work stuff

I forgot to mention that yesterday was sort of a big day at work. We had our annual homeschool day, which I sort of created a couple of years ago. It went really, really well. We made a bunch of money, which is pretty helpful. And everyone really seemed to enjoy it, which is good. Always nice when the customers aren't pissed off. I bought subs for lunch for all of the employees that were working the whole day. Then I found out that one of the guides was meeting a friend for lunch and taking the sub home for dinner. That kind of annoyed me. I wasn't buying her damn dinner! And then she had the nerve to say she was going to tack on an extra 10 minutes on her time card to cover the time it took her to clean up. Even though she spent the last 15 minutes of the day talking, when she should have been cleaning up. This is one of the people I did not miss when I was gone.


Also, we interviewed a girl to replace Cathy today. I'm really hopeful that we can hire her. She seems really great, plus we kind of really need someone. The owners finally talked to Cathy and told her she wasn't coming back to the museum, but they phrased it more as they were giving her a promotion and keeping her at the main office, where she's been all summer. On Friday at Claude's (did I mention I went to Claude's on Friday? Cause I did, and it was delicious) she was saying that she was worried she was going to lose her job, since they hadn't mentioned her coming back to the museum. So hopefully she's happy with her new position and everything works out. Eh, what do most of you care? Let's end on a more entertaining note:


I know, not my best effort, but it will have to do.

we be jammin, mon

We were all cultured and shit this weekend. There was a Caribbean Festival by our house, so when Ilya and Mercedes came to hang out we went to check it out. It was fun. There was lots of loud music, including the inevitable Bob Marley and a live steel drum band. There were a lot of dreadlocks and not many white people, as might be expected. We ate a bunch of good food.

We also got to try some authentic Jamaican Kola Champagne. Alfred freaking loved it. It was like a cross between a tutti frutti-flavor and cream soda.

For dessert we had this coconut-sugar concoction. It was surprisingly delicious, considering I'm not much of a fan of coconut. I guess all the sugary buttery goodness it was coated in helped. I'm just realizing that all of our "culture" revolved around food. Sounds about right.

Once we got back home we hit the booze, as usual.

Between all the Caribbean food and the alcohol, we weren't even hungry for dinner. We ended up having a bonfire so we just had some smores instead. Obviously a very healthy day. We made up for it yesterday when we went on our 8 mile walk. We haven't been able to walk for awhile, so we took it sort of easy (easier than our regular 11 miles, anyway). I was a little sore today but not as bad as I thought I would be. It kind of sucked because even though it was low tide, the tide was still higher than usual, so we had to walk higher up on the beach where the sand is softer and harder to walk in. Friggin mother nature.

Also, Mike texted me today to inform me that today is his one year anniversary of getting shot. So, happy anniversary, Mike!

embarassing pictures: Europe edition

Posting that picture of us from our Europe trip back in 2002 the other day made me want to look through all those pictures again. So I did. And, luckily for all of you, I decided to post a bunch tonight. Please enjoy this little trip down memory lane. Obviously no meaningful or memorable shots, or any nice scenery, mainly just us looking goofy. As usual.

First up: Madrid. Apparently I used to get embarassed by Alfred's incessant need for strange pictures. Ok, I still do at times. But he doesn't seem to take them as much these days. Thank God.

Anyway, the most memorable part of our time in Madrid was when we took a nap on our last day there, got up and packed to leave the hotel at about 3pm and got yelled at by the hotel owner for leaving and not paying for that last day. We played dumb and just left. Poor guy. I'd say we did our part in perpetuating the rude American stereotype. Really, it was more ignorance than rudeness on our part. Oh, and there was this really yummy restaurant next to our hotel that we went to a bunch. I especially like the guy on the left side of the picture wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

Next up: Barcelona. I was grumpy and refused to pose for this picture, but Alfred was obviously having a great time.

He also managed to bond with some locals.

We apparently had a special connection with McDonald's while in Marseille. I do remember eating there and at Burger King far too often on that trip overall. Each country had its own special burger. It was a very educational trip.

Ah, Amsterdam. Talk about educational. We learned about 2 very important parts of life there: beer and sex.

No, I don't have pictures of us in any other museum. Well, ok, some from the Anne Frank house. So I guess we learned about religious persecution as well. But nothing else. Really.

And the ever popular Paris. At least this one has a historic landmark in the background.

