After the ball is over....

the nice times rolled on.  My friends got on the road back to WV Sunday morning and Heather and I took off for her house where I spent the night.  It was nice being there and seeing the new deck, all the various animals, chickens, goats, etc.  Two of their goats had just had babies - one goat had one and the other had twins which is fairly unusual apparently.  They sure were cute, but the poor mama of the twins looked pretty done in!  I have to confess to being so worn out by the weekend's festivities that I really don't remember all that much about Sunday except that it was nice being there.  And since I seemed to be starving to death, I convinced Heather that we should go to this place up the road where they have fried chicken that I'm sure is quite unhealthy but I like it.  We brought it back to the house and I ate three pieces which I've never done and wolfed it down like I was afraid someone was going to take it away from me.

Monday was real nice.  Heather had told me she wanted us to go to Frederick, MD and poke around in the historic section of town so we did that.  Lots and lots of shops although being Monday, a lot of them were closed which was a disappointment.  I'd like to go back sometime on another day.  But we had a wonderful lunch at a place called the Tasting Room.  Delicious food and a nice glass of wine.  Then we walked down a street of delightful old row houses with such a pretty church midway.  Came across a little store (actually not so little) that had all kinds of neat things.  The other shops we had been in were clothing stores and that's fine but I don't really enjoy shopping for clothes.  This was sort of a gift-type shop with all kinds of neat things.  Walked back to the car and after all the treating Heather had done for me, I treated us to a Starbucks - last of the big spenders!

I took some pictures of the row houses and the church so here they are.

Well, actually - this is the first photo - Heather and Sophia had just given their wee puppies a bath.  Took me four tries to get a picture of Sophia where she wasn't posing but I thought this one turned out pretty nice.

She's a sweetie - that's for sure.  I feel kind of guilty I didn't get a a picture of Johnny but I'll get some of him when he comes here for spring break! 

Now, the buildings...

 These skinny ones would be just perfect for a little old lady, don't you think?  Maybe for my 80th birthday...

 This little garden tucked away made me think of Florence (which I've been thinking about a lot lately.)

 This one with the red door is probably the one for me.  I told Heather she was going to have to watch the real estate ads and be sure and let me know when one became available...as if I could afford one!  But I sure like the looks of them.

And on such a grey day, this very clean, very white church was just so pretty.

Monday evening I was again so wiped out that it sort of passed in a blur.  Actually, it's only been the last day or two that I began to feel like I wasn't going to fall asleep walking around.  I imagine it was partly the time change.  Why we still do that is beyond me!

I left Monday afternoon to go down to January and Maggie's delightful little house and spent the night there which was nice.  I loved my Saturday party but it wasn't really for "visiting" so it was nice to have an overnight with each of the kids.  I took these pictures as I left Heather's.  Maybe their theme song should be "oh give me a home where the chickens (and turkeys!) roam..."

This is one very large Tom.  A little bedraggled here and there - apparently part of his tail got run over at some point.  But he has great long wattles and gobbles pretty much all the time and is just kind of a loveable grand old man.

And here's some of the free range brood.  They all seem to get along beautifully and when Alex whistles, they gather round!

I got to January and Maggie's in time to enjoy some delicious pulled chicken bar-b-q that January had made along with ruffled potato chips.  You might wonder why I mention the chips but it's because I have been seriously addicted to them all my life and since losing weight have tried not to eat them except for occasionally when I'm getting a sandwich at a restaurant.  And...ruffles are my favorite.  So that was a little feast for me.  We were all fairly tired out (the girls had worked all day and I was still somewhat in zombie mode) so it was a relatively early night but nice to spend some time with them.

I drove over to Chris's on Monday to spend the night there before heading home.  He took half a day off.  We went to the container store which there are none of here in WV.  Well, at least not Huntington and they're fun to browse through.  There was a Crate and Barrel at the same small mall and they have such nice but fairly overpriced stuff.  We had dinner at a place called Chees-tique which started out as a cheese shop and then expanded into including a small restaurant.  Tasty food and nice wine.

And that is pretty much it.  Seeing all the kids after the party was a nice way to come down from the party high and I got home to Huntington nice and early in spite of driving through various blizzard type squalls once I got into West Virginia.

Now my next big excitement will be Heather, Sophia and Johnny coming here to bring Johnny over for spring break.  I've been pondering what he and I will do for entertainment and going to Cincinnati or to Columbus keep coming to mind but I'd hate for the poor guy to think he spent his whole spring break in a car!