Ellises went to Virginia

From Georgann

Nephew David lives in Portsmouth, Virginia.  Works at the Naval Shipyard there.  He is happy. Found the love of his life there - Megan - who is now his fiance.  It was time for us to visit him. So we did October 1-6, me, Dave and Lois.

Our initial plans were to go in July but that didn't work out and we are so glad it didn't.  We had beautiful weather, much better than the hot and humid temps of July.

David met us at the Norfolk airport. He chose the long way home that took us over a huge bridge that overlooks where he works, the Naval Shipyard.  He is an Engineer for the Cranes and Lifting department.  They are in charge of operating and maintaining a total of 300 cranes.

First night, dinner on a patio overlooking the Elizabeth River.  The shorter of the two buildings in the center of the picture was our hotel.  It was very nice.  After dinner we went over to see David's apartment.  A couple of cute pictures here of David and Grandma.  She loved seeing where David lives and works.  We all did!

Daytime shot of his apartment building.  Second floor, the three windows on the right before the building changes color.  This building was a hotel when it was first built.  During the Civil War it was used as a hospital.  We had fun imagining what David's rooms had been used for.

The first day we visited Portsmouth's Naval Shipyard museum.  The history of it is very interesting. 

Here's the view outside our 6th floor hotel room.  It is a very active river.  Dave enjoyed running on the sidewalk you see in the photo.  The Naval Shipyard is on the right in the background - see the hazy blue cranes? 

One evening we road the water ferry across the river from Portsmouth to Norfolk. One of David's friends owns a coffee shop there called The Cure.  It was in a city neighborhood so it was a fun setting.  The food was excellent.  It was also open mic night so we got to hear some fine music, too.

Kansas City has COWS.  Norfolk has mermaids!  Here are a couple of the ones we saw.  Fun!

Fun little cafe in Portsmouth.  We ate breakfast here one morning.

Mike came to town on Friday afternoon.  He had business in North Carolina on Monday so came early to visit with us.  One of his favorite places to eat in Portsmouth was the Beer Garden.  We ate outside on the covered patio.

That afternoon we drove up to Fort Monroe where the Ellis family lived.  In this next picture, the guys are walking where their house used to stand.  The wall in the background was in their backyard. On top of the wall is the road you'll see in the second picture.  Lois told the story of how she'd walk down that road in the morning, drop her crab cage/trap in the ocean, return later in the day and have crab for dinner.  Good memories.

The water is Chesapeake Bay.  Dave always tells the story of how the ocean water would hit their windows during windy storms.  Now I can see how that could happen!

This is David with his fiance Megan Anderson.  She is in grad school for Occupational Therapy. She was home for about 36 hours just to see us!  Pretty special.  Her parents invited us to dinner Friday night. It was delicious and fun meeting them.  They are great people.  Megan has no siblings so you know David has to be pretty special for them to allow him to marry their daughter.  :-) 

We had lunch on Saturday at a neat little market. Fun local products.

Sunday!  Carrie and Jason came to town, along with Julia and Carson.  The kids were in town from Colorado Springs for their fall break.  That was incredible timing!  Yep, Jason owns this plane and he took us all for a ride.  Very cool!

Just after this picture was taken, Jason let Grandma take the controls. She was actually flying the plane.  YIKES!  But really she did great.  We are here to tell about it.

Carrie and all flew 45 minutes from Washington D.C. area.  We went to lunch then back to the executive airport for our ride in Jason's private plane.