A day at the beach

I had the best weekend! The boys and I had a day at the beach. We went to Lewes DE and spent the day at Broadkill beach - a dog friendly beach that was mostly deserted and beautiful.



Hurley especially loved the beach! He got to run after his ball and jump in the waves. He is still mama's boy though and wasn't happy until he was sitting on my lap!





I guess it was the best vantage point to watch the people and dogs walk by.

Bailey had the entire beach blanket to himself. Although he didn't like the water as much as Hurley he still enjoyed sniffing the shells, sand, crabs, water, rocks, seagulls, seaweed,....




After the beach - a quick drive over to Rehobeth for dinner was followed up by a sunset walk on the boardwalk. It was a beautiful evening.








I'm so glad I got to go to the beach! I hope to make it back there again soon!

Day trips

It's been a while but I still wanted to share of the fun day trips I went on recently. My friend Nicol was in town for a visit and we went EVERYWHERE! After picking her up from the airport in DC - headed to Alexandria for dinner and ice cream.


We ate at the Fish Market and it was fun to sit up on their balcony and look over the activities on the street below. After dinner we drove home via DC and stopped at the monuments. It's always amazing to see the monuments at night all lit up! Please excuse the crappy cell phone pics!





The next day we headed to Philly!

We walked around South Street and I had a cheesesteak at Jim's - my favorite!




After South street - we headed to center city and saw the Liberty Bell and Independence hall.





Finally - we went to Manayunk for dinner - such a cute little town!



Next up was Baltimore - I took Nic to see my favorite parts of Baltimore - Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Camden, Hampden and everything in between!



Sunday was DC! We headed down early to get tickets for the DCDuck tour. We bummed around China town, saw a Nationals game and saw more monuments and landmarks.




It was a busy but fun filled weekend!

Harpers Ferry WV

We stopped at Harpers Ferry, WV on Sunday after visiting with some friends who live nearby.

Harpers Ferry sits at the intersection of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and the Appalachian Trail passes right through the center of town. The entire town is built on a steep rock with steps carved right into the side. It's really pretty cool.

We got there right before sunset so the picture taking opportunities were limited - but I still had fun walking around.

Here's a little taste of the town...


This is St Peter's church:



This house caught my attention - it looks so thin sitting up on this high road.



The front of the building had these amazing doors.



You can just see the river in the distance from up on that high street.


Down in the lower part of town - there were lots of beautiful old buildings.
I loved the blue doors and windows on this one.



On many of the buildings - you can see the outline of other buildings that are no longer there.




If you find yourself in the area - it's definitely worth a peek!

Our nation's capitol

My parents were down for a visit this weekend and I took them on a mini tour of Washington DC. We took the metro into town and got off at Union Station to begin our day.



We walked down 1st street passing the Supreme Court building on our way to the Library of Congress.



I've worked with the Library of Congress for a few years now as a consultant - doing their HR software - and I've been to the main building several times, even though I usually worked in the James Madison building across the street. It was nice to be able to show my parents some of the places I've worked.





The interior of the library is just gorgeous. There is color everywhere!

From the stained glass ceilings:



To the murals on the walls and ceilings...





We were able to peek into the "reading room" but alas no pictures were allowed. Here's a picture from the LOC website:



The next stop was the US Capitol building.



We walked through a tunnel to get to the Capitol building directly under 1st street from the Library of Congress. I hadn't been to the Capitol since I was in the Girls Scouts many many moons ago. Since that time - a new underground visitors center has been built. When you start your tour - you are shown a movie about the history of the building and the people who created this masterpiece. After the movie - a tour guide takes you to the famous Capitol Rotunda.



The painting in the dome is The Apotheosis of Washington by Brumidi.



Those of you who are Dan Brown fans may remember this as the location of the opening scene of The Lost Symbol where Langdon finds the severed hand on the floor pointing up at the painting. It was actually kind of funny how many people were pointing out that spot rather than looking at the art around them!

As we were leaving the capitol the sun was just starting to set behind the dome.



The Capitol building was backlit with a beautiful warm light.



I took advantage of a recent HDR class and snapped some shots using "bracketing" and then processed the pics using Photomatix software.

As we turned to leave we saw that the lovely warm light looked amazing on the Library of Congress too!




After a lovely dinner at McCormick and Schmicks we headed home exhausted after a busy day!

Weekend fun - catchup post!

I've been slack about posting about my last couple weekend outings. Three weeks ago I was actually in Raleigh NC visiting one of my best friends from high school, Marc.

The best part of visiting - was spending time with his animals! Here they are:



Brit, Mia, Gizmo and Rex the cat. They each have such different personalities! Brit is a bundle of energy and a snuggler and has the coolest eyes ever - one blue and one brown, Mia is the shyest dog you will ever meet, but sweet once she warms up, Gizmo is a belly scratch hore, and Rex the cat is more like a dog - loving people and attention.

I was there the weekend after St Patricks day - but due to rain their St Patty's day parade and Irish festival were delayed a week - so I got to see the festivities! They really know how to do a parade - it went on for over an hour! After the parade - we hit the Irish festival - we saw bagpipers and Irish Wolf Hounds everywhere!



It was a fun event. After the parade - we checked out the rest of Raleigh's cultural events - town hall and their musuem.

At city hall - there was actually a rally going on - I was joking around and called out "Go Obama!" to the anti Obama rally... Marc got all nervous - he told me I was in the south and had to keep it down - someone was likely to shoot me! Can you believe it!



Once safely inside - we looked around at the beautiful architecture...














After the town hall - we went to the art museum:


Here we are with an Indian princess!



We had a great weekend - thanks Marc!!

Last weekend - I went out to a coworker's party. His weeping cherry tree was blooming and he wanted to celebrate spring.

Just look at that beautiful tree!


His wife is quite an artist and one of her specialities is mosaics. Just look at this awesome dragon:


And I couldn't resist this cool birdhouse:



Unfortunately I have no pics from my recent trip to New Orleans for work - I was too busy!! Maybe next time!