A) you get to see new places
B) I get to visit and meet up with friends from around the country
C) I don't have to pay my dinner bill
As I do with every business trip possible I try and meet up with my friends who I wouldn't normally see. This time I was lucky enough to catch up with a couple of them!
Friday night we met up with Mike and Sarah. Sarah and I met online actually in my "Mommy" group and we've managed to connect a few times since then most recently in Kansas City in March. The newlyweds took us to an amazing Italian restaurant in Georgetown - Filomena.
As we were waiting for our table to open up, we had the "pleasure" of watching a fairly young girl - well young by my standards (she was in her mid 20's at most) eat it right in the overcrowded lobby of the restaurant. She either tripped over her own feet or just collapsed. Obviously inebriated, Dave and Mike tried to help her to her feet.
My husband proudly claimed to see this young lady's thong as he came from behind her to help her up. Mike had the dirtier job.. and professed he had the sweaty pits. She then went back to her table completely humiliated - or perhaps she did get hurt (but if she was as drunk as it seemed she couldn't have been in too much pain yet).
Here's a picture one of the bussers took after dinner. You can't tell from this photo, but Sarah's glowing - she's pregnant with a little boy :)
Of course when we first walked in, we were greeted by all the amazing desserts - so we of course vowed no matter how full we were, we'd each order a different dessert and share.
Seriously - look at these! How can you say no to dessert?
On Sunday after work I met up with another online friend from Weight Watchers. We met at another local eatery. Dave was going to join us, but decided to head to the hotel instead as he was desperately in need of a shower following his game in Baltimore. Turns out he only got back to the hotel moments before I walked in (it took longer to get back than expected).
No pictures with Heather - Dave took the camera to the game, darn him.
This is what makes traveling for work so great -all the gatherings and of course the delicious grub!
On Saturday Dave was anxiously searching for a local pub that would be airing the USA-Ghana World Cup Soccer game. Of course it couldn't be any old place - he had a list of requirements:
It couldn't be a nationwide chain (like ESPN Zone)
It had to have atmosphere
There had to be a big fun crowd
Beer had to be flowing
Walking distance to either the convention center where I was or preferably the hotel
So where did he end up? McFadden's. Dave said it was an amazing atmosphere and packed! Which apparently was a good thing.
As in true Dave fashion he made friends with the cocktail waitress and other girls in the bar. He kept taunting me with a house party someone had invited him to. Whether it's really true or not is yet to be determined.
Here are some shots Dave snapped from when the US scored it's one and only goal.
Needless to say, Dave returned to the hotel nice and loud (signs he had a few beers). We then set out in search of dinner which took us for a nice long walk around Dupont Circle.
I'll get to the "Honest Dave" story in a bit, but first I have to highlight some of our Washington, DC travels for you. We're in DC until today when we fly home because I'm working at a convention trying to drum up some new business.
My boss was kind enough to flake on me and then offer to pay for Dave's airfare. My wonderful mother has been staying with Drew at the house (with a field trip to their home for the weekend), and is taking Drew to and from Ms. Stephanie's.
So here we are - Dave and I alone in DC. Dave has been able to watch the World Cup in a local pub, venture to an Oriole's game in Baltimore... all while I had to work. But we've made the most out of this trip. I'll spare you a single photo heavy blog, and spread everything out over a few days.
First up - the White House. We cheated a bit, and after setting up for my conference we hopped on one of the free conference shuttles to take us to a hotel near the White House. It cut down on some of the walking we were in store for.
Here's the US Capital Building from right where we were dropped off the shuttle. The White House is about 2 blocks from where we're standing (The Capital is a bit further down the road).
Here's the white house at about 10am Friday. No, President Obama wasn't home. He was in Toronto for some meeting or other.
After leaving the White House Dave and I made our way around the big Ellipse/grassy area toward the Washington Monument which stands tall over the Downtown/National Mall area.
Dave kept marveling that it wasn't as wide around as he expected. Looking across the National Mall you can see the Lincoln Memorial - and the Reflecting Pond.
So that's where we headed! Oh can I just mention how foul the Reflecting Pond smells?! Ewww. Not only that, but there's no way I'd take one step inside it - with all the green algae and everything. Nasty.
Here's a shot of Dave and I (using my camera's timer) overlooking the Washington Monument and Capital Building from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Over on the grass area there were Military bands and singers performing in honor of the beginning of the Korean War (June 25, 1950). How cool is it to hear our National Anthem sung on the National Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial/Washington Monument?
