Bowman West

Andy's schedule slowed down a little in the last two weeks so we've been having a great time -- at least we were until we all got sick. Andy and I came down with some horrible fever/sore throat thing and Charlie, probably from the same virus, ended up with a nasty nose and a crazy rash on his face.

I took him to his pediatrician and Charlie bounced in there like he owned the place. Apparently whatever he had didn't slow him down. His pediatrician is really attractive and he flirted with her non-stop. When she swabbed his throat for the strep test he even asked her to do it again --three times! She laughed because kids usually hate it, but I knew exactly what he was doing. Player.


Anyway, she deemed the rash nothing more than the tail-end of a virus and Charlie had fun playing with the toys so I guess it wasn't a totally wasted trip.

Last week was the 60th Annual Dogwood Festival here in Cville. The Dogwood is both the state tree and the state flower so I guess that deems it worthy of a festival. It was very small-townish and since we love that sort of thing we had to check it out. We ate some BBQ chicken, since that's all they were serving. Then we talked about how no self-respecting festival in Texas would serve anything besides smoked brisket and possibly sausage. They had a tiny carnival and Charlie had fun riding a few rides -- I liked the motorcycles the best but I was too old to ride them. Jerks.

I just liked this picture. Charlie liked the chocolate cupcake.

Andy took last Wednesday off as his "Saturday" since he's been working on the weekends and we decided to drive over the mountain to Staunton, VA. Everyone pronounces it "Stanton" which I think is weird. They also pronounce Rio Road "Rye-O" -- go figure. Anyway, Staunton is the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson and the location of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, which we found out is not a library at all. You can, however, pay $12 per person to tour the tiny museum and house where he was born. Uh...no thanks. It's not like he was Thomas Jefferson or something! Gah!

So we found a BBQ place to eat (pork and chicken, no beef of course) and they had a framed drawing of President Obama hung next to the Cold Beer unit. It reminded me of our favorite Thai place in Lubbock, Thai Pepper, where they had framed paintings of Thai royalty on the wall.

Charlie felt special that we let him drink Sprite. I also took this photo to demonstrate Virginia's love for Texas Pete Hot Sauce. I hardly ever saw Texas Pete in Texas. It's EVERYWHERE here. In the stores there's at least five different sizes to choose from. I prefer Louisiana hot sauce myself and had to hunt some down at World Market. Random.

We walked around town and Charlie found this garden globe to try and knock over. Andy saved it. Check out all that hair!

We've also been having tons of fun with Charlie's new stomp rocket. I highly recommend it!

Lastly, I finally gave Charlie a haircut. It's still long on top but most of the curls are gone. They'll be back in a month or so in case I miss them too much. Andy said he's going to take Charlie to the barber one day and have them shave it. Not gonna happen.