A Rough Week

OK if you saw the title you would likely awesome that the hurri-quake week for the East Coast was the reason for the headline. Well thankfully neither the earthquake nor Irene delivered any damage to our families. A few friends were/are without power and some lost some trees but we have not heard of any major damage or loss so we are thankful for that.

No - this has just been a rough week - and part of the reason I have been so quiet on the blogging side of things. Work has been very hectic with new things added on top of an already busy work life. To add to that - two years after my bike accident I have been still having pain in my hand so I had my doctor refer me to a hand specialist who determined that I have inflammatory arthritis in my right hand - well technically the lower joints of my right thumb. And if that was not enough it looks like I am going to have to drop my dream of running in the 2011 Marine Corps Marathon. I am not sure if it was the combination of running with Lyme disease or what it was but I have developed a stress fracture in my right tibia. I had been ignoring it for a while but I did finally go to my doctor and she is certain that it is a stress fracture even though it has not shown in an x-ray. She said I will not know for certain until I get a follow up x-ray in a few weeks but until then she says no running. Now I was going to ignore that last part but Laura is making sure I do not.

The good news of this week has been Tika is back at school, safe and sound, and settling in with her roommates. She is rooming with three other girls in a house just off campus and even with the little problems she seems excited by it all.

I guess there is always some silver in the clouds - we just need to remember to look for it.

It started with a toilet plunger and a tennis ball.....

.....and ended with a Karate weapon. Mission accomplished- dead bug.

Now, that is love :-) ........Laura

On my actual Birthday

Well you now know that Laura did everything she possibly could to make this a wonderful weekend and she did not stop with Friday and Saturday but the girls and Laura made my actual birthday special as well.

First off she made sure that I was to relax all day ... well relax for me since I always like to be doing things. The girls came over just before lunch and we had a great barbecue with some local lamb sausage, that I had just picked up, some hot dogs and vegan sausage, grilled portobello mushrooms an all the trimmings. Laura and the girls came out singing Happy Birthday with a beautiful vegan chocolate cake that was oh so delicious and oh so rich.

The girls had made sure that I was prepped for cooking by replacing some of my worn out baking sheets and adding to my barbecue tools with a pizza stone for barbecueing pizza. We cracked open a DVD set that Mom had sent for my birthday. For those from Newfoundland you will be familiar with Republic of Doyle. For those that are not it is a great way to see the sites and sounds of Newfoundland. We spent the afternoon relaxing and laughing and watching RoD. After we dropped the girls off I cracked open my Wasmund's Single Malt and Laura made supper for me, after which I got to have more cake, leftovers from my carrot cake, and a glass of port.

This was the best weekend I have had in a very long time - I think since October 10th. Laura truly outdid herself in making this an extra special weekend and I will always remember it.

Thank you sweetheart.

My Birthday Weekend

Laura went out of her way to make this an absolutely wonderful birthday. Laura had told me to make sure I was able to have a short day at work on Friday and told me to have an overnight bag ready along with a jacket and tie. She gave me no idea where we were going or what we we doing.

So at 3 PM we hopped in the Mini and she started to give me directions which took us southwest from home. The drive was great as we headed towards Shenadoah. I had driven this way many times before to head to Old Rag for hiking but still had no idea where we were going. We eventually turned off to head into Washington VA and pulled into the Foster Harris House, a small bed and breakfast run by Chef John MacPherson and his wife Diane. John was very gracious and took us to our room which had a fresh bouquet of flowers and a wonderful bottle of Côtes de Rhone. We unpacked a bit and relaxed with some of the wonderful wine before Laura suggested I get ready for dinner.

Dinner - what can I say. Laura had made reservations at the Inn at Little Washington. This is not just one of the best restaurants in the DC area but one of the top restaurants in the country (in fact rated in the top 10 by numerous magazines). This is somewhere that I have always wanted to go for dinner. I could not begin to describe the meal but it was perfect. Three courses with little teasers in between. Between us we dined on fresh beets, lamb carpaccio, foie gras, squab, veal and beef. Some wonderful Pinot Noir and Merlot brought it all together. The service was wonderful and the setting beautiful. After such a perfect dinner I was unable to decide on a dessert but Landry, our waiter, suggested that maybe there was something special in the kitchen. Along with a wonderful port he then brought out a small birthday cake. Laura had spoke to the pastry chef days before and arranged to have them make me a carrot cake, just as I liked them, with no pineapple. It was delicious and one of the most thoughtful things anyone has done for me.

