November and December

In November and December, we saw a lot of performances at the Kennedy Center, hosted some holiday dinners and had out of town company.

November 10th - We saw a concert with Lang Lang that was essentially a masters class for 100 local piano students between the ages of 8 and 18.  It was fascinating to watch him work with these students.  We had also had a first tier seat on the side so we could watch him play.

November 22nd - We hosted Thanksgiving dinner and all ate too much.

November 23rd - We saw Jekyll & Hyde, starring Constantine from American Idol in the lead.  This was a very enjoyable show.

November 27th - The Kennedy Center dedicated the new Rubenstein Organ with a free concert.  They showed a time lapse video of the installation of the pipe organ that was just amazing and the instrument is beautiful.

December 13th - Merry Tuba Christmas at the Kennedy Center.  This was the 39th anniversary of this holiday tradition founded by Harvey Phillips in which tuba, sousaphone, and euphonium players from around D.C. play traditional Christmas music.  It is always a packed event; the audience fills pretty much the entire Grand Foyer.

December 15th - The National Symphony Orchestra Holiday Pops concert, with New York Voices.  They made it snow inside the Concert Hall. 

December 22nd - Irving Berlin's White Christmas.  They changed some of the songs from the movie (my favorite holiday movie) and rearranged the story a little bit, but did get all the big numbers in there.  This time they made it snow in the Opera House.

December 23rd - The Annual Messiah Sing-a-Long.  My sister got here just in time for us to go to the Kennedy Center for the sing-a-long.  I've been trying to do this since I moved here and have never made it.  We had a blast!  They have soloists for the arias and restatives, and the audience sings the choruses.  The Kennedy Center has been doing the sing-a-long since 1971.

December 24th - We (Jim, Sara and I) went to the Newseum.  If you haven't been, this is one of the coolest paid entry museums in D.C. and totally worth the price.  Especially since the ticket lets you in on two consecutive days.  That evening, we hosted Jim's mom and sister for our traditional spaghetti dinner.

Wednesday Photos

On Monday, my sister and I went the National Museum of Natural History and visited the butterfly pavilion.

Philip Carter Winery

 You may not know this, but Virginia has some really world class wineries.  There 206 wineries in Virginia, basically running in a line along the edge of the Shenandoah Mountains.  Seventy-one of them are within about a one hour drive from our home.  Because of the seasons we experience here, Virginia produces a wine much more in the style of European wines that the very fruity wines that you get from California, where they have a much more consistent temperature and rainfall.

Baby Grapes

It's difficult to produce wine here.  They started growing grapes here 400 years ago.  Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both had vineyards and never produced a single bottle.  You have to survive the winter, the potential for an early spring followed by a sudden frost (which is what happened this year), pests, animals, and then harvesting all the fruit before it freezes again.
 
This weekend, we drove out to Hume, VA to visit Philip Carter Winery.  We got a Travelzoo voucher for a guided tour of the winery, a tasting of seven wines, picnic with cheese, meat and chocolate, souvenir glasses and a 10% discount on whatever wine we purchased.  We bought a bottle of Viognier, a grape that I had never heard of until I moved here.  Last year, the viognier was named Virginia's official state grape.  Viognier grapes make a dryish white wine and Philip Carter's wine has flavors of lemongrass, citrus and tropical fruits.  Their Viognier is aged in stainless steel, which I much prefer over oak-y wines, like chardonnays.  This bottle is going to be great with Maryland blue crab latter this summer.

Atlantic City

Yesterday, Jim and I took a charter bus up to Atlantic City. There were a few glitches in the trip, but on the whole, we had a great time.

We were told to that the bus would be leaving promptly at 8:00 a.m. from our favorite Mexican restaurant (who arranged the charter). Well, the bus didn't show up on time and then we had to load it up a ridiculous amount of liquor, so we finally left at about ten to 9:00. Which, if you ask me, is way too early in the morning for an open bar. The drive took about three and a half hours, but really wasn't too bad. I knitted the whole way up.

As soon as we got there, Jim and I headed to the Boardwalk so we could get lunch. Then we just walked up and down for a while. We were going to try to take pictures of all of the Monopoly streets and make our own game board, but they turned out to be hard to find, so we settled for this one. We also bought salt water taffy and fudge.

