Lauren is besties with Wayne and his body guards. Mindi wanted, more than anything, to meet and possibly have a private experience with Wayne Newton this weekend which might seem strange when visiting Virginia, but Wayne happens to be the Grand Marshall of the Apple Blossom Festival… so it isn’t really that crazy. Unfortunately, Mindi, Frank, and I had no such Wayne experience. Lauren, on the other hand, met him for a life changing 5 seconds when attempting to board an elevator in the nicest (yes really) hotel in Winchester (we only enjoy the finer things in life so we went Wingate all the way). She greeted him with an enthusastic “Wow, hi there!” Wayne said hello back and then the doors shut. Though Mindi was standing right next to her, she assumed Lauren was greeting an old town bar friend, and not having a once in a lifetime celebrity meeting. Anyway, we’re mad at Lauren as she’s been in the presence of greatness.

After getting over that tragic blow, we headed down to breakfast (which was delicious – thank you Wingate) and saw another fine Winchester celebrity, Miss Virginia, in a gold shiny slinky rusched dress at 9:15am… She is clearly a glamorous pagent winner all the way!

We thought we’d attempt to have another Wayne sighting at the pre-parade street show, but we were tragically thwarted in our efforts when, for the second time this weekend, the glossy brochures held misinformation and lead us astray. Fortunately, we did receive a free bottle of water and religious tract from the Nazarenes – thank you Nazarenes, my thirst is finally quenched!

We decided to leave Winchester a bit early as it was raining (and we’d missed Wayne again) so we headed off to my cousin’s house (which is lovely – thank you for letting us stay Jess and Jeff). We were greeted by an enthusiastic Sophie (of course pictures are in the gallery) and then headed to the Torpedo Factory and downtown Alexandria which is SOOO much cooler than I ever remember it being! We saw oodles of crazy art in the Torpedo Factory (beautiful and expensive!) shopped around town where Mindi bought every kind of turquiose Sharpie imaginable and we tortured the boys (Frank mostly) by shopping for purses and jewelry… again. He’s so good to us!

We sent the boys off to celebrate Cinco de Mayo at an Irish Pub called Murphy’s where Frank was named the “Cricketeer” due to his dart prowess. He, Jeff, and Jon attracted a gaggle of “bar hags” who came over to “learn how to play darts.” We did not come to their rescue but sat 6 inches away and laughed out loud as the married ones kept throwing Jon to the courger… or hag. Murphy’s also had live music that required us to clap and dance along – my favourite kind of bar music Who doesn’t like to join in? I don’t know! Our favourite was the unicorn song and yes, we can show you all of the choreography.