I have been very sick the past three days, so I only have about 25 photos edited at this point, but here are a few.

Zach and Christa got married at Hurricane Hill in Bedford, VA.  We weren’t supposed to go romping through the fields since the facility owners don’t actually own all of the land.  However, I was able to get them this far and take advantage of the amazing mountain views.

Zach and Christa share a strong love for cars.  This has been their favorite shot so far. 

More shots here!

As you may be able to tell from the photo, he had his legs up over his head and was playing with his feet with his hands.  It was adorable.  I’m not sure what yoga pose that is, but I was thoroughly impressed.

Abed-nego has not been beating the heat by playing with golf balls with Christopher.

And I’d like to introduce you to the first zucchini of the summer, which will be made into zucchini bread.  In about ten minutes.

We decided last November that we felt ready to start trying come spring.  So there you have it!

This time, it was freezing all around.  Here in Lynchburg, the weather has been nice, the trees have been fully green for over a month, it feels a lot like summer.  Well, the Highlands were a different story.  It felt like early March!  Cold, breezy, bare trees…  But, as always, it was an amazing trip and totally worth the four-hour drive.  It is just interesting how different areas can be due to elevation–and, just so you know, Lynchburg is indeed in the mountains as well, just not that high up I guess.

Anyway, the main point of the trip was to celebrate my friend Kimmy’s 24th birthday.  Kimmy and I have know each other since kindergarten, so it was tons of fun to show her around Lynchburg, take her camping, introduce her to the ponies, and all that.

Kimmy and her husband, Josh, at the campsite.

Kimmy and Josh hiking to find the ponies.

Christopher and Josh on a crazy rock-mountain that they climbed.  I still don’t know how.

Christopher and a pony.

Me talking to a pony.

Group shot at an overlook.

HDR at the overlook.

More shots on flickr.

I love that Matthew always wears a cowboy hat.

After dinner and helping with dishes some, I went outside to see Chris on all fours in the grass having a growling contest with Matthew. So silly. I jumped on Chris’s back for a “double monster,” but Sydney quickly wanted a turn and I gave her my spot. After a little while, I realized that Sydney had an accident…. Here is Chris crawling around in the grass, growling back and forth with Matthew, with Syndey clinging to his back, and she has peed on him, yet he didn’t notice yet. It was hilariouss.

 We came home to see that my salvia has bloomed!  Stokeddd!  I’ll post photos some other day of our garden all coming together.

First, we drove through the Safari Park (which is much more expensive than it used to be) because Chris had never been!  Everyone should drive through the park and feed the zebras, llamas, long horns, and all the other animals at least once.

We also got to feed giraffes.   It was an unbelievably windy day, so my hair was one, big mess.

Also, we went by Foamhenge, a life-size replica of Stonehenge made of, well, foam!  Don’t worry; this one was free.

By then, it was dinner time and we had major hunger.  Off to the Pink Cadillac Diner, a “restaurant” with just half a star.  It did have this giant gorilla, though, which made it all better.

[ More photographs ]

Well, the time came to cut in the new flowerbed and Chris kept reminding me, asking if we could do it, and I kept saying, “Later… later…” because I didn’t want to have to deal with the work again.  I remembered last time.  And I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about renting a tiller.  In the end, Chris said not to worry about the tiller, that he’d just do it himself if I simply showed him where I wanted the flowerbed.  How nice, huh?

That idea lasted for a few moments, but then I was actually kind of having fun with helping out.  Chris did all of the shoveling, I bagged leaves and raked up little roots and clods of grass.  It went a lot smoother this time.  Few large roots and the ground was softer–probably because it had recently rained and we weren’t dealing with the same dry dirt as last summer.

So, as of yesterday, it was all cut in, but we need to do a little more raking.  We filled up our trash can completely and decided we should probably take a break.  Not completely finished, but really close.  We did find a ton of bricks, though–easily ten–buried in the dirt.  And two snakes!

Here is our yard as Chris got working yesterday.  Since the grass looks so awful in the winter and early spring, we plan to plant some grass seed in the fall.

 Chris also trimmed back a giant rose of sharon that needed some pruning, which our dog enjoyed devouring.