed for the night.

The next morning we decided to get up and headed to Wrightsville Beach for the afternoon. We spent a few hours hanging out on the beach, swimming in the ocean and checking out the fishing an Johnnie Mercer's Fishing Pier.

Before we headed back to Historic Downtown Wilmington to go exploring, we stopped for lunch at Tower 7 Baja Mexican Restaurant. This place was fantastic! If you are ever in the area, definitely stop.

When we got back downtown, we decided to take the water taxi over to the USS North Carolina Battleship. We spent hours exploring the ship and walking around with our jaws on the ground in amazement and complete gratitude for what our Navy does and how they live on this massive ships for months and years at a time. It was a surreal and humbling experience.

By the time we got back to the other side of the water, we had a few minutes to grab a quick bite to eat at The Trolly Stop before our Ghost Tour started.

We have really enjoyed exploring a city via different Ghost Tours. A lot of times they end up being more historic then scary and that was definitely the case in Wilmington. The tour was fun and very interesting to hear what life was like as a port city many, many years ago. This was definitely one of the least scary of tours we have been on but it was still a great time.

Sunday morning, we were not ready to start the drive north yet so we headed south to Carolina Beach for DONUTS! We had heard from may sources that we HAD to go try Britt's donuts. Apparently many, many other people got the same message so when we got there, there was quite the line. But I can assure you it was well worth it!

After walking along Carolina Beach's new boardwalk for a little while to burn off some of that donut, we hopped in the car and head to the next donut shop!

Wake N Bake donuts was completely different from Britt's. Britt's has one kind of donut, glazed. Wake N Bake is home of some of the craziest donuts. They are nuts. Examples you ask, how about the signature Wake N Bake donut, maple glaze with bacon crumbles. That doesn't seem too extreme, right? Well, how about the other donut we got, the PB get Bizzy, peanut butter vanilla filling, chocolate icing, peanut butter cups (whole peanut butter cups!) with peanut butter drizzle. Crazy, right! I almost went into sugar shock. But there crown and glory was already sold out by the time we got there. There stuffed donuts. What is a stuffed donut you ask? They take a full pop tart, dip it in donut batter and deep fry it to make a stuffed donut. Or our favorite that we couldn't bring ourselves to get, a full sized snickers, dipped in donut batter, deep fried THEN covered with caramel icing, chocolate chips and crushed peanuts. I love that, THAT qualities as a donut!

After the huge sugar rush, we really wanted to just go back to sleep but instead we drove. The trip was a great way to end the summer. As sad as we are that it is all done, we are really excited for football season and all the fun and adventure the fall will bring.