Michelle's Visit & Williamsburg, VA

On Thursday night, my friend from college, Michelle Tombrella, flew into RDU. After getting lost and taking a lot longer to pick her up than I expected, I finally picked her up from the airport to bring her back to Wilson for a visit. I have been awaiting this visit for a few months. Michelle and I have stayed very close these last 9 years of our lives. We have grown in the Lord together as we have become wives and moms. I love her dearly and was so blessed that she made an effort to come see me. On Friday morning, we got up later than expected to leave for our girls weekend to Williamsburg, VA. I have always wanted to go there. I love history, and after reading a novel series by Elsworth Thayne every summer, I decided it was time to go. Poor Michelle was sick when we left on Friday morning, but she endured because we were very excited about being together by ourselves, good ole girl time!!

Michelle and I are standing in front of the VA state sigh. It didn't take us very long to get to Williamsburg, about 3 hours.

After we got there, we drove to the historical district. It was after 1:00pm, and we were hungry, so we ate before we walked down the Duke of Gloucester Street. It was also very windy that day, so we were bundled in our coats.

This is the Palace, the Governor's mansion. Usually in the flowers are beautiful, but when you go in the dead of winter, I guess you can't expect much. There is a horse drawn carriage in front of the house.

We are in the stocks. We thought this would be a funny picture!

This is the capitol. There was a reading of the Declaration of Independence while we were looking at it. We wanted to be able to look in the building, but you had to pay. We decided that it would be better to visit with our family in the spring when everything was blooming and more people were there. It was fun, however, to see all the historical building I have read about for a long time.

Later that night we went to the outlet mall in Williamsburg, then we ate dinner at Olive Garden. We slept in late on Saturday (9:30am), and then went back to the outlet mall for more shopping. We ate lunch at The Petite Tea Room at the Antique Mall. The name of the tea room really fit the place, there were only four tables to sit at. The chicken salad and tea were wonderful. After lunch, we went to the Williamsburg Pottery. They had a lot of great deals and fun things to look at. We drove home after that and had a great Sunday at church and just hanging out.

Karis enjoyed having "Shell" all to herself on Monday until we left for the airport. I know that Michelle enjoyed being able to do some girlie things with Karis that she doesn't get to do with her two boys, Samuel and Joel.

All in all, it was wonderful time together. God again renewed our friendship and reminded me just how special it is to have life long kindred spirits in our lives. No matter how far away we are from each other, Michelle is someone who will always be one of my best friends. Thank you again for coming and blessing us with your presence. What a great God we have to allow us the chance to be together. Thank you Robbie and Justin for allowing us to spend time together and for taking such good care of our children.