I know I know…I go to the Caribbean all the time, that’s tooooooootally Vacation. NOT.

THIS is vacation.

Because of all those trips, I had some frequent flier miles to use up. Plus I hadn’t been home to VA since Christmas, that’s a long time for me! Thank youuuu American Airlines, I was off to Leesburg for 10 days for $11.20 (airline taxes).

Not only did I have a Nugget to play with, I also have a tiny new Princess to snuggle. She turned 1 month the second weekend I was home.

While my first night home was a fun adjustment – I held the Princess while everyone ate, then switched and as soon as I sat down to eat the rest of the family got up to go to the living room…. I made the comment “oh, just like being at home & eating alone…” to an eruption of laughter.

Sunday Mom had planned out for us to go to the lake. Total relaxation & fun mode with the jet skis. Brother’s friend’s parents have a boat so they also met us down there…. somehow another boater decided it’d be fun to steal their prop from their motor, so we played on the jet skis until they rectified that & got in the water.

Then we were off to find our spot for the afternoon. Sure we brought the wake board, but we were just too comfortable to move.

Through the week everyone else had to work, even Brother found a PAID summer internship! I basically lounged around figuring out how to distract myself from checking my e-mail…. my out of office DID say I had NO access to e-mail or voicemail so I just monitored to make sure sh*t wasn’t hitting the fan.

My Disney running buddy and I were trying to get together to go for a run and gauge our status, we went for a hike instead. I’d actually never been on the trails in NoVA in the 20 years we’ve lived there…. Sure we’d do team bonding hikes in Lynchburg, but never back home. Weird.

It. Was. Beautiful. And while the first hill kicked my ass, I felt pretty good the rest of the time. We did a teeny part of the Appalachian Trail which made me feel like an explorer, and we ended up doing about 5.5 miles followed by one of the local wineries. I’m a little obsessed with the Lokai story so yes, that’s the limited edition Make-a-Wish Lokai (mom and I have that one) between two wine glasses, I also ordered the Shark Week Lokai that supports Oceana for BigSeester and I to wear.

I saw BigSeester and the munchkins almost every day which was fun. Nugget is such a little person now, Princess just eats, sleeps & poops. But I was able to get her to stop crying once or twice!

Some pool days thrown in, a call to Rite Aid to make sure I could walk Jagger there (“as long as it doesn’t growl at anyone, sure”), a stint as Chauffeur for Mom & Evan, and it was already Friday 😦

The other request I had was “can we go to either Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion?”. Mom doesn’t like KD… BG on the other hand, voted Worlds Most Beautiful Theme Park since 1990 was the easy choice. We love almost all the rides (not DarKastle) so we got a steal of a deal on tickets thanks to my work and jumped on the Quick Queue tickets that allowed us to skip lines.

We dropped Jag off at Nana’s, picked up Brother Friday after work and drove down… ok, Dad drove….to Colonial Williamsburg for the night.

A stop at the Yankee Candle Co and ice cream for dinner put us all in bed pretty early. Plus an early A.I.S (Ass in Seat for those of you who have never heard the acronym) meant we’d be at the park all day. We got in before there was a line for parking, got a great spot, front row on the tram and were through the kiosks waiting for the ropes outside of Pompeii to be lifted.

The security guard standing watch was great entertainment for our half hour wait, that part of the park doesn’t open till 10:15am. He’s a history teacher full time and does this for the summers. Lots of trivia  fun facts as we waited.

Once the ropes dropped we power walked to Apollo’s Chariot & the new coaster Tempesto. We didn’t have to wait in line at all. Walked right through and right on. That NEVER happens.

We managed to stay ahead of the crowds all day somehow. We also jumped in on the Food  Wine festivities happening and snacked our way through the day…. after beers & soft pretzels in Ireland of course 🙂

We picked Alpengeist for our Bonus ride (mom’s favorite), and then headed to the Ice Cream place (I’m sensing a trend here) from the Ghiradelli’s vendor and Brother & I jumped on Griffon again.

I think I fell asleep as soon as I buckled my seat belt for the ride home. French Fries from Five Guys woke me up on the way home and then straight to bed as our Sunday afternoon was going to be spent volunteer pouring at the Northern Virginia Summer Brewfest!

Dad has been brewing his own beer for probably all my life. It’s a hobby he enjoys and is REALLY good at. He actually made me my own case my senior year of college, a Raspberry Honey Wheat that was the talk of the townhouse (because I wouldn’t share with anyone else). So his request for Father’s Day was for us all to pour. So we did 🙂

The back of these awesome yellow shirts said “In dog beers, I’ve only had one” 🙂

His & Mom’s friend was spearheading the team and put us at each of the brewer’s tents. Technically ABC rules constitute that we are acting as bartenders for the state of Virginia (does that mean I can add it to my resume?) so there were some easy rules to follow; no eating/drinking behind the bar, talk with the brewers about their brews, easy stuff really. Our Brew Captain had a ton of extra tasting tickets so I was given a handful and told to “go taste”. I obliged, favorite was the Blueberry Sour, most of the ciders were gone by the second afternoon anyway. The head honcho of the event had something against tapping additional kegs on the second day which was a bummer for the brewers, but meant Brother bounced from one to another while I was with the Escutcheon Brewery all day pouring a Lager & a Kolch. Dad had a brewer who’s ABV% was 9% & 10%… yikes!

We had a great time and then followed our Brew Captain like good minions to her house where she made a delicious dinner for us. We all slept well Sunday night, that’s for sure.

I got back to work Monday and multi-tasked while holding the Princess and BigSeester chased Nugget around the kitchen island. On my way to the airport we grabbed the fam for early dinner at Brio which was FREEZING inside. Luckily we were in the mall so I jumped out and bought a sweater before the entrees came.

It gets harder and harder to leave each time. I always feel like I’m missing out being so far away. But thank goodness for google hangouts right?!