Happy Friday! As we approach the end of summer, today I wanted to do a scrapbook-style post to recap what I was up to during the month of August. It was an amazing month and I did so many things!
I helped my mom enter her flowers and plants into the County Fair. We've been doing this since I was little and I always look forward to it!
Fair food! This was just a month ago, but it feels like ages ago!
Checking out the winners...
We came back to the fair later that week to go to the rodeo!
My family, Kenny, and Carmen all went to Orkney Springs to see a Fleetwood Mac cover band. The concert was fun, but we had the most fun just spending time together and exploring the property!
Kenny and I hiked almost every weekend - it's touch-me-not (AKA jewelweed) season, which is one of my FAVORITE native plants. When the seed pods are ripe, they explode when you touch them! I had fun introducing a random guy on the hike to the joy of popping them. 😂 These were at Doyle's River Falls in the Shenandoah National Park.
Black Rock Summit - a short hike with amazing views! We've never hiked it at sunset but it would be a great sunset hike because it's short. I've been wanting to do a post on our favorite Virginia hikes for a couple of years now, but there are so many I want to make sure I don't leave anything out!
My birthday weekend kickoff! I got my nails done, and Roxy and I enjoyed a martini on the deck after work.
Kenny made us dinner reservations at the Joshua Wilton House, which is where we had our wedding reception! It's always so special to go back. They treated us like VIPs and brought us a toast - sparkling rosé for me, sparkling tea for Kenny! We both got the grouper special for dinner and it was excellent. It was served with soubise sauce which was new to us and SO delicious. I want to make it at home!
We visited Afton Mountain Vineyard and the views were even better than the wine! Someone there said "grapes don't grow in ugly places" and they were 100% right.
Carmen and me!
My (little!) brother. 😎
Carmen got me princess cake cupcakes for my birthday! We were laughing because we couldn't keep the candle lit. 😂 She introduced me to princess cake a few years ago and it's SO good - it's covered in marzipan and if you like almond flavor you'll LOVE it! Carmen gets hers locally at Albemarle Baking Company.
There were goats at the winery! I don't know if they live there or if they were just there cleaning up the weeds. 😂
That night we went up to Reddish Knob to watch the sunset - we used to go every summer but haven't been in four years, so I used my birthday privilege to make everyone come back.
My mom. 😂
Reddish Knob might be my favorite spot in all of Virginia!
I brought my favorite pizza and wine for us to enjoy!
As you can sort of tell behind us, we didn't get much of a sunset. Instead a bunch of clouds rolled in to where it felt like we were really inside a cloud - I guess we basically were! It was really spooky and just as cool as a sunset but for different reasons!
On Sunday (my actual birthday) my parents hosted us for a cookout! My mom made cream cheese pound cake, and Carmen brought me a bouquet of flowers from her garden!
Kenny had a Texas Roadhouse coupon that was burning a hole in his pocket, so we went for dinner one Thursday after I had a hair appointment. I didn't get any great photos, but I got a glaze for the first time to tone my hair a darker brown! I love it and I'm already planning on going even darker next time.
We had the BEST time at Texas Roadhouse. 😂 They had the perfect country playlist going and it was packed in there, the vibes were immaculate. We hadn't been in years, but their fried pickles remain my favorite of all time - SO salty though!
Kenny and I tried a restaurant that we've been wanting to check out, Edinburg Mill. The food wasn't anything special but the location is so cool and I'm glad we finally went!
We stopped by a flower field after dinner - it was getting dark but I still had to snap a pic!
That same night, we went to the Shenandoah County Fair! We just went for the first time a few years ago and now it's a tradition. I love walking around a fair!
The next day, Sydney (my best friend from college) and I had a whole day planned together. We haven't spent a day together just us in ages! I had to take her to my favorite winery, Chiswell. I like every wine I've tried, but my favorites are the Cabernet Sauvignon, Meritage, fully oaked Chardonnay, and sparkling rosé.
We also visited my favorite estate jewelry store, Rocky's! Sydney got an AMAZING opal inlay ring, along with a turquoise bracelet and a turquoise collar necklace.
We got dinner at Tavola in Charlottesville! This was the burrata app and it was sooo good. Our server was super weird and we had a good laugh about his behavior, he made dinner more interesting for sure. 😂
She got the carbonara which was good, and I got the cacio e pepe gnocchi with crab which might've been the worst thing I've ever eaten at a restaurant. 😂 I was bummed because in theory it should've been delicious!! The texture of the gnocchi was very gummy and unpleasant, it was like you boiled biscuit dough and didn't cook it all the way through. The sauce was awful too! It was watery and tasted like nothing. The crab was flavorless and sparse, and still had pieces of the shell in it. I'm being harsh because everything else I've ever had at Tavola has been excellent!!
The Sunday before Labor Day Kenny and I tried to do a new hike, but we couldn't find the trailhead. It worked out though because we ended up hiking Bearfence in the Shenandoah National Park, which we've done before, but we took a different route that involved rock scrambling and had even more amazing views than the route we had taken before.
Last weekend, my mom and I visited the Southern Living Idea House, which is in Keswick, Virginia this year. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was even cooler than I imagined! You get free rein of the house, and they have staff throughout the house to explain design details and answer questions.
This was in the entryway, facing right toward the primary bedroom. I loved the entry space!
This was the living room, which is designed with several sitting spaces and an open layout to encourage congregation and conversation.
This was the downstairs powder room - it was one of my favorite spaces!
The primary bedroom is on the ground floor. It had his-and-hers closets, they were so dreamy! The "hers" one was filled with personal items of the home's designer, Charlotte Moss. I know because her initials were on a few things! There was a whole shelf of Hermès boxes. 😍 The "his" closet included a wet bar complete with an espresso machine and a mini fridge. Right in the closet!!!! That would take "getting-ready drinks" to a WHOLE new level.
This was the tub in the primary bathroom, which looks right out into a beautiful view of the woods! I wish I could've gotten better photos of all of the rooms, it's impossible to do them justice. The other bedrooms were upstairs, but I didn't take any photos up there because there were more people around and I wanted to be respectful of them. Frankly, the design of the entire upstairs wasn't my favorite. 😂 There was a lot of decor that looked like things you can buy at fair trade gift shops which is not my style.
This was the library - it was my favorite room in the house because it reminded me SO much of the den in my Uncle George's house.
Off of the library there was a bar, and my mom and I LOVED the granite used for the countertop. The stone throughout the whole house was beautiful!
The kitchen was small compared to the scale of the rest of the house, but I loved it! It felt cozy and homey. The whole house was very much NOT open concept, and I really enjoyed the layout. It reminded me of the beautiful old homes my childhood friends and I grew up in. The roofline even affected the shape of the ceilings upstairs, which is exactly how it was in my childhood bedroom!
"Little miss figgy fig" cracked me up. 😂 The landscaping at the house was, of course, beautiful. I'm sure it will be even more amazing in a few years when the plants have time to grow into their space. The whole landscape plan book was available to flip through which was really cool.
In the garage, they had tables with pamphlets from every vendor, supplier, designer, contractor, etc. that worked on the house. My mom and I had fun going through everything and grabbed several reading materials! They also had someone from Southwest Mountains Vineyard doing wine tastings. I was already wanting to visit there after the house because it's close by and I'd never been, and after tasting the wine my mom was convinced so we headed straight there!
Southwest Mountains Vineyard is definitely a new favorite of mine - I can't wait to go back! It is beautiful there, and the wines were EXCELLENT. I'm typically a red drinker, but the whites blew my mom and me away! Our favorites were the Gruner and the Ascot blend.
xoxx, Laura
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