This is a picture of my parents from 1968 - the year they got engaged. I wonder which picture of Brandon and me will be the favorite of our children one day? I was scrap booking this weekend, and one of events I was capturing from this past year was our trip to Charlottesville with my parents in November. It was really fun to go to their old stomping ground and hear the story of how they met and "courted". I have heard the story several times before, but something about being a little older and married made me appreciate it more. It was also fun to see some of the locations they were talking about. It makes me want to get out the tape recorder and capture these memories, because once they are gone I know I will have so many questions to ask.

"One rainy night while attending Sweet Briar College, Carol waited for word that her date, Gary was there to pick her up. Her friend had convinced her to tag along on a double date with two boys from UVA. Carol's friend already knew her date, but it would be a blind date for Carol and Gary. Carol had been on several blind dates before and was just looking forward to a fun night out and meeting someone new. When she received the call that Gary had arrived, she hurried through the rain to sign him in and sign herself out. They had curfews at Sweet Briar in those days. They went to a bar a few exits away and spent the whole night talking. When they realized it was close to the girls' curfew, they hurried back to campus. Carol was a little tipsy from the drinks that night, and remembers crashing onto her trunk at the foot of her bed when she arrived back to her dorm room. Gary remembers finding a pay phone and calling his mother (even thought it was late) to tell her he had found the girl he was going to marry. Of course he did not share this with Carol right away, but after several more dates, they were an item. They married in the summer of 1969. The bar they spent hours talking at the night they met was at the corner of Elon Street and Amherst Hwy. You might say it is fate that their daughter, Ginny ended up attending Elon College and meeting her future spouse, Brandon."

Here are some pictures of my parents and us at that famous intersection in Virginia.