The more time I spend looking at pictures and working on this post, the more pictures I include. And every time I upload a new one I have to fix all the spacing. I only have this problem with Alfred's computer. Too bad he takes away the work laptop for days on end. He's not home again tonight. He's sort of stalking this girl at the new gym he just started going to. Her name is Amy. I hope she's at least cute.

some random disconnected comments

I'm going to call in my first picture-free post here. Please refer to Monday's post if you're upset about this development.

Bush is on TV right now, talking about how screwed up the economy is. It's a little scary to think that things happening right now may make history books in the future, like the Great Depression. It's scary because of where we are in our lives right now: just starting out, getting ready to start a family, etc. Our lives could be very strongly impacted by this. There was a report on NPR this morning about how with the government taking over such big chunks of the economy (I'm sure there's a more technical way to say that) is making the US so much less financially free, and how Canada is much more free in many ways than the US. Bush just said "God bless." What the hell happened to separation of church and state? Honestly, I don't know if I just never noticed how religious the country/government was, or it's become more so. The whole shoving religion in people's faces really makes me dislike it more and more. I went off on a rant about it once to Alfred. I think he secretly thinks I'm going to hell. Bush is done. Thank God. Ha!

Speaking of Alfred, he came home tonight! This is his first night home in over a week. We get to catch up on some important TV, such as How I Met Your Mother. Ah, I love it. It's a good one so far. I love Neil Patrick Harris. "I caught feelings. I caught feelings bad."

I sort of accidentally finished the Legend of Zelda again. I was on level 9 and stumbled onto the last room, so I killed Gannon (the little bastard) and that was that. I didn't even finish getting all the stuff I was supposed to get in that level. I'm just that damn good, I guess. Gosh, I'm a wienie.

It's too hard to concentrate with a good show on. I missed our regular shows! So I'm out.

workin' gal

I totally planned to photoshop my head onto some farm girl's body, but when you do a google image search for "farm girl" they're all cartoons or sluts. I'm far too classy for that. So instead you get this. I call it Tracy Drinking a Fruity Drink while Looking Rather Fruity Herself. Fourth of July 2006, baby. I swear.

I wanted to wear jeans to work today, so I decided today would be my chore day. There was a bunch of stuff to do outside to get ready for groups, which start next week, so since it was supposed to be cooler out (the high was only in the low 80s) I figured today was as good a day as any. I was mainly planning on doing some cleaning and taking off the canvas roof in the picnic area, which got torn up by tropical storm Fay. As it turned out, it was a good thing I spent most of the day outside, because all 3 of the computers in the office decided to implode, so our computer guy was there all day trying to fix them. He got one working, at the desk with the non-working phone, unfortunately. So I have to use the computer at one desk and the phone at another. Neither of which is my desk. But I digress. Not that my original story had much of a point. Anyway, I ended up spending most of the day outside, getting dirty and sweaty and covered in hay dust, which left me stuffy for the rest of the day. I brought some stuff home to wash, then have to bring it all back and restuff it with hay (they're sacks of hay. Hence the hay dust and restuffing). I also managed to destroy the canvas roof as planned, stepping in multiple piles of wet cement on my quest for a ladder. Luckily most of it came right out of my shoes, and I'll probably hose them off better later this week. I was far too lazy/tired tonight to bother, plus I'm going to wear them to work outside again this week so I figure I'll just mess them up again anyway. Yikes, this is long and pointless. Time for a picture!

Alfred, representing old school. That's from January 2002, baby. Amsterdam. I can't imagine why we were in a Burger King. I've got so many good old pictures I should post someday. I haven't done an embarassing picture day in awhile. By the way, I can't tell if those are the glasses he still wears. Actually I think they're not, because his now have paint chipped off of the frames. Do you think this will embarass him into getting new ones? I'm gonna guess no.

Alfred's birthday weekend

Well, we certainly had an action-packed weekend. Mike came to visit, and of course we celebrated Alfred's birthday. We got things off to a rousing start with a pizza dinner and the obligatory power hour. We now have a regular waitress at the restaurant we've been going to the last few weekends for their 2 for 1 pints of beer. She joined in on betting how many minutes it would be before Ilya started hiccuping (he's a cartoon drunk). Sadly, we all lost, but when Mike's war wound made an appearance, she comped all his beer for the night. Score!