Then we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not, because I will not miss the chance to see some weird stuff and get a pressed penny for my collection.

We finally went to the casino around 3:00 and started off playing slot machines with the $20 credit that we got as part of the group. About an hour before we were scheduled to leave, we finally got an open seat at the $1 blackjack table which was excellent fun! I wish we had gotten on earlier. I kept a one dollar chip as a souvenir. We didn't win a lot but we didn't lose a lot either, so I was ok with that.

We headed back around 7:00 p.m. and got back to the car at about 10:30 and boy was I ready to be off the bus. About half the bus had been drinking way too long at that point and it was just obnoxious. Still, we had a good time and would love to go again some day.

Six Flags America

We redeemed a bunch of My Coke Rewards points and got two free tickets to Six Flags America that we used today. I love roller coasters and we rode all four of the steel coasters at the park. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day; it was sunny and not nearly as hot as it could have been here in July. Here's a look at the coasters that can be checked off of my master list.

Joker's Jinx
(from themeparkreview.com)

Superman: Ride of Steel: This is a point of view video of what it looks like to ride this in the front car.

Batwing

(from Coasterimage.com)
It's important that you see that you are laying flat when you ride this.

The Mind Eraser
(from themeparkreview.com)
This is a classic suspended coaster

We rode several of the classic rides - the carousel, flying swings & tea cups. We also rode one water ride that is closing this weekend, Skull Island that is a combination of a roller coaster and log ride. It was really a great day, with the exception of one wicked sun burn.

Gettysburg, PA

We were invited to attend a birthday celebration for Jim's high school youth pastor today in Westminster, MD. It turns out that Westminster is only about 30 miles from Gettysburg and it would have been a shame to get that close and not see the battlefield.

We have gone to the battlefield in Manassas before and were able to see the park in a couple of hours. I figured that Gettysburg would be the same, but I was mistaken. We could have spent a couple of days there reading all the markers. There is a 24-mile auto tour through the park. We spent three hours and stop for four of the 16 markers. I am glad that we sat down with the map before we started and picked the few sites that we wanted to be sure to see, otherwise we never would have gotten to them.

This is stop five, the Virginia Memorial. The monument to Virginia's soldiers is behind you in this picture and the field is the site of Picket's Charge on July 3rd, 1863.

We also stopped at the last stop, Soldier's National Cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address during the dedication. This monument marks the spot of his address.

The weather today could not have been nicer and we had a great time. Since it's only 2 hours from Washington, we will definitely have to go again for an overnight trip so we can spend more time exploring Gettysburg.

End of Summer

You may not know this about me, but I love roller coasters. A lot. I love them so much that we went to Williamsburg on our honeymoon so that I could ride the coasters at Busch Gardens again.

You also may not know that I am the queen of the getting something for cheap, preferably free. I get reward points on my credit cards, gas points at the grocery, extra care bucks at CVS and my most favorite, Coke Rewards Points. We are single-handedly keeping the Coca-Cola company in business.

Earlier this year, the Coke rewards site had free tickets to Kings Dominion, so I promptly ordered one for me. Since they were one per person, I opened another account for Jim, trying to get a second free ticket. They showed up one more time, but I didn't have enough points, then they vanished from the site. No second free ticket for us.

Since I didn't want to let our one free ticket go to waste, I set out to get a deal on a second ticket. After much web searching, I found a discount code that would get us a ticket for $28.50 - that's half price.

On September 18th, I'll be riding this. I can't wait.

Manassas Battlefield

Last Sunday after church, we drove over to Manassas and walked around the battlefield. This was my first trip to a civil war site, even though the are everywhere in Virginia. Jim hadn't been since he was in school, either. We took the one mile walking tour of the first battle of Manassas. The weather was great and I learned more about Civil War history than I ever did in high school. We'll have to go back sometime and take the tour of the second battle.

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere...

I know you think that I forgot to blog about our final day in New York, but I actually had to do 'real work' yesterday.

