Seeing C-ville with my girls

After what seems like an eternity full of comings and goings and general craziness I'm hoping that today brings us to a more stable point. DQ is visiting relatives for 2 weeks, Hubbo is concentrating on finding employment of some kind and Stinkerbelle and I will be commuting into the DC. She's attending a camp downtown and I'm back at work. It's the most settled our schedules have been in a long time and it's so nice. I can talk to both of my children every day and things are a little more predictable. That's a good thing.

Hubbo and I picked the girls up on Thursday and it was great. They were happy and smiling and full of stories about camp. Truly, it seems like everything reminds them of a funny story, song or prank. We'll be listening to them reminisce for a long time.

Because we are selfish, we didn't bring the girls home right away. Instead, we stopped in Charlottesville for a 2-day min-vacation. We just wanted the girls all to ourselves for a little while. DH and I were in C-ville last summer but the girls weren't so we retraced our steps a little to share what we saw with the girls.

We went to Monticello and we walked around downtown a bit. We ate gelato at Splendora and we had delicious meals at a few eateries. We got crafty at a super cool place but I'll save that for another post.
One of the places that we went this year was new to all of us. We stopped at UVA and walked around for a while. DQ protested that she was too young to look at colleges but not with much force. As you can see in the photo above, she had her cell phone back after a 4 week long separation during camp. It was a very joyous reunion. Thank goodness we changes her service plan right before we gave her phone back to her!


We started at the Rotunda and it was so beautiful. We walked all around it and appreciated it from all of it's angles. Even if you didn't know that this was the school that Thomas Jefferson built, the connection is unmistakable.

We wandered around the great lawn and imagined what it must be like to live in one of those rooms. The doors to each of the roooms bears a small brass tag with the name of the room's occupant. It's a far cry from the dorm room I had when I was in college. It really must feel like living history.

According to a plaque that we read, the land that these rooms and the Rotunda were built on was part of the original farm owned by James Monroe before he became President. After his presidency he moved to Ashlawn-Higland which is closer to Monticello. Evidence of the close relationship between Jefferson, Madison & Monroe is found all through the area and it's kind of fun to think about the times that they must have spent.

Even the little alleys that run between and behind the buildings had a quaint and quiet feel.

Thomas Jefferson was comitted to the separation between church and state and UVA reflects that in it's founding as a completely secular educational institution. These are ideals that I admire greatly and find really meaniningful.

This is the University Chapel. I have to say that I love looking at churches - especially those with gothic flair like this one. There is a warmth to the rough stone and a grace to the soaring, pointed arches.

Stinkerbelle was such a ham. She insisted on being photographed with with all of the statues and mimicing the poses. Here she is with George Washington.