Summer in the USA- #2 Virginia

 We left Knoxville and drove 8.5 hours (long lunch, traffic, etc) over to Woodbridge just in time for small group at 6pm on Thursday night. Yup, our old church bible study group was STILL meeting up weekly, and it was still the same 5 families as it was when we were in it from 2015-2019. The fact that we were going to be in Woodbridge on a Thursday night when everyone was in town was a total God thing. We were staying with Christine & Jose, so they hosted that night and it felt SO good to be around this table again- 

Almost all the kids. 4 were missing.

But there was an addition! Savanah surprised us by driving up from Richmond to be there with us all that night and we got to meet her new husband, Clark- 

It was such a great night and we sure felt the love. After everyone left, Christine and I had some time to just quietly catch up. 

I loved going down to our room and seeing this sign- 

Guys go golfing.

One night the girls in the old neighborhood (our second) invited us for dinner-

Sadly Stephanie was out of town. We thought the guys were going to be there, so when Jose & Brian showed up after a fun & long day off golf and realized it was just us ladies, we quickly released them! 

Macy's friends were so delighted to see me again- and I sucked it all up! 

Sadly Michael was a baseball tournament and Jonathan was in Ohio at his grandfathers, so Tate's crew was incomplete. 

A pool day at the old pool for Macy and her girls- 

Hannah's dad recently got a Tesla- and he took the girls out for a spin-

It was Macy's first time in a Tesla and she especially loved that the car had the ability to make Goat noises while parked at red lights!

I could NOT wait to hit up my favorite thrift store, and CHristine and Eve were happy to come along! 

I was hoping they'd buy so much we'd need new luggage. They failed- 

We got a Wisneski day! Macy wanted to go to the Smithsonian African American Museum and the Holocaust Museum- two that she never got to visit when we lived there- and Diane and her kiddos were happy to have a day in DC with us. 

Looking back at my FB note- We’ve had this day planned for weeks and weeks. Yet I forgot to get us all tickets and they were booked for the next 3 weeks when I checked yesterday morning. I had little hope, but sent an email to the generic email on their website explaining our unique summer situation. And much to my surprise, they promptly emailed back and granted us all tickets for today! So grateful for kind and compassionate customer service. It still exists!

We decided to use public transportation- because we'd missed it living in Indonesia- and met up at the metro station and took the metro into the city together-

We had a food truck picnic on the mall- and I was nearly attacked by a very annoying squirrel!

Wayne could not take the day off work to adventure with us, so they invited us over for dinner. Loved walking into the house and seeing this-

Diane asked us what foods we had missed eating and I told her corn and steak, Guess what we had for dinner? 

Time to shuck the corn kids-

Christine and Jose joined us for dinner too-

Our last day together was Father's Day. First we churched, then we went to Two Silos brewery-

That evening we had an amazing dinner at Black Sheep with the Melendez's. The food, the ambiance, the company. All memory making. What a treat!

Our final McLendez night together- 

And for dessert- a variety of the most unique and odd flavors of Kit Kat's that I brought from Japan-

It was a fun taste test for the kiddos! 

Time in Woodbridge with our people there is always soul filling. The 22192 zip code was the longest Brian & I had lived anywhere- 5.5 years- since we both went to college! And it is where my kids consider home, where I think they will always say they grew up. And so much of that is due to the people there.