Virginia Wine Festival

On Saturday, May 30th, Lizzie and I decided to take in the Vintage Virginia Wine Fest. We left around 10am from Ballston on a bus and headed for Reston to the festival grounds. When we got there, we sampled plenty of wine, met up with friends Heather and Jonna, sampled more wine, took in some live music, then bought plenty of the wine we were sampling!

We didn't really think about HOW MUCH wine we were buying and how we were going to get in home on the crazy bus! We ended up buying 22 bottles of wine between the two of us but luckily were able to haul it across the massive parking lot to our bus and pack it in before the drunk-bus filled back up. We had a great time buying snacks, enjoying good friends and conversation and chatting up the winery volunteers. Eventhough it was an extremely warm day, we managed to stay shaded and happy in all the sun. It was a great day!

Birthday!!!

YAY! 28th B-DAY!!!

A few weeks ago, when my "cousin" Lizzie moved to town, her parents came along to help move and coincidentally, my father came down to help me celebrate my 28th birthday! My father and Lizzie's parents are friends from their high school days and it was a great time for them all to catch up too while we went out to celebrate not only my birthday but also Lizzie's (May 18th) and my brother Andy's (June 6th). We chose a night out at Clyde's of Tysons Corner. It was a fabulous dinner topped off with some birthday cakes too! We drank, ate, laughed and had a general blast! It was so nice to see my aunt & uncle and celebrate so well with family!

Lizzy Arrives!

When we were little kids through early teenagers, every year for Halloween we went to the Collins' house for trick-or-treating. We lived on a street that didn't have sidewalks, or many permanent residents (since we were on a vacation lake) so trick-or-treating was difficult in our neighborhood. The Collins' were always "Uncle" and "Aunt" to my brother and I growing up and their kids were our "cousins". Having not seen them in several years, I was excited to learn that my cousin Lizzy would be moving to the DC area to take a job with Samsung Electronics. She's moving just 2 miles down the street here in Falls Church and is really excited to start her job and live in her own place and I's excited to have a new friend here.

Lizzy stayed with us all week while she attended some training and waited for her apartment lease to begin. We went out to dinner, watched movies in, had drinks out and even caught a Nats game with Nick and Ant (which of course, they lost!). I'm excited to have her in the area!

Mother's Day Weekend

For Mother's Day weekend I decided to go see my mom in NY. It was a nice weather weekend in the forecast and the Lilac Festival was going on in Rochester. The Lilac Festival is an arts and crafts fair with lots of yummy local food favorites and the beautiful lilacs in full bloom as well as a nice parade. I always loved it growing up!

First though, I needed to get Kara through the 7 hour drive! Surprisingly, she was a joy to travel with! In fact, she slept most of the ride!
Mom and I had a great time walking the Lilac Festival and hanging out. We got some beautiful Lilac perfume for my grandmother for Mother's Day and checked out all the cute craft booths.
On Sunday after church, we headed up to the lake to have an early dinner with my Gram before returning home to enjoy some rest and relaxation. Kara loved the trip to see mom and really enjoyed hanging out in her backyard. She saw her first deer and geese and absolutely loved watching the birds!

It was a really great Mother's Day weekend and a nice little vacation even though I was terribly sick the last half of it!

Dance, Dance!!

Kara's new trick that Nick so proudly taught her in one sitting!

Snuggly Boyfriend!

A few weeks ago, when I took my trip to Houston, Nick sent me a picture message with his newest purchase....the one, the only....SNUGGIE! (As seen on TV!)

Here he is demonstrating its usefulness having coffee and holding Kara...while still staying nice and warm inside his blanket with sleeves. The Snuggie works as advertised! :)

Opening Day 2009

Nick and I once again got a game pack of tickets for our Washington Nationals baseball team and Monday was Opening Day! Our Nationals are coming off a 100+ loss season but made some new acquisitions in the off season hoping to shore up a huge pitching leak and maybe get a few steady hitters.

Nick and I headed out to the game and met up with friends, Danny, Heather, the Merrill's and Anthony. We got to take in our beautiful stadium, eat hotdogs and pretzel nuggets, enjoy the mini-muffins and popcorn snacks I brought with me, and watch our Nats put forth a pretty good game. Unfortunately not only did Teddy not win his first ever President's Race, but the Nats failed to secure win #1 with their 9-8 loss to the Phillies. Still, a good time was had by all!