Northern Virginia - Staying with Susie

I was very excited when Flat Susan made her way up the East Coast to join me in Centreville, VA.

Centreville is about 20 miles due west of Washington DC.  Several battles of the Civil War were fought nearby.  For our first adventure, we visited the National Park in Manassas, the location of the First Battle of Bull Run where Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson got his nickname. 

“There is Jackson, standing like a Stonewall!” said Brigadeer-General Barnard E. Bee.

We did not have time to pop into the Winery at Bull Run, which is just about 3 miles from my house. There are actually a lot of wineries in Virginia and FS and I discussed doing a tour of them should she ever have a chance to come back for another visit!

We took advantage of an unseasonably warm day and drove into Washington DC to visit my favorite monument, the Jefferson Memorial.  It is located on the tidal basin and in just a matter of weeks it will be surrounded by Cherry Blossoms in full bloom. 

Here is the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the inside...

FS insisted that she wanted one of the two of us... 

You can just see her pinned to my black and white blouse - what was I thinking?!?

FS just loved the Jefferson Memorial, and also got a pretty good look at the Washington Monument as we drove past.

You may see the scaffolding encasing the lower half…they are just finishing the repairs from damage caused by an earthquake in 2011.

A friend had hockey tickets she was unable to use and shared them with my husband and I.  Flat Susan had never been to a real hockey game...although we watched some of the games on the Olympics together...and she was very excited to join us!

 The tickets also included a meet and greet with 2 members of the Washington Capitals professional hockey team.  Here you can see FS and I collecting autographs from Michael Neuvirth and Connor Carrick!

I think Susan’s arrival from North Carolina had been delayed due to one of the big snowstorms we experienced here in the Mid-Atlantic in February. Her trip from NC took more than a week!  The good news was that meant there was snow in the mountains just over the border in Pennsylvania.  FS was a good sport and decided to join us.  In fact she really took over the navigation for us !

We changed our GPS voice selection so that it spoke with a female voice with a British accent  J which was just silly fun! 

I will tell you that FS braved the double black diamond runs at Whitetail Ski Resort, but drew the line at entering the terrain park!

While FS was here we also visited a couple of local shops.  We stopped into Angela’s HappyStamper in Reston, VA.  FS thought I might like one of these stamps…and I could tell she was really starting to appreciate my sense of humor!

We checked out the canvases in the back of the shop – everybody who works there has one.  They were created by the fabulous Claudine Hellmuth!

Plenty of samples around for inspiration!

My artsy and oh-so-talented  friends Karen Bearse and Deborah Mahnken with Flat Susan.

The local scrapbook store, Scrapbooks Plus, was offering classes by the fabulous Jen Starr!  My schedule did not allow me to take any of her classes this time, but we did pop in to say hello.  Jen was quite tickled to meet FS.  

We said hello to the whole class...

  ...looked over several shoulders to see what kind of inky goodness was happening...

...and checked out some of Jen's sample canvases: 

We also did some shopping and may have left with one or all of these products!

 My friend Joy was working the register at Scrapbooks Plus and FS insisted on a photo with her!

Our last big hurrah was a party!  Flat Susan joined me at a friend’s house for her annual Oscar Party!  

Things kicked off at 6pm with appetizers and champagne while we watched the red carpet arrivals. 

We think Ellen did a good job hosting the show and we stayed until the very end!  Fabulous evening!

Flat Susan had a tiara for the evening!

Flat Susan is on her way to visit Kay in New Mexico.  We really enjoyed her visit to Northern Virginia and hope you had fun reading about her adventures!