Our Fresh Air Girls Have Come and Gone...

...and we survived another year and had a lot of fun. A few highlights from the week:

After picking up the girls at the bus in Harrisonburg, we head to Brewster's for ice cream. -- It's become a tradition. We opted for cups instead of cones because it was so hot -- less messy, especially for the little ones. Don't worry about the little guy. I'm holding his ice cream cup.

And then there was the hike on the Skyline Drive and wading in Land's Run.

We started with a picnic at the Visitor's Center at Dickey Ridge near Front Royal.

I Love Wildflowers!

Just ask my husband what I bring home when I go for a walk...a handful of wild flowers and grasses from the side of the road. It might be a mini-bouquet of buttercups and tiny daisies with a few interesting grasses and some purple clover for extra color or maybe three big Queen Ann's Lace clusters with some intersting weeds with pretty leaves and some blue cornflowers. I can even make a bouquet out of an assortment of grass mixing the wheaty-looky stems with some long tapering leaves. I like to put them in my kitchen window and admire them when I was dishes..

When I'm out with my camera, though, I often bring home a digital bouquet of wildflower pictures. Here are a few from some recent trips.

Blackwater Falls, West Virginia:






George Washington National Forest near New Market, Virginia:





Not a wildflower but I love the three distinct leaves from the Sassafrass Tree:



Shenandoah National Park near Skyland on the Skyline Drive: