This weekend turned into the complete opposite of our original plan.

Plan: Meet the Pollocks in town for dinner, sleep at their house Friday night (boys play Quake), play in pool Saturday, camp Saturday night

Did: Stopped in Staunton for dinner, slept at the Pollock's Friday night, shopped in Lexington Saturday, played games in cabin, slept at the Pollock's Saturday night, boys played Quake Sunday in Richmond.

After a very late start Friday evening, we didn't arrive in Natural Bridge until after 11pm. Instead of meeting the Pollock's (Mike's grandparents) at the pizza place in town, we had to stop in Staunton at Cracker Barrel, so we wouldn't starve.

Half of us were very tired and fell asleep fairly soon after our arrival. Others of us (Jeff, Paul, Mike) decided it would be much more fun to sit on the porch until 3am talking about computers and cars.

By the time everyone woke up Saturday we had decided it wasn't quite warm enough to be in the pool. (And the dead squirrels didn't help). So instead we visited the booming town of Lexington.

They have a lot of really cute little shops, similar to Carytown. Lauren & I made the most purchases I think. Big surprise, right? We stopped in at The Palms for some lunch. The food was ok, the seat were hard, but the company was great :)

Shortly after arriving back at the Pollocks, we were served another meal. (Yikes, more food!) Because of the lack of rain and the fires up in the mountains, we couldn't have a campfire, so we chose to stay the in house instead of camping in the dark. So as to not bother our wonderful hosts, we headed across the way to Mike's uncle's guest cabin to spend the majority of our night. We played some very lively rounds of Scattegories and after Mike, Lauren & Jeff passed out, the rest of us (me, Chris, Paul & Brian) answered the questions from Battle of the Sexes. It's amazing what they assume that men & women will know.

Another late start on Sunday had us leaving around 3:30. From the mountain we were on, we could see the smoke (and the flame at night) from the forest fires, so we took a little detour to get a closer look. It was amazing how widespread it actually was. From far off it didn't seem that way. A quick stop at Taco Bell and we were back on the road.

Jeff & I picked up Gizmo, showered, and headed back over to Mike & Lauren's so the boys could finally play Quake. By midnight we were all pretty tired, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Now, who wants to do my laundry, balance my checkbook, and wash my car, so I can get some sleep?