This past Friday marked the 6th anniversary of my mom's death, and my sister and I decided to do something just a bit different.
Denise headed south to Virginia. She left it up to me to do the planning, but the idea? Simply to celebrate my mom. I muddled about for a few days, with thoughts of Old Town Alexandria and the National Harbor dancing in my head. Finally - the brainstorm. Lake Anna was just about an hour away. (Although mom went by Ann or Annie, her offical name was Anna.) There was also the Lake Anna Winery and a delightful place to have lunch,the Anna Cabana! We had ourselves a plan.
We began with the winery, and the first thing we saw? Butterflies dancing among the flowers! Mom was in on the plan!
We sampled a few of these, and then raised a toast to Annie.
If you look closely, you'll notice that mama to be is raising a camera lens instead!
We left with several bottles to enjoy later, and then headed out to poke around the grape fields for a bit. They had just begun to ripen, and I'd love to go back and get some shots when the purples and reds really shone.
Off to Anna Cabana for for crab cakes and chocolate desserts, and time to...
...just gaze at
and listen to the water. Sheer bliss! Afterwards, a few of us took our chances on a game of "cornhole."
The professional and his model had a bit of a discussion as to what she should do to provide the "best shot opportunity."
She sometimes grew impatient waiting for the "set up," but...
put on her game face and gave it her best shot! From there, we headed to the park itself to...
take pictures...
to stick our toes in the water and photgraph them, just because that's what we do...
to sit and just look at the water, to to maybe just...
chill out!
Family.
Wine.
Crabcakes.
Chocolate.
Memories in the making.
We did mom proud!