Sunday didn't go exactly according to plan. We did get up, get checked out of the hotel (leaving our luggage with the concierge) and get breakfast. Then we took a taxi up to Central Park. The plan was to walk around for about an hour, then go to the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. It is a part of the Smithsonian, but it is not free like the museums in Washington, which is a bummer.

We did have a very nice, if sweaty, walk through the Park. We saw tons of people with their dogs, the statue of Alice in Wonderland, Cleopatra's Needle, the Great Lawn and the Reservoir. We were wandering from 72nd up to 91st. There was also a triathlon finishing up the run in the park, so we stopped to cheer people on for a few minutes, too.

When we got to the museum, it was not open yet. This was my fault. I misread the days - I thought it opened at 10:00, which is did Monday - Saturday, but Sunday was noon. I really wanted to see this museum and have for a long time, so we walked a few blocks over to a Starbucks to get something to drink, cool off and wait.

After about a hour, we went back to the museum, which was now open, BUT most of it was closed for rennvations. This was NOT my fault - I double checked the website and nowhere does it say that it is undergoing renovations. If I had known that, I would have elected to take a pass on the whole thing and go to the American Museum of Natural History. At least they were doing 'pay what you want' admissions, since it was mostly closed.

However, by this time it was too late to get all the way across the park and have anytime to see the dinosaurs, so we walked a couple of blocks to the Guggenheim Museum and spent an hour or so there looking a really odd art. Then we taxied back to the hotel for the luggage and down to Penn Station to get the bus back to D.C.

While we were waiting for the bus, I did the last thing left on my list of stuff to do in NYC. I ate a chicken gyro from a guy with a cart and it was really good.

These little town blues are melting away...

Saturday morning, we headed out early to go to the top of the Empire State building. I cannot stress enough the importance of buying your tickets online and printing them at home. The security line moves fast, but if you have to wait in the ticket line, you will be there all day. Then you wait for an elevator to the 80th floor and another elevator to the 86th. You can just dart up there like at the end of Sleepless in Seattle. They never tell you that in the movies.

After the Empire State Building, we took a taxi all the way down to Battery Park to go see the Statue of Liberty. Again, buy tickets online, we did not. When we got there the line was 1 1/2 hours long for the boat over to the statue AND they had given out all the passes that let you go up the statue. So, we bought tickets for the harbour tour (no waiting) and cruised past Ellis Island and the Statue. We also got to see the waterfalls, which is a public art installation up for the summer.

From there, we went to Chelsea Market, then started the Project Runway tour of Manhattan. We went to Mood Fabrics, passed by the Atlas Apartments and spent some time in Bryant Park, watching the carousel. Then, back to the hotel for a much needed shower.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art stays open late on Saturday, so we did that last. For dinner, we tried a barbecue place called Virgil's that was a couple of doors down from our hotel. We'd been smelling it everytime we went outside and just couldn't resist it anymore. I had pulled pork and Jim had ribs. We had mac n' cheese, barbecued beans, coleslaw and potato salad for the sides and the entrees came with chive corn muffins. We also had warm chocolate chess pie a la mode for dessert. We got there about 9:20 p.m., waited 15 or 20 minutes for a table and rolled back out at 10:45ish. The place was still packed.

More pictures are available here.

Life's A Beach

This weekend, Jim and I went to the beach. Neither of us had been in a very long time, so we got up VERY early on Saturday morning and drove over to Bethany Beach, Delaware for the day. The weather was great with a lot of sun, hot but not too hot. I did a little sunbathing and Jim body surfed for most of the day. When we had all the sun we could take, we went to a restaurant called the Blue Crab for an all-you-can-eat blue crab feast. It came with fried chicken, local sweet corn, hush puppies and a ton of crab. I love playing with my food :) We definitely got our money's worth on the crabs and got to spend a couple of hours out of the sun.

It was a long day and we were beat by the time we got home, but we sure had a great time.

Wine and Running

Yesterday, Jim and I went to the Spring Wine Festival at Mount Vernon. We took the tarp (because the ground is still wet) and the picnic blanket, bought a fruit and cheese box and a bottle of cabernet and sat on the south lawn with all these people and listened to the jazz band. It was lovely. We also tasted several wines and toured the mansion. This wine festival is the only time of the year when the cellar is open and you can go under the house.