Then we marched up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial - only to realize that Dave left his Gatorade Bottle down below. So down he hiked - which is a bit of a trek mixed with the fact it was warm and muggy out. However near his Gatorade bottle, was a black wallet. He stood there for a moment waiting to see if anyone would show up, before making his way back up the steps to meet me.
I told him not to open the wallet - for fear someone will be looking to see where it is and spot Dave going through it. So I went to find a Ranger or place to turn in the wallet. Dave in the meantime disregarded my advice and went through the wallet (to look at the ID but came across a lot of cash). We then turn in the wallet, and the Rangers asked for our name/phone number - presumably to either come after us should the owner claim anything was missing or reward us if they were happy.
Right then we turn around to look at Honest Abe, and that's when Dave spots the woman he thinks the wallet belongs to! So he taps her on the shoulder and asked if she lost a wallet. She didn't speak much English, but sure enough - it was her! We then went back to taking our tourist pictures feeling so good that we turned in her wallet!
Here am I and honest Dave standing in front of Honest Abe after finding the rightful wallet owner.
After the Lincoln Memorial it was a short walk over to our last stop on our "tour" - the Vietnam Memorial. It's just amazing seeing all of those names imprinted on a wall, knowing they never made it home. I think seeing this during a current war really puts everything into perspective.
After visiting the Vietnam Memorial we walked in search of food. By this time it was after Noon, and we hadn't eaten a single thing that day. We started making our way back toward the hotel, and finally found a place to eat near George Washington University. Afterward eating we went back to the hotel for a well deserved nap - we got in to DC the night before and didn't get to sleep until after 1am ET, and had to be awake around 7am to get ready for the conference and then get our sightseeing in.
What a great reminder of many things with this page. One, our first Christmas in Vegas. And Two, how much weight I've lost since 2005 (OK so I was playing Santa in the pictures I selected, other shots were less than flattering though - trust me).
For this page I did something creative - well I thought so anyway. I began with some dark green 12x12 cardstock for the background. Then the "Santas" on the left side of the page were part of a 12x12 paper. (the red plaid at the bottom was all one sheet).
I opted to cut out the Santas from it's original paper - I thought it was too busy with all the plaid. When I was trying to place it on the green cardstock it seemed like it needed something. So I ended up pasting on a portion of the red plaid afterall - and then put the "title" on over that in matting. The "1st Christmas" was a shadowed font from the cricut. "Vegas" is from some letter punch-outs.
To add some contrast I added another lighter layer of green paper to the right side of the page. I then trimmed my photos down at the top - I believe they were 3x3 or very close to it. Then I also put the skyline shot of Caesar's Palace (which was taken from our hotel room) and put that at the center of the page. I had some bracket embellishments that I put over the Vegas photo to get if a little pizazz.
To finish I put two brads on the right side of the page.
Sunday being Father's Day, they combined the annual church picnic along with an honor for all Dads in the congregation - but especially as a fundraiser for one of the members who recently underwent a bone marrow transplant.
Well here are my boys enjoying the picnic.
Good ol' fashioned fried chicken kind of picnic... sort of like the old days of Little House on the Prairie when they'd all sit around after church eating chicken. The kids were happily running around playing and getting dirty.
Drew of course had to climb the stairs of the outdoor amphitheater and play on the playground.
Even Pastor's son was happily playing with our kid on the swings and chasing him around the church. Drew and Philip sure get along great! One roots for the Cubs - the other the Dodgers. You'll never guess which one is Drew's team...
Lucky for us the afternoon weather was awesome! And better yet, Drew was plenty warn out and took a solid nap. I love it when that happens.
What an awesome first experience at Super Franks in Pleasanton. We were invited to our first birthday party there and while it took Drew a bit to open up, but when he did... boy did he have fun!
Here we were in the tot room downstairs and he wouldn't engage with any of the kids, so Dave was playing "Drew-in-the-box" with him.
After lunch we went up stairs into the Fish Tank... which is a glow-in-the dark room. Where Drew found a foam pit and a jumpy house. Problem with the jumpy house was he wouldn't go in without a little hand holding.
Once I managed to get him in there without all the wild kids, he was playing kangaroo back and forth across the jumpy house. It looked like so much fun, one of the big kids had to join in.
Just to show you how cool this room really is, here's a quick video showing you that things glow in the dark (kind of hard to tell with the flash on).
Between the jumpy house and the foam pond, we successfully wore the kid out. But we had to make one last pit stop in the arcade downstairs where he finally got to ride the airplane (he'd found one of the games - push a button and get tickets -and we did manage to divert his attention).
