I'm A Little Swamped!

Sorry I've been out of touch lately...

I have a lot on my plate.

Can you say...

• Easter dinner for 24 at my house
  

• French exchange student arrives on 4/5 for two weeks (it is our responsibility to make sure he has the time of his life)

• Major fundraising event for elementary school on 4/10-- I am the chair

• 100 person farewell party for the french students and their host families

• Trip to Austin, TX for 5 days

• Allie's middle school play the day we return

• Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (I put their catalog together) May 1st and 2nd.

• Bridal Shower for 60 at my house
  

• Mother's Day

• Trip to Bahamas (feel sorry for me) for a wedding

Calgon...Take me away!

College Visit #2: Wake Forest

Wake Forest has a beautiful campus. We took an official tour (it turned out that another girl from Tristan's class was on the tour with us) and spent some time walking around the campus.

The buildings were really nice...well except for the dorms...the dorm rooms were really tiny.

The dining hall was unbelievable. The food looked amazing for dining hall food. These kids have no idea what we ate when we were in college!

They have great sports teams at Wake and a real sense of school spirit--after every win, the students tp the trees in the main quad! (Hhhmm....maybe that's why tuition is so expensive...they have to buy a lot of toilet paper!)

Tristan was excited to find out that they have a Subway on campus that stays open until 3 a.m.!

Bog Garden

One really neat thing about Greensboro is that in every neighborhood there is a greenway, a park or some sort of garden. After a day of shopping, we went to the Bog Garden to feed the ducks.

We saw some ducks.

But mostly, we saw geese. Lots of them. Tons of them. We fed them most of our food.

That is until we saw this sign. Oops.

A pound of poop a day...wow, who knew?

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Every year when we are on spring break, we celebrate St. Patrick's Day at a local pub wherever we are staying. This year, we went to Dugan's Pub in Pinehurst, NC.
Allie and Tyler were the only ones not wearing green. Total party poopers.

Tony is the only one who actually enjoys corned beef and cabbage.

Hanging out with my little leprechauns! I had just come from a massage at the Pinehurst Spa, so I was feeling quite rested.

Posing with a statue in Pinehurst Village. You have to love Ammy's shoes--she's the only child I know who wears basketball shoes with a skirt.

Hope you all had a great St. Paddy's Day too.

How To Torture A Duke Fan

Tyler is a Duke fan. In our house, that is unacceptable! We spend lots of time torturing Tyler about Duke.

While in Chapel Hill, we went to 3 different UNC shops. We had to show Tyler all of the obnoxious anti-Duke shirts we came across.

We tried on Tarheel hair (reminds me of Thing 1, Thing 2 and Thing 3)

We pretended like we were old-time football players.

We bought loads of UNC gear so that we can continue the torture for the coming months!

College Road Trip 2010

Spring Break started this past Friday. We packed up the car and the kids and headed south to the great state of North Carolina. We stayed in Greensboro with our friends, the Heckmans for the weekend. The boys spent Friday night at the ACC Tournament, where they watched our beloved Terps lose.

On Saturday, we went to Chapel Hill to check out UNC.

Both Heckmans went to school at UNC. Unfortunately, as an out-of-state student, it is a very hard to get accepted.

We spent the afternoon walking around the campus and the town.

This butterfly bench was placed on campus in memory of Eve Carson, the student body president, who was shot and killed two years ago.

The kids had fun running around--that is until we got caught in a monsoon. We were totally drenched by the time we made it back to the car.

Despite the rain, it was a great afternoon.

Wine Tasting

The other night, we hosted a wine tasting at our house as a fellowship activity for parents at our church. We had 34 people in attendance and it was an absolute blast.

When people arrived we had them take this quiz on the computer (we had two laptops set up in the kitchen) to determine what kind of wine they were. Then they selected the corresponding name tag and wrote their name on it. (I was a chardonnay which is funny since that is my favorite. Pinot Noirs were very common at this party)

Tony and I provided the wine for two blind tastings. We did a chardonnay tasting and a cabernet tasting. We bought a lower priced bottle (under $10) a mid-priced bottle ($15) and an expensive bottle (over $20) of each kind. Each bottle was covered with foil so you couldn't tell which wine it was. Everyone tasted the wines and rated them using this sheet.

We had each couple bring 2 bottles of the same kind of wine and an appetizer that went with their wine. We opened one bottle of each wine and placed it with the appetizers.

Everyone got to decide which wines they wanted to try. I made these wine journals so that people could take notes about the different wines they were trying. I bought little composition books and then used Avery full page labels to make the covers.

With the second bottles of wine we set up a drawing. Each couple picked a number and then they got a bottle of wine to take home that corresponded with that number.

The carnage--all the different wines that people tasted--we were left with a lot of half-empty bottles! Luckily, some people took bottles home when they left!

I loved the concept of the blind tasting. It was a lot of fun to see what people liked-most people liked the least expensive chardonnay and the mid-range cabernet. It was also neat to be able to try a variety of different wines. My favorite quote of the night was from a friend that said, "I haven't tasted a wine that I haven't liked!"

Mission Emmanuel

International hero Emmanuel Yeboah returned to McDonogh on Friday, February 26 for the launch of Mission Emmanuel, an effort spearheaded by four seniors to ship a large crate of bikes to Ghana. Despite snow showers and high winds, Yeboah joined students as they loaded hundreds of bikes into a shipping container.

We did our part...we took 6 bikes.

This guy really did his part. He heard the four seniors on the radio and drove down from Harrisburg, PA with over 40 bikes!

If you have bikes you would like to donate, take them to Race Pace bike shop in the St. Thomas Shopping Center, 9930 Reisterstown Rd by tomorrow, March 10 or drop them off on campus by March 11th.

The Case of the Missing Goalie Stick

Our lacrosse goalie stick has been missing for weeks.

Case closed.

Beauty

Lidia has done it again...She has captured true beauty in a young woman who is a cancer survivor.

Go here to check out all of the great pictures of Gabi and her friends and here to follow Gabi's cancer journey.

Belly Bump

A few weeks ago, my friend asked me if I would take pictures of her belly. This is her 8th (Yes, I said 8th) child and she has never done this before. I was honored that she asked me--I was also a bit nervous. I love to take pictures, but most of the time, I really have no idea what I am doing. There's a lot of trial and error involved.

In November, I bought my Nikon D90. I don't love it yet. It is so much more powerful than my D40x and I have so much to learn (and no time to do it). Anyway, I googled maternity shots on line and away we went.

These are some of the shots...

It didn't hurt that my friend loves to be pregnant. She is overdue by several days and she is still glowing.

Thanks so much for letting me practice on you! Now go forth and have this baby!

Chateau Montelena

On our last day, we went to Chateau Montelena. The movie, Bottle Shock tells the story of the 1976 Paris Tasting which put Chateau Montelena on the map. (California wine beat French wine in a blind taste test.)

The winery/tasting room is in a stone castle carved into a hillside.

They have their own lake. Tony felt the need to call the ducks.

They did not feel the need to respond.

After all the time we were in Napa, we finally figured out how to take a picture of the four of us with a self-timer. (No one else was out on the lake)

Smart cars are everywhere in CA. Tony and Harper thought it would be funny if they tried to pick it up.

It was definitely time for us to go...

The view as we were leaving.