In other news, I've been working on a running training program called Couch to 5K. It is a nine week program that builds your endurance until you can run a 5K start to finish. You run each week's program three times. I am currently in week 4 and I was able to finish the week four set for the first time yesterday. The first time, I had to walk the last three minutes of the final interval. So I am probably going to do week 4 two or maybe three more times before I move on.

Keep Your Head & Hands Inside the Mixer at All Times

Last night we went to the parking lot carnival at Landmark Mall, affectionately referred to as Traveling Death Rides.

We rode this, and this and this:


The BF is not fond of the Sizzler pictured to the left, not so much because I was squishing him, which I was, but it made him dizzy. We loved the Starship 3000 (Gravitron) - they played Hotel California inside and I was singing my butt off.

We got a corn dog for the BF and I was a good girl and said no to cotton candy AND funnel cakes.

EU Open House

On Saturday, many of the countries of the EU were having open houses. We choose to go some of the more popular, bigger embassies so we only were able to make it four during the five hours they were open. This picture was taken at a little cafe table at the French embassy, late in the day. I'll back up and start at the beginning of the day.



We started at the Kennedy Center and walked up to Foggy Bottom to see the Embassy of Spain. It was the smallest of the embassies that we toured and is a pretty building on 23rd and Pennslyvania. It blends right into the neighborhood. They had Spanish wines, olives and olive oils to taste and one of the chefs from Jaleo (my favorite tapas restaurant) was there carving lovely little slivers of ham. They also had Spanish guitar and flamenco dancers.



From Spain, we caught the bus out to the German embassy. The Germans have a huge compound out west of Georgetown and we were able to see the Chancery and the lower level of the Ambassador's residence. We also got bratwurst (well, Jim did) and pretzels, sampled beer and Gewurztraminer and pastries. And they had a band. This bear is in front of the Ambassador's residence and we couldn't resist a photo op with him.

From there we went to the French embassy. We got a strawberry tart and a croissant and sat at the little outdoor cafe tables for a rest. The day was winding down and we had one more embassy to see. So, we said farewell to France and boarded the bus for House of Sweden.




The last stop was the Swedish embassy, which is on the waterfront at Georgetown and a short walk back to the Kennedy Center. The best part of this embassy was the view from the roof.

A Full Weekend

We had a very busy weekend. On Saturday, we went to the Friends of the Library Book Sale, which is huge, and where I accidentally spent $30 on books. It's ok, though, because I got a cookbook and two books that I can read and set free (Murder at the National Gallery and Murder at the National Cathedral - I thought it would be fun to release them in those locations). And I got 7 books for the Resource Center for Faith Development library, so that is a charitable donation and doesn't count :)

After the book sale, we drove into D.C. to see the Newseum. It just opened this month in its new location on Pennsylvannia. It used to be in a small building in Rosslyn and now it is just massive. This is a picture of us on the 6th floor terrace, looking down Penn to the Capitol. We had tickets for 1:00 and they nearly had to run us out of the building, because they closed at 5:00. If you go, go early. We didn't see everything.

Saturday evening, we went to visit Leon and Dee, friends of Jim's and by then we were beat. On Sunday, Jim went to work and I decided it would be a good day to figure out how to drive to my office. So , I loaded up the car with plants and headed into town again. It's easy to get to the building but a pain in the butt to park. After I dropped off the plants, I drove THROUGH DOWNTOWN, to the Folger for Shakespeare's birthday party. It is the one day a year that the reading room is open to the public and it is fantastic. What a great weekend! I should get a gold star for parallel parking three times in two days.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown

Today was the Smithsonian's 42nd Kite Festival. You may recall that I went last year and I was very upset that I didn't have a kite to fly. This year, we brought one. If you can't see, it is shaped like a tree frog, so it is only appropriate that it got taken by the kite eating tree. We actually had a second kite, shaped like a ladybug, but we accidently left one of the cross pieces at home.

So, after our run in with the tree, we walked down to the World War II memorial and from there down to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry trees. We ended the day with a short cruise on the Potomac from the Washington Harbour past all the monuments. It was a bit chilly, but we had a great day.