Virginia

Sandy and I met at college. I went all four years to Roanoke College, in Salem, Virginia. Sandy started out at URI in Rhode Island but wound up at Roanoke for our Junior year. We met before the school year started - he was there early because he was a transfer student, and I was there early because I was an RA and all RAs had mandatory training prior to campus opening. He was speaking to my Area Coordinator on the back quad and I sauntered up to ask my AC a question, and we were introduced. Polite conversation ensued, and then he followed me home. I can't claim that this was the case because my beauty captured him - he was new and alone and likely he'd have followed anyone home. But it would appear something about me over the course of our interaction did interest him - because of course we're married now. If you want to know what it was, you'll have to ask him because I don't believe I understand it myself.

At that time I was seeing someone else and I did my best to discourage San but he's a singularly determined young man when he wants to be, so he stuck around and waited until I was available. Since this was college, *ahem*, it didn't take very long before I was.

On our second or third date, he brought me out to The Farm. His family own some land in a nearby town, and they keep bison. They also renovated three of the local buildings and created a new hotel and restaurant to take advantage of the hunting and fishing trade. It's a really cool little place. I'm a Northern girl at heart, but I admit to a fascination with the mountains and sweet tea and grits and fried chicken and life moving at an underwater pace. At this time of year, you're able to walk across the farm to the apple orchard at 8 a.m. and pick a bunch of apples, stroll back to the house and bake 'em with raisins and brown sugar for breakfast. Mmmmm...the air at night is crisp but the days are still warm. It's perfect.

It had been over a year since Sandy and I had been there together so we went down for a long weekend with the boys and our friends Meg and Bob. While we were there a few friends visited - Kym and Cat, Josh, and Ryan all swung through one evening for dinner. This was all lovely.

And if you'd like to see the photos, please click here!