The Capitol

Today, Philip and I were invited to join Eli and his friend Daniel to tour the Capitol of Virginia! Eli is a Virginia Capitol Police Officer so he was able to give us the GRAND TOUR of the Capitol and the surrounding historical buildings. I had never visited the Capitol before (isn't that terrible? :), so I thoroughly enjoyed having a behind the scenes look!
Of course, before we left, the moms had to take a parting shot :) (from left to right: Eric, me, Philip, Eli, and Daniel).
Here we are walking downtown from the parking deck. I loved walking through downtown Richmond and seeing all of the old buildings and architecture. It was a perfect day for it too. :)
This was taken near the Capitol. The cathedrial-looking building in the distance is the Old City Hall.
From this spot, the distances from Richmond on the highways are measured. How neat is that?Here is a view of the Capitol from the street. Isn't it huge? We went in the underground passageway(the door to the right) that led to the Capitol itself. Philip was astonished when he saw the whole inside of the passageway was made of marble. :) There was a gift shop, cafeteria (where we ate lunch), and a gallery of various historical paintings.
Eli took us throughout the inside of the Capitol. This is a picture taken at the Capitol 's rotunda. A statue of George Washington stood right in the center and the busts of various presidents lined the walls.
This is a picture of the dome in the rotunda, although I have to say, this picture doesn't really do it justice. :) The archetecture was outstanding!
On the next floor, we saw paintings of all of Virginia's governors. Speaking of govenors, we caught a glimpse of our current governor, Governor Tim Kaine walking in the rotunda! I'm sorry to say, I didn't get my camera out in time. :)

Here is a picture of the Old Senate Chamber.

I thought this was the neatest part! Eli got us into the Senate of Virginia Chamber where we were able to sit in and listen to the senators of Virginia in session. How many times do you get to do that? It was neat to be able to actually see the senators that you hear about all of the time in action! I didn't take a picture while in session because I didn't want to get in trouble. :)
I was the annoying photographer on the tour. :) Thanks guys! Here, we are back outside in front of the Capitol building. We were able to go in the General Assembly Building where we saw the Senators' offices and the Old City Hall.

The Governor's Mansion

Here is another view of the Capitol building from the Governor's Mansion.

Our last stop: The Library of Virginia! Phil liked this place! This picture does not capture the millions of books that are all around! If you are looking for a book, this is the place to go! This library even has shelves of phone books from many years ago up until now. :)
And that was the end of our visit to the Capitol! Philip and I really enjoyed seeing the sights for the first time! I hope I got all of the facts right in my post, there was so much to take in! :) Thanks Eli for taking the time to show us around today, we had a great time! ~Alli

Monday Fun!

Today, Meredith and I travelled to the Pregnancy Support Center in a neighboring county to help out! We hadn't been in a couple of weeks so it was a real treat to get to go with her, just the two of us. We arrived and found a huge bag of baby clothes that needed hanging and some other items that needed to be placed in our "Little Blessings Boutique" store. We had a great time of laughing and freezing in the shed and quickly finished while we could still feel our fingers!

Afterwards, Mere and I drove over to the storage units that hold all of our extra supplies, clothes, and diapers for the store. We needed to pick up some wipes, and Meredith wanted to see inside the sheds that were completely cleaned about a month ago by some very helpful volunteers! It's absolutely amazing what they did to our poor little storage units! They were packed full of stuff, and if you wanted anything, you had to dig!

This picture was taken a few months ago, and you can see just how stuffed the units were. This is only one of them.
This is what they look like now! Amazing! What a blessing it was to have the help of those volunteers!
They truly worked a miracle, and we are so thankful for the commitment and service that they gave to the Pregnancy Center! We can actually find things now!

Whenever we go to the Center, we love sewing afterward. Although most of our time was spent talking, we managed to get a lot accomplished today!Our quilt is coming along quite nicely and we only have four more squares to sew! I can't believe it. :) Today we put together one square, and got another one cut out to work on during the week. We had set a goal when we first started to have our quilts finished by Christmas, but we decided to move our deadline to next Christmas. :)

Meredith had a fabulous idea to lay out what we had sewn so far just to see what our quilts would look like! This is Mere's! I think the colors that she chose are beautiful! Her outer border is going to be the white fabric that has light blue flowers on it, and I think it's going to look fantastic! I can't wait to see it all finished! Thanks for coming over today Mere!