I think we'll have to hit up Super Frank's again - it's the perfect place to take Drew to burn off some energy. Why didn't we think of hitting this up during the LONG rainy season?
Oh, this spread makes me want to go back in time - to our weekend getaway last November.
This spread was inspired by an idea from a page someone posted to a website. About the only thing that's the same, is the overlapping photos, and the layered papers. The rest just came to be.
The paper on the right is technically the hot pink color, and the left page is a lighter purple color. I then layered different shades of purple along the bottom of the spread. Because the letters I'd cut out from the cricut were used in the same pink color as the background page, I had to add a dark purple layer to the upper left side of page one.
The photos on page one are matted in a light pink paper with "waves" across the paper. On the right side, the pictures are matted with the same pink cardstock as the background on page one.
The "You+Me" was an embellishment I picked up at Michael's. And the "Together" embellishment underneath the sunset photo, is from that same kit.
I journaled on the hot pink and light pink matted paper - and added some brads to the corners. The pink heart on the bottom of page one - was to hide the pen marks I made when I tried to add rhinestones in the shape of a heart.
I had to remove the rhinestones because you couldn't tell it was supposed to be a heart.... so I free-handed a heart to cover up that mistake. Shhhhhh
Oh man, what have I been craving for months and months? Personal space. My own little escape. Somewhere I can shut out the whining. The crying. The nonstop sports that are plaguing our TV.
This past weekend while cleaning the house, I carved myself such a niche.
Meet my new little personal haven. Where I can scrapbook at my leisure, and not have to pick up after myself because we need to use the kitchen table... to well... eat. I'm so excited to begin using it!!
This week is VBS at our church and Drew's feeling a little left out. He's still a bit too young to join them (you have to be 3), but in another year he'll be right there hanging with the big kids.
One of the folks at church told us to go let him peek at all the bumblebees (this year's theme has to do with bees). He loved the beehive (a tent made to look like a hive). He sure thinks he's hot stuff in there.
Dave and Drew then began bopping all the inflatable bees hanging from the ceiling. He'll love going to Sunday School in the fall, I just know it!
Oh my goodness - I have a worker's comp claim to file with my sister. In my Matron of Honor Duties I braved the bridezillas at a couple of bridal stores, and even came down with a case of zipper finger. Yes. Zipper finger.
Zipper Finger:injury caused from the result of zipping and lacing up dozens of wedding gowns, leaving behind a nasty blood blister on your pointer finger.
So yes for those who haven't heard (because a certain someone hasn't updated her blog in several weeks) my sister Lisa is engaged.
Here was the last dress we tried on Saturday - and NO this is not the dress, but yes she has found it. Doesn't she look amazing?
Friday night we headed to Uncle Matt's house to celebrate his partner's retirement. After a few years of service the 6-year old pooch is turning from service dog to house pet! While Arco spent his retirement party in his kennel the rest of us enjoyed the party in his honor!
(if you can make it out... that's Arco behind the fence)
Matt & Rana went all out - just look at the details in the cake and accessories!
They even gave the kids a goody package to keep them busy while the adults mingled (eh em... read that as drank). Drew loved his balloon punching thing. That is until the big kids popped his... and then well Drew popped his second one by sending it into the grass. It was fun while it lasted.
After this balloon popped we moved indoors to make the tears over the darn toy stop... and to warm up. That's when Drew found some old baby toys and we played a bit more before having to call it a night.
That's the first time I've ever been to a police officer's retirement - let alone one for a dog! Arco had nearly 2-dozen bites and took all of those bad guys off the street.
It was nice to get to do a few pages that don't pertain to Drew. This spread was from our First Anniversary trip to Florida.
I started the left page with a cream colored page, and then used some light green scraps to go along the left edge and then on the right edge on page two. Then I used some pink paper to add some contrast. On the second page I started with a wine colored paper, and then used the pink and green. Some of the photos are matted with the "wine" colored paper.
On the first page, I made the 1st Anniversary words with the cricut. It's hard to tell, but I gave the letters a shadow. For anyone familiar with the cricut and fonts... this is a very lengthy and messy process to glue each of these pieces together.
I used various embellishments I had - including one that says Florida, Mickey's House, some flowers and hearts.
Before Daddy went to play softball Wednesday night, Drew kindly asked his Daddy to crush some balls. So the boys headed out to the side yard for some batting practice.
Drew was so impressed with his hitting skills that he said was because he's getting muscles. I chuckled when I heard that.
Oh and he had to have a baseball hat on to the balls - could that be because Daddy came home with THREE brand new ball caps? I can't say anything because they were free, but still! Three?
Anyway here's more cute shots from BP.
