Adventures in Virginia Part 1

Well, maybe not really "adventures" but I did go for a mini-hike immediately upon arrival.  


For those of you who don't know, my parents live at the top of a small mountain in the Blue Ridge foothills.  The closest neighbor is 1/2 a mile away and when the James River floods the water rises over the entrance to the driveway.  They are 30 minutes from the nearest grocery store and 45 minutes away from a movie theater.  Yes, it's beautiful, but after a couple days I crave civilization.


Here are some pictures of my mini-hike through the woods on my parents property.

My feet in the snow!!!  I haven't seen snow in 6 years!

(I've had those snow boots since I was 10 years old, and the still fit.)

the house

Ok, it's pretty funny that my dad took the seat out of his old VW bus and stuck it out in the woods...crazy pops.

That is a radical sunburst; if I do say so myself.

I was worried I was going to get lost...then I realized that I could just follow my footprints.  Yeah, sometimes I use my brain.

The end.  Next up:  Christmas with Stu and Denise!
  

Home Sweet Home...

I could have kissed the ground last night when I pulled into the driveway!  I won't go into detail, but I'll just say that 5 days stuck on a snow-covered mountain with no internet and nowhere to workout was too many days.  Ok, there are certain people that I wouldn't mind being in that situation with, but my parents (though I love them dearly) are not those people.  I have never been so homesick for my own stuff and my own routine before!

Big changes are taking place today.  I won't go into detail on those either but, one thing I'm also considering is changing the name and URL of this blog.  This has evolved into more of "my life" than "my work" and "Ashley Denney Photography" is starting to sound too formal and stuffy - I am neither of these things.  I'd still like for this to be an informal portfolio site but I like to post pictures of fun stuff too.  But that's later anyway.  I've no time to think of such things today.

I have tons of pictures from my trip, but this is the only one I'm posting today.  I'll get to the others soon.  This was taken from a spot my dad, brother and I used to hike to pretty frequently.  I was surprised how short of a hike it actually was.  When I was little it felt like it took us FOREVER to get there.

and nevermind...

I made an effort to be cheery, but honestly it's just not happening.  Nothing is really my favorite right now.  Except food, and that's not really interesting, AND I don't need to encourage myself to do anymore eating.  

I'm leaving for Virginia on Thursday to visit the parents, little bro, and little bro's awesome wife.  My dear friend Mallory and I have decided to tackle the long and arduous (it's really not) journey to the middle of nowhere together.  Hooray for not having to trek it alone!  I'm looking forward to a little Holman family-time.

I'm going to try my darndest to document the whole, relatively uneventful trip.

Oh, by the by, who wants to go watch the crazies participating in the Polar Bear Plunge on Sullivan's Island with me on New Years Day?  Just so we're clear, I will NOT be plunging; only spectating.

For now, I am officially on vacation.  I'll leave you with this...

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,

Was singing!  Without any presents at all!

He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!

IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,

Stood puzzling and puzzling:  "How could it be so?"

"It came without ribbons!  It came without tags!

"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.

"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

--Dr. Seuss

("How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is my favorite.)

Enjoy your friends and family.  They are what's truly important.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

favorite things continued...

2.  Dogs!

This is a super-old picture but it's my favorite of Juno.  She is a happy dog.
(My brother looks grumpy though...)

Ajax, before he started eating the house.

I love this dog.

3. crazy gypsy punk rockers that make me feel like jumping up and down and screaming Ukrainian lyrics at the top of my lungs.

If you haven't experienced the ridiculousness of Gogol Bordello, you are really missing out.
(Although, I don't think Julie Andrews would approve.)

Photo via

Photo via

Ok, that's all for today.  I'm tapped out of photos I could scavenge off my computer.  Tomorrow I will actually take some.  It was nice to do almost nothing all day, but I feel seriously unproductive.    

These are a few of my favorite things...

If there is one girly bone in my body (and I'm discovering that there are more than I once thought...) it's evident in my love for Julie Andrews as Sister Maria in The Sound of Music.  I want to be her.

Every year around this time I get an annual itch to sit alone and watch this movie.  I say alone because the ending makes me cry, and I hate to cry in front of other people.  And lets face it, "I am sixteen going on seventeen" is just about the corniest song EVER, and makes me cringe (but I love it).  Oh dear, I'm sharing way too much.

Anyway, inspired by my most favorite song in the whole movie, I thought I'd post some of my favorite things this week.  Because...

When the dog bites,

When the bee stings,

When I'm feeling sad,

I simply remember my favorite things,

And then I don't feel so bad!

1.  taking silly pictures in public

Here I am, about to be eaten by a T-Rex at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco... 

...and doing karate in front of the Domain Carneros chateau.  Classy.

That's all I have for this morning because I'm still in my pjs - at 10 a.m. on a Monday.  I'm going to go make myself useful.  More to come.

December 20

  

Snow!

Wow!  Dad emailed me some pictures of their house this morning.  They already have 13 inches and it's still coming down.  I don't think it's snowed that much since I was in elementary school!  Part of me wishes I had driven up after work yesterday.  I really hope it snows just a tiny bit next week when I'm up there.  Just a little...

My little bro and I used to run out and sit on all the snow-covered deck furniture.
Then we'd grab armloads of snow off the railing and start hurling it at each other.

I have no idea why that was so much fun.
What?  That's crazy talk, of course I do.
Stu, if it's snowing on Thursday, you'd better believe I'll have a snowball with your name on it!

Mom's car is under there somewhere.

Yes, I grew up in the middle of nowhere.

It looks super cozy, but they probably don't have electricity at the moment, and there is no way they are getting off the mountain for a couple of days.

Ah, the good ol' days of being the only kid in school who did not look forward to snow days.

!

I. GOT. IN.

commence with the happy-dance

What the heck weather?

Cut me some slack!  Don't you know I need some sunshine?  This cloudy, rainy nonsense is killing my soul!

I'm hearing chatter about thunder-snow-storms in my home state of Virginia.  I think I might need to see video footage of that action.

Here is my front porch.  Looks inviting right?  No, it looks wet and cold because it is.  If anyone out there would like to swing by Blockbuster and grab a movie, and then La Pizzaria to grab a pizza, and Whole Foods for some beers, and build me a fire then you might be my favorite person EVER.  Oh, and I suppose you could stay and have a couch date with me.  You would have to wear PJs though because that's what I will be wearing, and I can't have you dressing sharper than me.

On the bright side; I got 13 hugs from 13 crazy kiddos today.  Some of them were the jumping-leaping-flying-through-the-air kind, Wow!  I will miss my little friends over the next two weeks.  I hope Santa wasn't looking too hard at our classroom antics...they might be in trouble if he was, HA!  

wise words

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

December 17

I know.  Another beach post.  I needed some fresh air.