This is a picture of mine. :) I thought at first it was going to look WAY too pink, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be! My outer border is going to be the floral pattern that you see in my quilt. I can't wait to finish it and be able to enjoy it! We only have one more row to sew and then we get to put it all together at last! I can't wait!

Well, that was my day so far! Now I must go and study for the final exam I have to take for my Biblical Wisdom course through Telos on Thursday. How exciting! I always get nervous with tests! Oh well, off to hit the books! ~Alli

(This is our 100th post by the way! To celebrate, we are going to be having a giveaway! Stay tuned... :)

Celebrate the Glory!

What a wonderful weekend we had! On Saturday, Dad, Mom, Eric and I travelled to Lynchburg, VA for a encouraging and uplifting conference that celebrated the glory of the Lord! We heard about it through the Alexanders, who also went.The topic of this particular conference was how to establish family worship in the home.
The first speaker and the man who ran the show, Marc Jantomaso, gave a wonderful session on the glory of God's Word.

Eric Wallace was there to speak about the beauty of family worship in the home and in the church.

We were also able to hear Scott Brown speak which was a real treat! We have only heard him on tapes and CDs, and we enjoyed being able to actually "see" him speak! He gave a session on family worship leadership.

Arnold Pent, the author of Ten P's In a Pod, was also there to speak on the fruit of family worship. He was hilarious!

All throughout the conference, we were blessed with beautiful music played by the Harrow family. It was neat to see them actually take Scripture and put it to music.
This is the view we had from the conference!

Sitting in the sun after lunch. It was so cold and windy there!

During the conference, we were challenged to memorize a passage from Psalm. Here, Dad is trying to rehearse it before sessions began again.

Afterward, Dad went to Scott Brown to get him to autograph a book that we had bought of his. He ended up staying and chatting with him and Mr. Pent for a good 15 minutes!

We joke Dad about him hanging around all of those "famous" people. :) We had so much fun at this conference and learned so much from it. It was a blessing to see Mom and Dad be encouraged. We also enjoyed being around so many like-minded families! ~Alli

"Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments.
His descendants will be mighty on the earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed."
~Psalm 112:1-2

~To see some Harvest Party pictures from Sunday, please head on over to my blog!!

Back Home

Hello everyone! Mom and I made it safely home from Tennessee and had such a wonderful time there! To read all about our trip, please head on over to my blog!

Blogging Break

Our bags are packed! Today, Mom and I are leaving for our weekend getaway to Tennessee! We will be posting lots of pictures when we get back so stay tuned. Bye for now! ~Alli

Our Saturday Adventure

This weekend found our family on an excursion to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains! Our destination: Crabtree Falls. This was one of the many scenic views we witnessed on our way up the mountains.

Here is a picture at the bottom of Crabtree Falls. Crabtree Falls is the largest vertical drop waterfall east of the Mississippi River, and it is surrounded by many miles of winding hiking trails. You hike right alongside of the Falls so you get to hear and see it all the way up to the top. I have to say, you get a really good workout on that trail! You are literally climbing a mountain!

Here is a picture of the happy hikers! I think this was before our feet were killing us. I was silly and wore flip flops! I thought the trail was going to be a lot smoother than it really was. :)

This picture was taken further up the waterfall. The sound of the water splashing against the rocks was very soothing!

Mom and Dad at the top of the Falls.

The boys found an interesting cave along the path.

Here is a picture of the view from the top of the waterfall. You can't really see it from this picture, but the leaves on a lot of the trees had already begun to change colors.

Yes, this picture was totally staged. :) We all did taste the water and it was very refreshing. Pure mountain water! It was freezing cold!

We had a wonderful time together, even though our legs felt like Jello. :) ~ Alli

A Trip To The Farm In Pictures...

For more pictures from our day, please hop on over to my blog! ~Alli