Dave makes Drew go around the yard and pick up all those "home runs" too. Now if he'd only pick up all those puzzles on the living room floor as eagerly as he does the baseballs outside....
Well we did it - we became members at the Oakland Zoo! Technically we joined a few weeks ago, but only received our zoo passes last week. So on Sunday we took advantage of the amazing weather and made the trip to the zoo for some free entertainment! I'm sure we'll be making many more trips this summer!
Drew loved seeing the giraffes... well frankly he loved seeing all of the animals! But the giraffes were one of the first he stopped to see.
And what kid doesn't like a tunnel with dirt? Here he's checking out the meerkats through the window while throwing dirt into his hair. He stopped everywhere he saw dirt to not only throw it, but throw it directly into his hair. Funny thing is Dave was telling me he did the same thing as a kid... only to feel the dirt/sand as you tried to get it out of your hair. Um, no wonder my kid has some weird habits, it's hereditary! Great!
Of course we had to force him to pose in front of the sign as we were making our way toward the front to get the lunch we packed.
After lunch we hit the rides and managed to make only the train ride before Drew hit his limit.
Of course we had to do a family pose - notice Drew's Cheese face.
It was absolutely gorgeous! The first shot shows the view of Oakland and hte Bay in the distance. The second shot from the train you can see the San Francisco skyline through the fog.
Drew absolutely crashed on the car ride home! All those hills through the zoo, the fresh air and a filling lunch did him in! Thank you zoo!! We'll definitely be back.
That's right the warm weather finally arrived this past weekend. And on Saturday while I was at my parent's house working on the cookbook, Daddy and Drew blew up the pool for the first time this season.
And what's pooltime without a little bubbles added to the mix?
Dave said Drew only wanted to stay outside for about 30 minutes - and he going potty for about half of that (he brought the potty chair outside to prevent Drew puddles throughout the house - thanks!)
Hopefully he can get more use out of it throughout the week.
This July 1st will mark my late Great-Grandma Myrt's 100th Birthday. She passed a way several years ago (I was in High School), but all the proceeding generations are honoring her memory by contributing to a family cookbook.
For those that knew Grandma, she loved to cook! And we're talking about baking from scratch - like her famous Cinnamon Rolls! It's nothing like what most of us are used to doing now... ripping away the clear plastic top, and nuking our food, or the already assembled dinners you simply heat up over the stove.
This past weekend my Mom and I got together to work on putting the bulk of it into something coherent - bringing together all the recipes, photos, memories, and family trees and compile them into a single book.
So on Saturday we spent the better part of the day organizing it all and laying it out. Go figure after about 7 hours we only managed to get the layout finished - as far as what recipes should go where. About 2 hours of that time was spent fighting with my computer to get the columns and formatting to work right - it wasn't operator error or anything. But it took us a good 2 hours to just try and outsmart the computer.
Hopefully we'll wrap it up next weekend and get this thing printed and shipped out to the family before her July 1st Birthday!
Friday night we had another impromptu dinner gathering at Drew's day care provider - Ms. Stephanie. Gotta love those nights when the parents can hang out and have a few beverages, the guys are BBQing and the kids... well they do what they always do - play.
This particular night we were joined by Ms. Stephanie's cousin and her husband, and the other Drew (known affectionately as "Baby Drew"). Here's all the kids eating dinner... Baby Drew loved eating the hot dogs out of Big Drew's bowl.
That would be Mason giving me the stink eye for taking pictures of him while he's eating.
Then the kids hit the playground.
That would be Mason looking out for the pirates... or whatever else they were playing. Shortly after this picture there was a 3-way battle. Drew, Troy and Mason were all wailing on each other... well more Troy and Drew and Mason trying to prevent the two from climbing up any further. So I had to go in and referee.
Later that night is when the action really hit... the frogs plagued Brian and Stephanie's pool! A few weeks ago they had to drain their pool because they had a tadpole/frog infestation... and I mean THOUSANDS! Some of the stragglers apparently didn't get the memo to take a hike.
Of course with four little boys they all wanted to chase the frogs and then touch them as Brian was trying to scoop them out of the pool. So that means four kids all between the ages of 4 and about 1 1/2 hanging around the edge of the pool. We all know it was inevitable that one would fall in... which would it be?
Yes that would be Troy. Have no fear, Brian easily scooped him out of the shallow end. Um, what does it say about me that I continued to snap shots after the fact?
After all the commotion everyone sobered up really fast, and we headed indoors to some calmer activities... well maybe....
I think it's safe to say that a night with Brian and Stephanie is always an adventure!
