Our VA trip!

"...For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife and they which were two shall be one flesh." Matthew 19:5



This past week was the 50th anniversary of our Meme and Granddad. (Daddy's parents) For this special occassion our whole family packed up and headed out to Virginia for a week to help them celebrate. My Grandparents have had a hard life but through it all they have sticked it out together being faithful to one another. It is truly a beautiful site to behold.



As we were planning out this time in our lives my parents were sweet enough to allow Jessica to come with us! Having her on the trip made it all the more exciting and made the time fly by even faster! Which can be a great help when you are stuck sitting in a van for 13 hours. ;) When we finally made it to VA we first stopped at my Gramma and Papa's. (Mommy's parents) They had plenty of things for us to do while we visited with them. The first thing we did the morning after getting there was head out to Colonal Williamsburg. It is such a fun place to visit even though it was pretty hot outside.



Here we are walking through the town:





We stopped in a few stores just to have the A/C :) and to snap a few goofy pictures while waiting for mom to pick out a present for one of our dear friends. Here Daddy is trying his best to be a royal goofball. Ain't he cute?

After having a great time goofing off our Grandparents treated everyong to a Windy's Frosty! YUM!

The guys loved it... really! They did. :)

After enjoying our treat we headed to Yankee Candle. Which is one of my favorite stores even if it has the 'bad' word in it. *grin*

Jess, Mom, and I stop for a cute picture together. <3>
Next up was a store that I cannot remember the name of to save my life. Anyway, it was a cool store! This picture is adorable and fits their personlities so well.

That next day we woke up bright and early and made our way to Quantico, VA to tour the USMC Museum. We estimate that we have been here at least two or three times before. But we never get sick of it! It gets better each and every time we go! And now they are even adding on stuff to make it bigger so we had even more fun checking that out.

An artsy picture I got of Zach and Elaina looking at a picture.

We stopped for a quick lunch outside the museum.

Then we finished our tour and stepped outside for this picture of all the kids together. Pretty good looking group if I do say so myself. :)

Who knew that you could have so much fun getting goofy pictures inside a Bass Pro Shop? We had a really good time in that store.

After visiting my Great-Grandma on Thursday morning we headed back to Gramma and Papa's to play some fun games on the Wii. First up was car racing and then boxing which is pictured here. Everyone got a chance to play and it was loads of fun! By the way if you were wondering... Dad ended up beating mom!

After saying farwell to my mom's side of the family we all headed out to see my dad's side. Here the girls are getting a cute shot with mom.

We didn't have much to do while we were there so we had plenty of time to get some cute pictures. This one was my idea and I made everyone do it even though they all whined. Here we are being silly! They will thank me one day for this picture. :)

"A friend loveth at all times..." Proverbs 17:17

Jess and I have a lovely time together on this trip.

That Sunday was the official party for my Grandparents. Lots of their friends showed up to help celebrate. It was great to see people we hadn't seen in ages! Here Meme is introducing everyone in her family and telling what's going to happen with the program for that evening.

We Sanford's gave a nive performance of 119X. I kept telling daddy that we didn't have enough voices to do it but in the end everyone agreed that it turned out lovely and blessed all who heard it.

A picture of my dad's family. Left to right is: Aunt Peggy, Granddad, Meme, Uncle Richard, and Dad. (of course) :)

A beautiful picture that Rebecca took of the sun setting on my Granddad's farm. It is utterly stunning to see God's handy work all around us. And it's at moments like this that we can see how much He has truly blessed us with a beautiful world to live in.

For all those of you who wanted to see what the Sanford's and one McDonald look like at 5:30 in the morning, here you go! This was the last picture we took before we said our final "goodbyes" and piled into the van to head home.

God has truly blessed us with an amazing extended family. And going back to VA always reminds us of how He had a plan for moving us out here to IL. Sometimes we miss VA but we are always reminded that God's ways are higher than ours. We are so thankful to Him for being in charge and we cannot wait to see what He has in store for our family.

God bless y'all!

~Meli