Winter Wonder Land

Patty and I made it to the mountains last Saterday. Earlier this week there was a large snow storm that hit the eastern states. The roads into the park were all close but some of the trails were accessible near the front gate. So we desided to hike the trail to Mary,s Rock. The trees were covered in ice reminding us of the Christmas morning in "A Christmans Story". Each time the sun came out from behined the clowds the ice on the trees sparkled like huge chandeliers. The higher Patty and I hiked in the foot deep snow the thicker the ice was on the trees. Each time a small breeze would blow across the trees, pieces of the ice would break off from the top twigs and cascade onto other ice covered branches. The dozens of cylindrical pieces of ice felling through the trees and would make a musical tinkling noise. It was truly a winter wonderland of both sight and sound. I only wish the photos we took would have shown the rainbow of colors that sparkled through the frozen ice forest.

Fall colors

It is a week before Thanksgiving and the leaves here in Virginia are in full coller and just starting to drop. Photos never do the colors justice but here is what we see looking out our Apartment window.

Some of your Virginia roots

In doing some of our Genealogy I found that a few of our GGGGGGGrate Grandfathers were from Virginia. In 1658 one named Ball settled in Northumberland County and was a farmer and a pastor in a church 60 miles north of us along the Virginia coast. I was able to find the old church and got a photo of it. Unfortunately it is not the same building. The first 2 burned down but each time the members rebuild the church, they build in the same style as the first.

The bottem of the sign reads: "CIRCA 1645" That is the year it was first built.

I also found the Ball Coat of Arms from England.

Happy Halloween

This photo is of part of a very old grave stone of one of the early settelers of Jamestown.

Sun rise and sun set the same day

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was a perfect day.

Sunset the same day over the salt marshes.

Here is the pictures of a mommy and her saggy little boy.

Well, it has been a long time since we have put anything up on our blog. We were only in our little brown apartment for a month and a half. We are now in Williamsburg and have lovely apartment that look out onto a swimming pool.

We are only 7 miles from the James River farry and look for any reason to take the 15 minute ride to the other side. We are looking forward to be able to take our g-kids for a ride.

One of the most enjoyable things that we have found to do is to find the old plantation homes and to explore them. This one is called Baccon's Castel.

This one is called Berkley Plantation and grand and lovely lawns and gardens to explore all the way down to the James River.

One of the walls of the plantation still has a cannon ball loged in it from the Civel War.

We are looking forward to showinf "all-ya-all" around when you come out to see us in Virginia.

We miss you all very much.

The bottem is a ceramic shop. It may look a bit bleck but we are in the countey and are surounded by pastures and woods. We see deer almost every day.
Most of the Aprtment was browm with brown wood trim, brown casrpets, and our browm furniture. Thus the name Brown Apartment.

The bed also had a brown bed spred tell Patty took it off and put on a blue blanket.

A photo of our Brown Kitchen-et

Our Little Brown Living Room.

Even though it was small Patsy I hated to leave it.

This is the front room of our little "brown"apartment on Turkey Run Road.

This is a shot into our tiny kitchen.

The first picture is of the light house on Assateague and the new moon

Grandma washing off the sand from the shells in a big lagoon.

This is one of the wild ponies that live on the island of Assateague. Most think that the first ponies came to the island when a Spanish ship sank near the island during a hurricane hundreds of years ago. The horses swam to the island and have been living there every since.

The light house on Assateague was built in 1862 and has been warning ships to stay away from the beaches every sence.

This is a small island in a lagoon. The dark line in the back ground is the beach and the light line behind it is the ocean.

Trip to the outer banks

All of these are shells on the beach.

We loved to see the big waves come in at sunrise.

This a picture of some of the salt marshes. The docks, swans and geese all like this area.

Flooding

After the snow We got a lot of rain and our little Rapahanick River in now about 9 feet higher then normal.

Shanandoa National Park in Winter

The roads were closed but Patsy and I walked a few miles into the park to see a few of the lookouts and the tunnel. The snow was high but the roads were clear as far as we went.