The next morning Alfred got to open his presents, including this gem from Mike:

Now they can be twinsies! We went to breakfast (somehow we didn't make it to the gym), then went shopping to kill some time. World Market was first. We wandered the store awhile, then decided to set a place setting with comically large items so we could pretend to be tiny.

Then, of course, we had to set a ridiculously tiny place setting so we could feel giant:

An employee came over and asked if he could help us while we were gathering our tiny items. I told him no thanks, we were just looking.

Next we hit up Target, where I (accidentally) made fun of a little girl's Halloween costume. Ok, I purposely made fun of the costume, I just didn't realize that it was hanging on someone's cart and that they were 5 feet away from me as I did so. Somehow we managed to accomplish our mission, which was to buy awesome socks to go bowling in:

Then proceeded to go bowling:

After bowling three rounds and each winning once (with yours truly managing to get the high score of the day, after a dismal 59 on the first game) we headed to a liquor store to stock up on some essentials: liquor, beer, and cigars. We bought a 2 for 1 gift set of Kahlua, then went back to the house and proceeded to plow through 1 and 1/2 of the bottles. Then we played with some antique armor.

It was pretty tiring, but luckily we had some coffee with our Kahlua so we were good to go. We headed out for another pizza dinner, and plenty more beer.

The evening proved both fun and educational, as we learned a handy little party trick along the way:

It's much more impressive looking in person.

Sunday was sort of low key: we went out for brunch, Mike checked out a bunch of girls, pretty standard. Then we sat around outside and smoked some cigars, even though it was kind of drizzly and crappy out. Not a good weekend for swimming, unfortunately. Mike headed back to GA that afternoon, and we headed over to Max and Robyn's to watch all but the last minute of the Jaguars game (it got cut off by the dvr, which kind of sucked because it was the best minute of the game, or so we assume). All in all, a good weekend. And I should think that this post should earn me at least a couple of picture-less posts in the future, no?

happy birthday Alfred!!

He's the big 2-9! We don't really have much planned for today, but I imagine drunken revelry will be involved. No time for blogging! Off to celebrate! Happy birthday honey, I'm glad you were born! :)

that guy I married

This is the kind of picture that belonged with my post from this morning:

Also, blogger is being stupid right now. I cannot be held responsible for any screwed up spacing or anything else that happens.

Alfred commented last night that it's like we're doing the long distance thing again. It's kind of true, we haven't seen each other since Tuesday, although we're only an hour apart instead of numerous states or time zones. We've talked on the phone a few times and emailed and texted, but not all that much, really. I have to say, it's much easier not seeing him for a few days now than when we were actually dating long distance. Now I can miss him, but appreciate having the whole bed to myself. (Just kidding, honey. I miss you like crazy and love when you take up 7/8 of the bed. Really, I don't need much space. I'm short.) It's kind of crazy to think that we've been together for 7 years now. Also, we've officially hit the point where we've been married for half the time we've been together. From here on out we'll have been married longer than we were dating. It's insanity. I guess.

In other extremely exciting news, my parents got a freaking Wii! I've only played with it once, when we went to Minnesota last spring. It was really fun, and there were only a couple games. It'll be awesome to try out new ones. I can't wait for Thanksgiving!

i forgot

Yeah, I forgot to blog last night. I had dinner, watched tv, played some zelda, and was so tired by 10 that I just went to bed. I guess all my mechanical work wore me out! Ok, it wasn't all that mechanical, but I did do a little work on my car. (If I had time, I would totally find a picture of some greasy looking mechanic and photoshop my face on it.) I put on my Cornell license plate frame, refilled my windshield wiper solution, and replaced my wiper blades. All by myself! I was proud of myself. Then when I tested out the wipers, the cleaning solution still didn't spray out. So maybe there's a leak, or the pump is broken or something. I figure I'll try it again this morning and see what happens. I guess 2 out of 3 isn't too bad, but man, I was so disappointed it didn't just work for me.

Ok, time to go get ready for work. I'm starving!

critters and stuff

Last night we had quite the little menagerie in the house. Ok, that's a little dramatic, but we did have a roach and a gecko. Alfred saw the gecko in the office and said we should leave him inside to eat the bugs. He (the gecko, not Alfred) was running all over the walls and ceilings. He was a twitchy little thing. And kind of big.

I guess he's still in here now, but I haven't seen him today. He obviously was not doing his job with the bugs though, because there was a smallish roach in the hallway last night. He was half dead already, and Alfred beat him into the carpet to finish him off. I had to pick little roach bits out of the carpet, it was really gross. But it's dead!

So Alfred's not home tonight, he's staying at his parents' house to help them out. Robyn had surgery on her eyelids this morning to help with her peripheral vision. He said she's in a lot of pain, which is understandable, considering they lasered her eyelids all to pieces. She can't go up stairs for 2 or 3 days, so she's camped out in the dining room now. That must make it so much worse, not being able to be in your own bed. She can't read, watch tv, or use a computer for I think 10 days, then can't drive for like 6 or 8 weeks. I can't even imagine. That's why we celebrated his birthday last weekend - it's not until this Saturday, so Katherine, you're not late!

One last thing I just remembered, totally random but here goes. I heard on NPR last week that the FL supreme court ruled that a law banning gay couples from adopting kids was unconstitutional. So, good job FL, way to not be the most ass-backward state in at least one way!

Alfred's birthday celebration weekend

I love getting all these comments! I feel so popular. :) Yes, the tiramisu was delicious. I mean like super delicious. And there wasn't even any chocolate in it. So you know it must have been good.

We had a good weekend, Saturday was fun with Alfred's birthday party. We had an awesome meal at his parents' house: ceviche with red snapper and scallops, caesar salad with steak and shrimp, and of course the tiramisu. It was great. We ate at about 3:00 and didn't even need dinner, we were so stuffed. We all got to dress up like Superman, and Robyn bought these little potato guns that you stabbed into a potato then shot the little potato nugget out. They were really fun, we all had little starchy spots on our clothes from shooting each other. And there were about 10 pounds of potato bits on the porch afterwards.

Sunday we went over to his parents' house again to watch the Bills/Jaguars game. That game is always fun, because of course I root for the Bills while everyone else is rooting for the Jaguars. It's even better when Buffalo wins, like they did yesterday! So I have bragging rights for another year. Not that I really follow football all that much anymore, but it's still fun. Plus I got pizza and wings, and we finished the tiramisu.

The other thing that happened this weekend is that gas went up. Stupid Ike. It went up from 25 to more than 60 cents a gallon at different stations. Luckily I had heard that it was supposed to go way up and got it on Saturday morning, by Saturday evening it had already gone up and some places had actually run out. So that sucks.

One last thing: happy first anniversary to Rosemary and Greg!

I've made a huge mistake

I miss Gob. Also, blogger is pissing me off. I've tried posting this like 4 times and the spacing keeps getting messed up. If it's still messed up this time I'm just leaving it. So that explains any potential weird gaps.

My huge mistake was trying my new coffee liquor with milk, since I finished all of the fat free half and half last night. Yup, delicious. I think I'm going to become an alcoholic.

And now, the return of the baking blog! I haven't baked anything in awhile, my mixer was lonely. I made some of my famous cookies, and of course Alfred's tiramisu. As I mentioned last night, I made the lady fingers from scratch:


I got the genius idea from someone on the allrecipes website to do them like this. I traced the outline of the pan I was using onto the parchment paper, then filled in the circles with the batter and baked them. That way they fit right into the pan and I didn't have to deal with cutting and fitting the little cookies together. Genius, I tell you. Tonight I made the custard filling and had to give up some of my precious coffee liquor, and put it all together.

I'm now an expert in separating eggs. I've separated a total of 15 eggs since last night, and only messed up 1. Yeah, this bitch has 14 eggs in it. Leave it to Alfred to pick a protein-rich, carb-light dessert (he's cutting back on carbs to lose more weight, which has meant I've cut back on carbs a bit too. It totally works. Which sucks. I love carbs.)

I also remembered the story I was going to tell yesterday about going to buy my booze. The guy rang it up and told me the price, but didn't ask for my ID. He didn't ask for it until I gave him my credit card to pay. I asked if he was carding me for my credit card or age, and he said both. But then he said "I'm not stupid, I know how to answer a question like that." So, did I really not get carded? And why does it bother me? I seem to have passed into the next stage of my life. For a long time, I wanted to look older, or at least my age. I actively disliked looking younger. I mean, it wasn't very flattering to be mistaken for Katie when I was 20 and she was 12 (it totally happened, at Tony's wedding.) Then I got to the age where I didn't mind either way. I was happy if someone guessed my age, but just as happy if someone told me I looked younger. Now, it seems I want to look younger. Apparently I'm getting old. Dammit.

I'm legal

Let me preface this post with a warning: I bought a bottle of coffee liquor today and have had 3 glasses of it mixed with fat free half and half. Each successive glass had less and less of the half and half. It was fantastically delicious. Thus, you get to enjoy the elusive "tipsy post."

I bought the liquor for the tiramisu I'm making tomorrow for Alfred's birthday (we're celebrating this weekend with his family). Tonight I made the ladyfingers. Cause I'm hard core like that. At one point I had dueling mixers going. I was using the hand mixer with the egg whites, and the stand mixer with the yolks. It was kind of awesome. Ok, I'm lying. Dueling mixers! It was totally awesome!

So we bought me a car back at the beginning of August. I've been driving it ever since. And I just went today and got it registered. Boo yah! I've been living on the edge, man. I even had to lie about when we bought it. I'm so bad ass. But now I officially own my own car, all by myself. Neato.

Ok, I've been working on this for like 45 minutes and obviously haven't gotten very far. I keep getting distracted by Wipeout, it's funny if you've never seen it. And this sounds rather disjointed, but you know, I think this is the best I can do right now. Sorry, dudes.

baby/book club, and When Roaches Attack

Last night was my book club. Those of us without kids are pretty outnumbered by this point, although only 2 babies were along for the evening. Plus one fetus. One of the babies was the one who was born the day after last month's book club. He was so tiny, so cute. Dang, I want a damn kid.

So I was apparently a roach magnet today. I killed a total of 4 roaches throughout the day. #1 was in the house this morning, I just squashed it and then flushed it. Pretty straight forward. #2 was in my office, on the windowsill. I smashed it and then tried to feed it to Marc Anthony. He wasn't interested. I guess he likes to kill them himself. #3 was in the store. It was freaking huge. I mean, gigantic. Like 3 or 4 inches long. I couldn't step on it, it would have been like stepping on a small child. So I sprayed him with some bleach, waited for a few minutes, then scooped him up (still alive) and dumped him in the toilet. He drowned. #4 was interesting. I was plunging one of the toilets outside and thought I saw a roach swimming around in the bowl. I thought I was imagining it, until I lifted the plunger and the damn thing was trying to crawl out to save its own life. Obviously I dunked him back in and flushed. Luckily the toilet didn't overflow (plumbing is one of those neat things I get to add to my resume thanks to the museum) and the roach joined his buddies in the sewer. I guess he was hanging out in the plunger and I just killed him coincidentally. He deserved it.

weekend dog

We had a dog this weekend, a black lab. His name was Sam. He belongs to Billy, or Billy's son really, and he came along with the house this weekend. I forgot to take a picture of him though, unfortunately. So you get scenery pictures today instead. The first and third ones are from North Carolina, and the middle one is from Blue Spring, where Katie did her dive certification.

Sam is a good dog. He didn't jump up on me, for one thing. He also went and got the paper in the morning. It was awesome, it was like something out of a movie. He didn't do it for me the first morning, but that was because I tried to make him work before he had breakfast. He couldn't be bothered. He also liked to go swimming, Alfred was swimming one morning and Sam jumped in with him and swam a couple of laps, then got back out. I was sitting outside with him in the afternoon and in between running after a toy I was throwing for him, he just went into the pool and cooled off. It was cute. He also couldn't go anywhere without a toy in his mouth. His favorite was a squirrel. He didn't make me want a dog, though. The food smells too gross.

We also played with the rhino this weekend. Alfred worked on cutting a couple of trails through the back of his parents' property. We managed to break a couple of things on it though, so it needs to be fixed before we can really take it out again.

In other news, I did my first tour at the museum last week. The first since I've been back, anyway. It's just like riding a bike, it all came right back to me. The teacher and parents were asking if I ever taught before. Too bad I can't get all of the teachers that come to the museum to vouch for me to principals.

crazy dude

No pictures, just a quick story.

I was in the museum store the other morning when a guy rode up on his bike. He parked it on the porch and started looking in the windows, so I ignored him. I was getting a homeless vibe from him and didn't want to deal with it. I walked out the back door a few minutes later and could hear him talking on the front porch. My first thought was that he was talking to himself, but since I really hadn't gotten a very good look at him I figured maybe he was on a cell phone. Five minutes later I walk back out, and he's still on the front porch, still talking. I try to peek through the fence to see him, and realize he's looking through the fence at me! Then he says "oh sorry miss, I was just out here talking to myself to try to stay sane. I saw on the news the other day a guy went crazy and started shooting people in some building, so I'm just trying to keep my sanity out here. I'll leave now." And he got on his bike and left. I wished him luck, but I don't know if he heard me.

