Our Trip (Part 1)

Hello again! We are back from a wonderful trip to Fairfax, VA and Iron Gate, VA. We all had a great time visiting with family and getting to spend time with each other. Tillman also got to meet her Great-Grandpa Adkins on this trip, making it extra special. I will briefly recap the trip throughout a couple of posts instead of bombarding you all at one time. I apologize if I leave anything out or forget important bits and pieces. We did a lot, were gone a long time, and things are busy as usual back home.

To start, ...
Josh was in grad class all day Friday up until about 1:45. When he got home we finished packing up last minute items and got everybody situated to leave. We Easley around 2:30 to drive to our halfway point of the trip, Christiansburg, VA. We got to our hotel around 7:00. We checked in and then walked over to an adjoining Cracker Barrel for dinner.

Her new favorite toy on this trip, an empty water bottle. It kept her occupied (and happy) for a while!

Eating dinner at Cracker Barrel - We are quickly learning to keep EVERYTHING out of Tillman's reach, especially when eating at a restaurant. She's very interested and curious about her surroundings.

Looking at all of the candies and goodies in the Cracker Barrel shop. This is always my favorite part.

The next morning Tillman woke us up bright and early around 6:30. She slept in her travel tent/pea pod sleeper and I think she was a bit restless. When I went to get her in the morning she was halfway hanging out of the tent. Later in the trip we decided to stop using the tent and just make a bed on the floor by making a pallet of blankets. It seemed to work much better and Tillman slept well. Most mornings she slept until 8:00. That makes for a happier Mom and Dad than the 6:30 wake up call.

We got ready, ate breakfast at the hotel, and got back on the road by 8:00 to finish our journey to Fairfax. We arrived at Tony and Danica's around lunch time. We unloaded the car, said our hello's, played with Cheifa (Tony and Danica's dog) briefly, then we loaded back up to go out to lunch and grab a bite to eat. We ate at Potbelly's, a sandwich shop that Josh and I had eaten at before when we were in Chicago. After lunch we went back to the apartment to play with Chiefa, relax, and let Tillman take a nap. Then we headed out again to the grocery store and eventually out to dinner.

We ate dinner at one of my all-time favorite places, Elevation Burger. They have great burgers, awesome fries, and the best cookies ever! We all got burgers and fries, and an extra large order of cookies to take home with us to eat off of for the week. We ate outside and actually ran into a Clemson graduate.

Tillman and me excited about our Elevation Burger cookies!

After dinner we headed back to the apartment to hangout for the night. It was obviously way passed Tillman's bedtime. (she was WAY off schedule all week - staying up very late)

Tiger carrying in a very sleepy Tillman. We even put her in her PJs before dinner because we knew it would be bedtime when we got back to the apartment.

Tiger and his Chiefa baby

Josh and Cheifa cuddling - They did a lot of this in the mornings.

Tillman napping. We checked on her every other minute because I was afraid she would scoot all over the place, but she was out cold and never moved. After she slept so well on the bed we decided to let her sleep on a pile of blankets instead of her plastic tent that's not as cozy.

Sunday we went out to Georgetown for the day. It's got a nice downtown area that is popular to walk around and shop. It is also located on the Potomac River so it's nice to walk along the water and even kayak and go out on a boat. We walked and shopped for a good portion of the day. We ate lunch at another sandwich shop downtown and walked along the river before heading back to the apartment to rest before dinner. One of the shops located in Georgetown is DC Cupcakes, from the show on TLC. It was really neat to see the shop, but only from the outside. The line to get into the shop was long all day and only got longer as the day went on.

Me outside of the DC Cupcakes shop

The line to get into the shop, wrapped around the corner.

We also went in Crate and Barrel where Tony and Danica walked Tillman around for us and tried to teach her how to say their names. She's got a ways to go, especially with Danica's name because it has so many syllables.

Chiefa has her own tent too. She plays in it, chews toys in it, and they took it with us on the trip to Grandpa's. We think Chiefa might have been confused about there being so many tents around the apartment because she kept running into mine and Josh's room and getting into Tillman's sleeping tent.

Well, Josh is leaving for football weight lifting soon so I need to go tend to the baby. (who is 8 months old today!)  I will continue with Part 2 of the trip either later tonight or hopefully at some point tomorrow. Check back in for more...