West Virginia, It's a Whole Separate State...

On Friday morning Jen, Karen and I loaded up the cars and Haden and headed to West Virginia. Our destination, Buckhannon, West Virginia, where my parents grew up, where Karen and I were born and where we spent vacations and summers growing up.

I was born there by accident. When my mom was about 33 weeks pregnant, and my parents were living in Virginia, she was visiting her family and happened to go into labor. She had no idea she was having twins before she made it to the delivery room. I can't imagine the shock she must have felt when she found out.

We meet my Aunt Julia, my mom's older sister for lunch and then decided to drive around town a bit to relive old times. We first went hunting for the house my mom grew up in.

We were relieved this was the house because the other possibility was not quite so nice looking. I have very vague memories of visiting this house as a kid n

Next we drove by the house our great grandma Lena lived in. I have more memories of this house. I remember my grandma cooking in her kitchen, playing in the backyard and walking to the little store that was a few blocks away.

The house is a duplex, one on top and one on the bottom. We didn't look at it but I remember the backyard seeming big. I also remember Karen getting hit in the head with a yard dart and needing stitches. {Who thought that toy was a good idea?}

Just down the street from this house is West Virginia Weselyn University, where Karen went to college. She lived back there longer than any of the rest of us.

Next we went and found a flower shop across the street from the walk up Dairy Queen.

 

it was about a million degrees out that day. We were expecting cooler weather on our vacation but it was just as hot or hotter as it was at home. So to cool off I has a chocolate shake.

If you go on vacation with Jen there is always ice cream.

We picked up the flowers we ordered and headed out to the cemetery.

The flowers we got were really pretty, although I don't think they survived the storm that rolled through not long after these pictures were taken. We didn't stay long, and there wasn't much time for sorrow, it was just too hot. It's always nice to get back there, but I don't believe for a second that my mom is there. I won't get into a discussion about what comes after death here.

We then headed out to my Aunt Julia's house.

Julia and my Uncle Chuck live in an old farmhouse. We spent summers in this house as children and I have many wonderful memories of it. That big front porch still makes me want one of my own one day, one summer we painted it. It has always had a porch swing or two, another thing I will have one day. I'm not ashamed to say that I used to spend time on that porch killing flies. Yes, I know it's a farm, but I used to be afraid of flies.

We immediately got in my cousin Leah's daughter's pool when we got there. This is an old farmhouse and it does not have air conditioning. Something this city girl was pretty worried about. We got lucky and it turned out to not be an issue. But first...

We got to meet the chickens. There is no chicken coup so the chickens roost in the trees. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "free range chickens".

This one almost got after Chuck. Momma chickens don't really like people coming around their babies.

Not long after these pictures a severe storms moved through the area, and the surrounding states. The power went out at about 8pm and didn't come back on before we left the next morning.

After we got on the road it took us an hour on the interstate to find a gas station with power to get gas. We got lucky we got out when we did, and we waited in a long line to get gas. It took days for the power to come back on. The storm had hurricane force winds and it took out power to thousands of people.

The kids even experienced a tornado warning in Virginia and got to hang out in Linda's basement that night. Carson and Camy both said it was not quite as scary as the tornado we had here in Norman, and the basement was much bigger and more fun than our storm shelter.

So it was a short trip to the place where I was born and then we headed back home to the end of my vacation.

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