Juliana Moves

My niece Clara came to town this weekend and it was a lovely time. Her trip was timed just right to experience an unusually cool and pleasant August weekend here in Virginia. I’m not sure how many times we all commented on how fantastic the weather was, but we even sat outside in sweatshirts and drank bedtime tea one evening! 

She arrived Thursday evening and we immediately went out to dinner. The diner we went to had Thursday night bingo, so of course we had to play. I even won a round! It is so exhilarating to win at bingo. This diner is not far from our house and seemed to have a lot of regulars, so we’ll have to go back.

On Friday, Patrick worked half a day, so Clara and I went on a bookstore crawl of DC. I resisted the urge to buy anything for myself since I can go to the library so easily, but I almost bought a complete collection of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t! Oh well. Patrick eventually met up with us, we grabbed Levain cookies (my favorite being the chocolate with chocolate), and then we went to Carbonara for a late lunch. It turns out, even when the weather is phenomenal, a big bowl of pasta for lunch makes you very very sleepy. We chilled out for the rest of the day.

Saturday, however, we hit the ground running. We gave Clara two options: hike at Rock Creek Park and continue meandering all around DC, or drive further into rural VA to hike and then explore some small towns. I was genuinely surprised when she picked option 2! Great choice, though, it was definitely the better option. We stopped at Red Truck Rural Bakery in Marshall for sweet treats, because you simply must. 

Then we hiked around Sky Meadows State Park, including the giant hill which I know Clara regretted choosing when we were halfway up it. We all survived and it was gorgeous!

After a nice loop through the forest, we had a picnic in the field by the headquarters. Not a shabby lunch or view.

That night we went over to our neighbor’s house for burgers, and sat outside to enjoy the weather. Again, not a shabby summer evening!

We decided to have a chill Sunday and go wherever the wind took us. For us that meant getting fruit and berries from the farmers market, going to the library, reading books, getting soft serve ice cream, and going on a waltz that Clara claimed was too long to call a “short walk”. LOL. Did you forget who you were visiting?!

Clara left Monday evening, so we spent our time hanging out, making pickle lemonade, and we saw Bad Guys 2 before her flight. Going to a movie at 11 am on a Monday is a weird experience. 

All in all, it was an awesome weekend! It felt like we were really embracing summer. I loved that.

Clara even had some leftover apple crisp from Red Truck Rural Bakery for her plane snack.

I hope you’ve had an awesome week so far! I accidentally took a two week blog hiatus because I was too busy or lazy to write, but I’m back. 

See you soon,

JN