Ordinary and Extraordinary

I suppose the start of this past week was fairly slow - I'm looking back now at the pictures I have from the previous week and realizing that my pictures don't actually start until Tuesday night; I guess nothing too noteworthy happened between Monday morning and Tuesday evening. Obviously nothing that I felt compelled to snap a picture of.

I guess that's life in a nutshell - it's filled with moments you think are very photo worthy and other moments that just pass without notice. I suppose having the moments that pass without notice make the ones that we feel like taking pictures of all the more special. Life is the ordinary and the extraordinary weaving together to create memories along the way and these are just some pictures of the extraordinary...and maybe some of the ordinary of the past week.

Tuesday evening visitor(s) - I got to cuddle this sweetness for over an hour!

Wednesday morning sunshine...

I started designing my future living room in Ikea - one day....

Wednesday; it just so happened, I was off of work, my Dad was off work and my Mom took a mental health day. Ha-ha! I have not, in all my twenty-nine years of living ever been to an Ikea. The reason for this is mostly because I lived in Mississippi for most of my life and according to the store locator, the closest Ikea is either in Atlanta, Georgia or Houston, Texas...so yeah. That's not exactly a day trip. However, in the lovely land I'm currently living, Ikea is only 45 minutes away and so that is a day trip...so away we went. I must say, Ikea is overwhelming...but in a good way. I may have heard the Hallelujah chorus as the escalator crested at the second floor and we walked into happy furniture land - it was lovely and I spent my time carefully plotting and planning all the things I will buy when I have A) a full time job and B) a house to put things in.

We had lunch at Red Robin (yuuuuum!) and then we headed to Quantico to buy groceries; stopping off at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, which was so fascinating. We did a pretty quick pass through the museum but I could definitely go back and spend a much longer time there. The most interesting thing to see; in my humble opinion, was the flag that was raised on Iwo Jima - so amazing. I certainly don't know as much about the Marine Corp as I do the Air Force or the Navy, so I think it would be worth taking a second visit and really spending some time looking around. Plus - it's 100% free!

We should have squatted lower - oh well. Dad's hat really completes his look.

The museum & some of the planes hanging in the Atrium of the museum - so cool!

There were so many static displays - & even though they weren't "real" (obviously) they rumbled & whirred like the real thing. So neat.

The center beam of the museum's atrium...which goes through the roof and points into the sky.

So amazing - the things this flag was witness to.

The rest of the week itself passed pretty much without too much incident - just work and home and time with the family and time with the dog. The silly little dog that I discovered had found a bag of my old clothes that I was planning to donate; a bag just tossed into a corner of the basement for later, he managed to make a hole in the bag and start pulling out old sweaters and t-shirts. He made himself a little sleeping spot smack dab in the middle of my old clothes! We have struggled to entice him to stay in the basement each night to sleep but since he's decided to sleep on a pile of my clothes - we have a four night streak going! Maybe this is the key to having him sleep downstairs (have I mentioned the basement is fully finished? Please don't think we're stuffing him into a dank, dark hole because it is anything but that!) and our nights of him jail breaking are over?

He does still love to curl up on the couch like he's human or something - he is definitely spoiled rotten!

Jets "flying" in my tea!

Saturday was a gloomy, dismal sort of day - it misted and rained and was damp all day long. The weather didn't really stop my Mom and I from going out to do a couple things around town though and thankfully the weather didn't stop some events around town from taking place! The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley had a Tastes of the Valley festival and thank goodness for big white pavilion tents to shelter folks from the rain! There were vendors on hand offering samples of Route 11 potato chips, wine, cheese, cooking products, yard decor and all kinds of other things! They had a room in the museum where you could sample local produce - almost anything you could imagine, it was on the table. They even had a tasting room where you could sample local flowers...they showed you how to use edible flowers in your cooking! We had lunch at a diner/bakery called Bonnie Blue (it was delicious) and stopped at two Farmer's Markets on the way home. Not a bad Saturday at all - even if it was gloomy!

Oh the bounty of the Earth!

It takes the phrase "want a bud with that?" to a whole different place!

The gloomy streets of Winchester on Saturday!

Sunday passed pretty quickly as well - my Mom and I had nursery at church and that's always an adventure; this time was no exception. We spent Sunday afternoon visiting our friend Jenni and her little boy Jimmy - he caught a pig at the Shenandoah County Fair and wanted us to come see his new little friend...who will supposedly be made into bacon in late February or March! One thing I know for sure after visiting the little pig? I'm certainly not what you'd call a "country" girl...no pigs for this girl, no thanks!

Who knew a 4 year old could spin this thing around so fast?

My Mom snapped this picture at just the right moment - ha-ha! I don't do "wild" animals!

Jimmy is obviously a pig farmer in the making, ha-ha!

The river view from our friend's back yard - so pretty.

So - that's all for now. Another week has passed and it was filled with more than I thought; I managed to write a lot more than I thought I would. Since I've been typing away at this computer for the past hour, I should probably go and take my little dog on an ordinary walk...