NC Part 2: The Adventure

No, I didn't forget, just had to give my favorite nephew his props!

So, it all started Saturday as we were out for our first rhino ride of the weekend. We were buzzing around, I was taking lots of pictures. I asked Alfred to stop as we drove by a lake to take this picture:

And that's when it happened. We got stuck. Really, really stuck. Apparently the ground was not as solid as it looked, and the rhino was not all-powerful after all.

So we walked back to the house (luckily we weren't too far away) to get the truck and some straps and rope to try to pull it out. Within about 2 minutes, we got the truck stuck. Of course. It didn't have 4 wheel drive. We got it out after only minimal suffering, then hooked up a bunch of straps to try to pull the rhino out.

Didn't work. We snapped 2 of the straps. Now we were starting to worry. So we headed into town, which was about a 15-20 minute drive. We found an Auto Zone and bought a winch to try to winch it out. Perfect, problem solved. We stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies and headed back out. Which is when we discovered that the winch was about 3 feet long. Not long enough to hook to the tree nearby. Figures. So we wrap a couple of straps and a rope around the tree, connect them to the winch, and winch it out about 2 feet. Detach, tighten straps and rope, repeat. It's not happening. We decide to admit defeat. I head back to the house in the truck to call the caretaker and ask him to come help us. I'm in the bedroom when all of a sudden I hear a motor roar up the driveway. Alfred, through some magical powers that could not manifest in my presence, had gotten it out.

We did sort of ruin the nice pristine lake. Never a dull moment.

Happy Birthday Mason!

He's the big 0-4 today. I have to call him today to wish him a happy birthday, hopefully he's not too busy to chat for a minute. Or maybe I'll just talk to Ella instead. (On her birthday, she was busy opening presents and wouldn't come to the phone, so I talked to Mason. And Tony. But Mason was funnier.)

I had to MacGuyver the box I sent his gift in a bit. We got him a Sponge Bob sidewalk paint set, and it was about 2 inches too long to fit into the priority mail box that they have at the post office. So I took it back to my office, turned it inside out, and made a new top for it with a piece of another box. Brilliant.

For good measure, here's another picture: us cutting a rug together at my wedding. I have to say, he didn't really know what he was doing, but he followed my lead and we were ok. Luckily he's damn cute!

NC Part 1: Just the facts, ma'am

I didn't get home until about 10 last night, which is why I didn't post yesterday. Alfred spent the night at his parents' house so he wouldn't have to drive right back this morning. But we're back! We had a great trip, the worst part was the 7 hour drive each way, but hey, we're troopers. Alfred actually did all of the driving both ways. He's either crazy or a glutton for punishment.

As expected, it was much less snowy. The weather was pretty perfect Saturday and Sunday, it was around 80 with low humidity. It was beautiful.

We spent a lot of time outside: kayaking (we eventually learned these weren't even Billy's kayaks, but luckily the guy who owned them didn't mind us using them. We had actually taken them across the lake and left them pulled up on some rocks and he came and took one, thinking his kids had left them, so I had to walk back around the lake while Alfred chased him down on the water.)

and, of course, cruising around on the rhino.

I think it was more fun in the snow for some reason, maybe because there were less trees and bushes blocking paths. The other benefit of going in the snow is having a coat on to protect yourself from all the branches that whip you. The advantage of summer, of course, is being able to stay out for a long time without losing any appendages to frostbite. And really, some people are into the whole whipping thing. Not me, personally, but you know what I'm saying.

Anyway. We ate well too. Here's our fancy romantic meal from Saturday night. It's steak and scallops. Alfred started a fire in the background, but none of the pictures came out that well. We plowed through some wine, too. Maybe that explains the lack of pictures in focus.

Monday it was kind of crappy out, so it wasn't too hard to pack up and leave. Here we are, all ready to go.

We stopped at the state park a few miles from the house to admire the view of the mountains. We tried to do the same thing when we went in January, but the overlook was closed because of ice. It was open this time, but alas, still no luck on the view.

And there you have it. Stay tuned for Part 2: The Adventure!