Happy New Year!!

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Did you know there is still snow lying around at my house from the "Big Snow"? Well, it looks like we're going to get some snow again this Friday. Of course, I'm heading out of town for a vacation, so I won't get to enjoy it.

The winter of 2009-2010 has started out very snowy. We had a light snow back in early December, followed by a light one shortly thereafter. On December 19, we got the big one, and then last week's year-end light event.

Our Urban Dare

On April 18, The Rock Lobsters (myself and hubby) embarked on a grand adventure in DC called the Urban Dare. We had a great 3.5 hour fun-filled tour of miscellaneous statues.

Our Dare started at McFadden's near Washington Circle (Foggy Bottom Metro). Our race started fashionably late at about 12:15 p.m. or so with a list of 11 clues that sent us to various locations across the city. Thus began our worst mistake... we wasted a good 30 minutes at least using our laptop to google all the clues (which led to statues or circles) without moving. A better option would have been to just ride the Circulator over to Union Station, the first stop we figured out from the clues.

So after walking to Gandhi's statue near Dupont Circle and then over to Logan Circle to do a 3-legged race challenge, we were way behind the 8-ball. Once we got moving on the Circulator, our pace improved as we had mapped out every location and how to get there quickly.

We found our way to Gallatin's statue at the Treasury building and lucked into a bonus picture of Lafayette. We also got a bus to save us some walking over to the Art Museum where we photographed a bust of Longfellow... oh WAIT, the one they meant for us to find was way back at Dupont Circle!!!

The highlight of our day was smashing through the spelling challenge. It was a basic cipher where letters had numerical values. Nerd power!

So, we will use our lessons learned tomorrow when we compete on the Great Urban Race, a similar Amazing Race style adventure with cryptic clues and physical challenges.

Frederick YMCA

There was a "fire drill" at the Y today. Not sure what was going on, but in the middle of racquetball, there was announcement to leave the building. On the way out, I saw a couple firemen. No alarms were going off at the time, but they did start later. I don't know if it was a drill or something else that needed to be looked at. There were two fire engines I saw. One was out front and the other on the side street near the alley.

Trip to Ohiopyle

I went rafting on the Upper Yough in early June. It was quite the bumpy ride and I don't recommend it for anyone who's never been whitewater rafting. It was a great day to raft. Sunny skies and warm temperatures ruled the day. Water temperature was awesome, near 60 degrees and river flow was excellent. I hope to try the Gauley in West Virginia next.

Deer!

I just had a great vacation that included skiing at Seven Springs Resort in Pennsylvania. All good things must eventually end, which meant going back to work. I was greeted to a field of deer close to the house. Work is busy as usual.

I find the political prelims interesting and entertaining. As usual, the Democrats and Republican get first rate billing, while viable third parties such as Green and Libertarian get fringe treatment. I don't like any of the "candidates".

2 Dogs, a Pig, and an Orchard Store

Today, I drove down to Butlers Orchard to pick up a pumpkin. Since the dog park is on the way, I decided to bring the dogs with me. On my way down there, I encountered a PIG wandering outside its enclosure. I thought I'd seen it all, but a PIG?!?

The Big Woods bridge is still not finished. If they keep working on it, I think it will be done by mid-December.

The dogs enjoyed running around the dog park.

Molly & Pongo's Great Adventure - Part 2

So, I go to Pep Boys and they say I'm looking at 1.5-2 hours before being ready. It's about 5:00 pm, so it's looking like 6:30 - 7:00. I decide to walk the dogs over to the Pet Smart. We go waste about 1.5 hours over there, and then return to Pep Boys. I was able to watch my car getting serviced.

So, 7:15 rolls around, and I'm paying for the work on the car, but I have a softball game in Gaithersburg at 8:15pm. If I go back home to drop off the dogs, I miss all of game 1. So, I decide to grab some snacks at the gas station (trail mix rocks!) and drive down to the park with dogs in tow.

The games went well (we won both!), and the dogs behaved just great. They were beat from all the excitement, so not much energy left. I ended up getting home just past 11:00pm.

Did I mention I didn't get to sleep until about 10 til midnight and woke up this morning at 4:30 am? Ah yes, thank God the pets cooperated this morning.

Life gets funky

What a great time it was to have my parents come up to the house and hang out for Memorial Day. The neighbors are really nice... we all sat around and had picnic food (watermelon!). It seemed like everyone brought their dog, so we joined the party by allowing Molly and Pongo to socialize. The kids started running through the sprinkler in a classic display of summer fun.

On the funky side, I got a nasty blister on my foot. Hopefully everything will be healing nice by the time I get to San Fran this weekend. I'm going to see my sister and enjoy a vacation for 5 days.