Sean and I spent the week of Christmas and New Year's on vacation in Virginia.
We drove up to Roanoke on December 24th to spend Christmas with Grandma and Diane. On Christmas Day Grandma made a turkey dinner and we spent a lovely quiet day together. On the 26th, the Vanns came up from Winston-Salem -- a not so quiet day :-) They are an exhuberant but fun bunch.
I put together a Coconut & Whipped Cream cake in a jelly-roll form and it was a big hit along with Virginia Ham Sandwiches from Tinnell's market (thye have probably been making these since they opened in 1930), and Grandma's potato salad.
On Tues we decided to go see the Chronicles of Narnia, which was a good-matinee-kind of movie. Later Dad & Susan made it up from Georgia and we had a nice dinner with them at Grandma's-- Sean talked them into a portrait sitting, of course.
On Weds we left for Virginia Beach. Just shy of Williamsburg we stopped for lunch at the Candle Factory Restaurant. Sean used to go there all the time. It was their last week of business and they were closing as of the 31st -- so I also wandered around the candle factory store to stock up on some clearance items. Then we stopped in Williamsburg to wander around the old colonial town. It's one of those places I've read about in Southern Living that I've wanted to see. Apparently it's a fairly popular destination this time of year as there was a bigger crowd than expected.
After we'd checked into our hotel room in Virginia beach, we had to go to Frankie's for dinner -- they have THE BEST barbequed ribs I've ever tasted. We stopped for irish coffees at the "Jewish Mother" and wandered the boardwalk for a small stretch to look at the Christmas lights, lights, lights!!
On Thursday we made a day trip from Virginia Beach to the Outer Banks of NC -- Nags Head and Cape Hatteras to take photos of the lighthouses. It was raining when we left but we had a spot of sunshine when we arrived so the day turned out quite perfectly. We took a Ferry Back to the Beach, and as soon as we crossed the rain began again.
Later that night we had dinner with Jason, Sherri & Josh Clark. It was good to spend some time with friends we don't get to see too often.
And that was that, Friday we drove all the way home and by New Year's Eve all we wanted to do was watch a video, count down the last 10 seconds to midnight and call it a great ending to an interesting year. Sean has posted photos in our gallery.
I also added some pictures which Stefan sent me of Christmas in Vancouver. We decided to postpone our trip until the spring.
Posted by mrivinus at January 5, 2006 10:40 AM