Burke Lake

I love spring for many reasons... but one is because I love flowers springing up, and one of my favorite plants are ferns - and they are so neat when they're popping out.






Okay so getting to the story... yesterday was the first truly beautiful day here. It was in the mid 70's and just sunny and wonderful. I thought to myself, I need to get out. I should go to Great Falls National Park.

I wasn't the only one with that idea.


While I was waiting I did get this cool snapshot of new leaves above me (from my sunroof).


So after 45 minutes and going about a quarter mile or so... I turned around and left to go to my favorite regular place, Burke Lake Park.

Now I've mentioned the park about 100 times because I go there almost every week. When Harland is home we both love going there one day on the weekend. I usually go in the morning, and I usually run there... so I have never taken my camera... so something good came out of this anyway.

So here are some shots of and around Burke Lake!

Easter Bluebells

Spring is a neat time here in Virginia... Every week things keep changing. I have posted 2 separate posts today, so keep reading...

This morning I decided to take a walk to see the bluebells (again, always super muddy every time I hit the bluebell trail...silly April showers). I thought everyone would be at church or cooking Easter ham or finding Easter eggs, but there were a lot of people at the trail. And a lot of muddy dogs.

Here are some of the pictures I took while I was out and about. It is a pretty sunny day, but it was only in the low 50s today. Unlike last year when we wore short-sleeved shirts to see the bluebells.



This one was growing about waist-high in a tree...

Mom and Dad come to Washington

Hey everyone, haven't posted in a while, I've been pretty busy lately.

Last weekend my parents came for a trip to see the cherry blossoms. They've never been to DC during blossom season, so they were pretty excited. The thing is, while DC is pretty during blossom season - so is every where else because there are tons of cherry trees and pear trees everywhere flowering at once.

So here are some of their cherry blossom pictures (I didn't go with them - I had already committed to volunteering by handing out race packets to runners in the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. If you volunteer then the following year you are guaranteed entry... it usually sells out in a few hours).

Anyhow here are some pictures...

Alex Trebec was the Grand Marshall of the parade.




Then that night we went to the Kennedy Center to see the symphony play the background music for an old Buster Keaton film "The General". It was hilarious. I can't believe they did all those stunts back then... makes our use of CG look lame. :)

The next day we took a walk over at Manassas Battlefield and as usual I saw a cool bug (remember that spider?).
Here are some other pictures... the blue bells weren't quite out yet.