The place I belong

Stephanie and I took off Thursday morning on our 8.5 hour trek to Prince William Forest for the France Family Reunion. My abhorrence for 81 has grown even more since we had to stay on it for 300 miles (or 5 years). But once we got into Virginia we started passing by many familiar places from our childhood.

Stephanie and I were born at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville. Until we were 4 and 4 mo. respectively we lived in Waynesboro, VA and this place is probably more like home than any other town we've lived in. This is where Grandma's house was and the place we always came back to for holidays or family get togethers no matter where we moved. This is the Waynesboro SDA church (right on the highway!) and probably what we'd consider our alltime home church. The church bought the property for this building while my dad was the pastor and my uncles helped build it several years later.
We stopped at the overlook into Afton (Grandma's house is probably somewhere down there) and both of us remembered how much we love these mountains and how much this feels like home. This has to be the most beautiful place on earth to me!

These signs are all over VA highways but what exactly does this mean? How can they see your license plate from the air? And what do they do, drop a bomb on you? Do a low fly by? I don't get it...

Thursday night the main portion of the family hadn't arrived from TN due to car trouble so the Fords had the entire camp ourselves. Friday my Uncle Kit, Aunt Pat, and cousin Lindsey arrived and we took a trip into downtown DC. Lindsey met us there and spent the day with us! It was quite windy...

My Aunt Sharon, who works in a building near the White House, treated us to lunch on top of the Hotel Washington with great views of the White House roof and the mall.

This is the part of our family we're probably the closest to. We still go to their house often to share holidays and play with their dog, Laddie.
Here's Lindsey trying to figure out her new digital camera. Hopefully we'll get to see more pictures on her blog now! (hint hint)

Where North Carolina and Virginia meet at the WWII memorial.