We (Barely) Made It To Virginia

I can’t believe it, but we actually made it to Virginia. We departed Los Angeles on Saturday morning, made a brief overnight pit stop in Nashville to visit with J’s wonderful family and get a crash-course in driving stick shift, then left on our 10.5 hour roadtrip to my hometwon yesterday morning. The drive through TN and VA was beautiful, and you could hardly notice that Julian and I had just learned how to operate a manual transmission just a handful of hours prior to taking off! Before I recount some of the highlights from yesterday, let me just say that It is SO great to be home and visit with my family for the first time in seven months. I’m currently parked at my Mom’s dining room table, watching the rain through the big glass window overlooking our backyard, and Mom is in the living room pinning the quilt she’s making me.

We’ve got four days of fun, family and food ahead of us, but here are some of the highlights from our Thanksgiving excursion so far (some of which might not make any sense to you but I’m including them anyway because, well, because I feel like it):

Our first time flying together (we watched the first half of Ben Hur – I’ve never seen it!); getting to hang with Julian’s family and meeting his sweet Grandparents; big hugs from little boys Avery, Ezra and Trevor; our very late night five hour crash course in driving stick from J’s brother Jhason and Julian’s filmmaker approach to learning to drive stick – “Did you get that on film?” (video to come soon); never quite getting the whole shifting-up-hill thing; ‘Mr. Cool Guy’ hand-in-the-pocket toothbrushing; slapping a Student Driver magnet on the back of our car; finding out it fell off somewhere between Nashville and Knoxville (drivers beware); lunch with cousin Garrett in Knoxville and a very delicious grilled veggie sub; stalling on a hill five times in front of a very patient pick-up truck drive (thank goodness we’re not in LA, I have a feeling the reaction would have been VERY different); spotting a flaming tire bouncing across the interstate (terrifying); listening to classical Christmas carols; the VA and TN scenery that I miss so much, miles & miles of rolling hills of trees with leaves clinging to the branches, rock walls on the side of the interstate, overcast skies, barns with advertisements painted on the sides of them; “I’m pretty sure that guy wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a puffy vest.”; taking pictures of Shoney’s restaurants; actually, my horrible, horrible photography skills despite using a top of the line camera (we have 500 pictures of blurry trees); screeching like a maniac in glee when I saw the sign for I-66 E; sleeping in my favorite baby blue sheets…mmm.

Parking lot director.

We’re gonna need this. Oh, and make sure you get this on film.

(I’ll do a big photo post later this week when Julian gives me access to his super-secret files)

This morning Mom made Belgian waffles and now we’re going to enjoy some nice Moroccan Mint tea before taking off to give Julian a tour of Old Towne Manassas, and then we’re heading to my Dad’s to visit with the other half of my family… whom I can’t WAIT to see and introduce Julian to!