The Arnold Family: Our trip to see Ashley in Portsmouth

WOWWWWW! What a trip! We had the absolute BEST time and it was SOOO wonderful seeing Ashley in her surroundings! Shee looked great, hugged great and smiled great!

We first arrived Friday afternoon at her apartment off base. She was in the barracks, but since the CG was running out of room, they have put some of their people in apartments right off base!

So, three girls to a 3 bedroom apartment...here is the den...(is that a keg I see in the corner?) The furniture has been collected and given to them from various sorces, but as each girl moves on, she just leaves it there to be used by the next girl. They have collected alot of furniture!

the stairs, complete with christmast tree lights...

the kitchen...

inside their fridge...

and here's her bedroom...

it was very nice! It sure beat some of the dorms I stayed in, in college!!!

After all that, we, along with her room-mate, went out to eat and then to the motel. Ashley spent the night with us and it was SOOO nice!

The next morning, we went to Langley Air Force Base, where Mike's Dad was stationed at and retired from. I won't bore ya'll with some of the 100 pictures that Ashley took of everything, but I will show ya'll Mike's old house!

this is where Mike did alot of his growing up, from what I understand. It is a beautiful base with alot of new buildings.

On his base is an inlet.

What's left of that pier behind them is where Mike and his Grandma used to go fishing!

AND, Mike had to go to the bathroom....

Here is their guard shack..

I thought, at first, how nice it was of Ashley to take a picture of that. When I told her that, she said, "WHAT guard shack, I was taking a picture of the hot guy with the gun". That's my girl! hee

Then, we drove to where I used to live. I wasn't on the Navy base, but it's where we lived and Dad retired from. It's called the Algonquin House and it's in Norfolk and it was SO pretty.

Here is the view from the pool looking out across the chesapeake.

Then, it was back in Ashley's truck to head to Virginia Beach.

We arrived there to see King Neptune!

It was SOOOOOOOO HOT there that day. In the shade it was 98 degrees and there was VERY little shade there!

There was some sort of artsy thing going on. All along the side walk that goes up the beach forEVER was white tents set up with vendors selling their artsy stuff.

The girls enjoyed that. We found a crab to take a picture of...

and more shopping....

They had a great time...

I also have to include this picture...many of ya'll know of my love of Elvis....well, we're driving down the road and suddenly, the clouds parted and there was the Hampton Coliseum...where Elvis performed...sniff sniff...sick and all. Bless his heart.

Ain't it beautiful?

After all that and a TON of pictures later, it was suddenly Monday morning. Time to go home. Courtney had spent the night with Ashley in her apartment, so Ashley brought her to the motel before she had to be at work and to tell us Goodbye.