Oatlands Plantation

On Saturday was a beautiful spring day! I decided I needed to do something outside so I typed in "gardens in Northern Virginia" in google search and the Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg came up. I decided that was where I wanted to visit and it was beautiful! 

George Carter inherited the 3400 acres of land that the house is built on in 1798 but did not start building the house until 1804. At first the house was smaller and built in the Federal/Georgian style and then in the 1820's George renovated it into Greek Revival style as seen in this picture. 

George made money by growing wheat, raising sheep for their wool, grinding grain and milling timber, and had a greenhouse to grow foods that normally could not grow or struggle to grow in Virginia, like bananas, strawberries etc. If you want to learn more about the history you can go their website.  http://www.oatlands.org/

Isn't it beautiful?!

Next to the house was a beautiful terraced 4 acre garden. The tour guide said that since the garden was terraced essentially they had a little different climate on each level to grow different types of things. It was interesting and I loved it!

I liked this well in the garden and I think it was even a real well and not just for decoration.

On the grounds of the house and gardens, they were preparing for a wedding. And I think I found the spot where the actual ceremony was going to take place. :) It was an awfully beautiful spot!

Here's what would have been behind the bride and groom as they got married.

I liked this bench in the gardens!

The only remaining barn on the grounds.

I liked that this compass was sitting on top of a turtle.

The back of the house.

Saturday was such lovely day outside and the tour and gardens were beautiful!

I want to tell a story that I want to remember. I went to the souvenir shop after I was done touring the house and grounds to buy a souvenir. There were two nice ladies there and I started talking to them. I told them how I decided to venture out of the downtown D.C. area for touristy things and one lady started suggesting places for me to go in D.C. as well as Charlottesville. She got so excited telling me about these places. She even had some magazines she had recently purchased in her purse and she pulled them out and was showing me pictures of some of the places I should go. She was just so nice and it's fun to see people get excited about something they are passionate about (historical houses in her case)!

After I left the shop, I still wanted to go for a drive, so I drove west on 7 towards Winchester, VA but I didn't go all the way to Winchester.  I did drive through Berryville, VA though. Berryville was a cute and charming little town, where the speed limit was 25 MPH all through the main road of town and I ended up eating dinner there. Then I visited my brother, Pete and his family for a while before I headed home.

Move Along

We all have good days and bad days. Hopefully we have more good days than bad. Sometimes we just need that little push or motivation to get us through a bad day, whether it be an unexpected email or text from a friend or family member or words of wisdom from a wise person or reading a specific passage of scripture or lyrics to a good song.

A few days ago my morning didn't start off particularly well and I was not looking forward to the work day but as I was driving to work a song came onto my iPod that really spoke to me that morning.  Move Along by All American Rejects.

The whole song is awesome, but I especially like the chorus. 

"Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong, 

Move along, move along like I know you do

And even when your hope is gone 

Move along, move along just to make it through

Move along

Move along"

"When everything is wrong, we move along"

It was just wanted I needed that morning. After listening to the song, I perked up and decided I was going to make it through the day and that it would be a good one!  I don't remember particularly what happened that day but I do know that it was a good day, a better day than it would have been.

Although life is hard at times, we have to move along. It is much easier said than done sometimes, but if we can just make it through the next 10 minutes, through the next hour, through the day, something good will eventually come! "Move along, move along, like I know you do. And even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make it through." 

Medical Museum and Meadowlark Gardens!

I've had the pictures for this post ready since the day after we went on our little excursion and I am just barely getting to writing about it. I'm a little behind. I also have one more post about Mexico City that I need to finish and my trip to California but that's beside the point. 

On a beautiful Saturday at the end of March my friend, Coralee and I went to the temple and then went to a medical museum near the temple. The temple was lovely, of course. 

And the museum was fascinating! It's not a super large museum, but it was cool nonetheless. I work with Coralee and at work we both read surgeons' certificates from soldiers who fought in the Civil War (and enter the info from those records into a database system and then there are professors who use that information for writing papers and books and doing studies etc.) So basically we read about all sorts of injuries and diseases from the Civil War everyday. 

At this museum they had an exhibit about injuries during the Civil War and we of course had to go and see it. How could we resist? :)  

Apparently doctors and surgeons send body parts (with permission) that are affected with certain diseases or injuries to this museum to be studied so that doctors can learn more about those diseases or just because it's fascinating. You can read a little more about the museum here.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medtour/nmhm.html

A real brain and spinal cord preserved in some sort of liquid. 

A skeleton of a man with chronic rheumatism. It says that his "condition worsened until nearly every joint in his body became fused." That is not good. 

On the right is a replica of the 12-pound ball that struck the leg of a man during battle. His leg had to be amputated and that's the guys bone that got hit by the ball. OUCH! 

Coralee and I at the museum! There was lots more stuff, but I didn't take too many pictures. The museum was fascinating, maybe a little disturbing at times but awesome! 

After the temple and the museum it was time for lunch. I wasn't sure if I would be able to stomach food right away after the museum so we went to Elevation Burger near my house and my stomach was okay by then ;). It was a nice enough day that we could eat outside. 

Coralee went home after we ate and then I went to Meadowlark Gardens and it was beautiful!

The water was still partly frozen.

I love Meadowlark!

And on my bench :) Overall it was lovely March day!