Remnants of Summer

Look what I found growing this week! Our two strawberry plants hardly produced all summer and all of a sudden they are starting to flourish. Yum! What a nice surprise!

Although this weekend is rainy and cooler, summer seems to have been hanging on in Virginia the past couple of weeks. Last weekend we met up with our good friend from MN Aaron and his girlfriend Angel (who happens to be a MN Rollergirl). They were staying at a condo in Williamsburg for the week so we met them on Friday night.

It's amazing to be able to pick up right where you left off with certain good, old friends. Time and distance evaporate for a while when you get back together. The distance part makes me kind of sad, but the visits are always spectacular.

Aaron brought a delicious blueberry mead to share with us. Here are Aaron, Angel and Troy tasting it.

We had a great time catching up--I hadn't seen Aaron since he visited us in Oregon 5 years ago so we had lots of catching up to do. Plus Troy and I wanted to hear all about roller derby from Angel. Finally, we all snuck into the hot tub and pool for a midnight swim. It was a lovely evening.

On Saturday we headed to First Landing State Park to camp for the night. We took a long walk on the beach and Aaron and Troy went swimming. Troy brought a growler of the beer we brewed especially for Aaron's visit. Mmmmmm....beer and beach.


I always love discovering interesting things in the sand. Here are a few pics from the walk.


Later we spent some time in Virginia Beach, walking on the boardwalk and feasting on seafood. And later still, we had a wonderful bonfire and drank some more beer.

We had probably an hour-long conversation about bacon--which was hilarious. Aaron and Angel are invited to a party next month where everyone has to bring a dish that involves bacon. We invented a huge number of interesting combinations--one that we would try after dinner on Sunday night--bourbon-pecan pie with a side of bacon. It was surprisingly tasty because the very sweet is balanced by the very salty.

The next morning our plan was to get up and go for a swim, drink some coffee on the beach and then go. But we soon learned that Troy had other plans, beginning with--big surprise here--beer drinking...


and eventually leading to bacon and eggs--which he combined with our leftover crab cake and hush puppy leftovers from the night before. I know, I know, it sounds totally disgusting, but somehow it worked!



It was such a nice day that we ended up staying most of it. We did eventually go swimming but the day also involved kite flying, sand sculpture-making and relaxing.