Saturday morning we woke up to John and Diane's wonderful four course menu. They truly outdo any bed and breakfast with the food and presentation. After such a great breakfast I was ready to head home but Laura was not finished. Once we checked out of the B&B she directed me west again on 211 towards Sperryville. I immediately thought of all the wineries in the area but she had bigger and better surprises. We pulled into the east side of Sperryville and turned in by a sign for Copper Fox antiques. What I did not know was right next door was Copper Fox Distillery.

Run by Rick Wasmund, Copper Fox produces a single malt whiskey and a rye along with some pure spirits. They have been doing this for 10 years and have been getting rave reviews in the industry. Over the last two years they have gotten 91, 93 and 94 ratings on their whiskeys. Rick was there to give us a tour which was very informative and entertaining. Of course we left with a bottle of single malt and a promise to be back.

It has been a wonderful weekend so far and this was all the two days before my birthday.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Happy Birthday Honey!

I never thought I would be so blessed as to have you and the girls in my life. Thank you for bringing such precious gifts to my world, all which outshine anything I could have ever imagined.

I love you-

Laura

Our Friend's Wedding

This weekend myself and Laura were lucky enough to see our friend Tangela get married. For those of you that do not know Tangela has been a friend of Laura's for a lot longer than I have known her. I was lucky enough that Laura had her as a friend since Tangela did make a big difference at our wedding handling a lot of little details and getting the site all decorated.

This weekend was Tangela's turn to be the center of attention. And although Tangela is not a person that likes to be the center of attention she certainly deserved it as this was her day and she looked wonderful. Every time I saw Tangela on Saturday she had a big smile and she looked so happy. And we are happy for her. At one point during the service I glanced over at Laura and I saw a tear in her eye - and I knew it was a tear of joy for her friend.

I also had reason to smile as my wife looked ... maahvelous ....

I know Tangela will not see this post until she gets back and hopefully we will add some more pictures over the next couple of days so you can see just how good she looked. In the meantime we are hoping that Tangela and Ricky are enjoying their honeymoon and we wish you all the best.

We love you .....

A busy couple of weeks

The last few weeks have just been hectic - vacation - extra running - work - trips to Richmond and Baltimore - and then all the regular stuff - it has just been busy.

But that is not to say it has not had it's share of fun.

It was great being home in Newfoundland and it was great to introduce Laura to some of what Newfoundland has to offer. I know we will go back for a longer trip in the not too distant future. It was interesting that the week after we left the city of St. John's filled with people for the George Street Festival include people like Russell Crowe who was in town to play at LSPU Hall, vacation with his family and to film an episode of Republic of Doyle.

When we got back Kris was getting ready to head to Baltimore to see her friends and to attend Otakon. That meant a couple of trips to Baltimore over a few days but again it was fun.

It was a bit busy time and all five of us, myself, Laura and all the girls, had a hard time finding a day when we could all do something. This week we finally all managed to see each other at the same time. Thursday myself and Laura finally were able to give the girls some things we had picked up for them in Newfoundland, beautiful hand-painted scarves for Tika and Sam and a tea mug for Kris from a local artist (Kris loves hand done pottery). Sam was coerced to model Tika's scarf and even though she has not been feeling well lately she still looks good.


On Sunday we all went to see Crazy Stupid Love. A very funny movie that had us all laughing out loud. I think the funniest moment of the movie was during the trailer for Change Up when one lady, who obviously had never seen the trailer let out a VERY loud laugh. It had everyone else in the theater laughing.

Well I am not sure the next dew weeks will get any quieter - a wedding this weekend, Tika has to head back to Richmond to get day for next semester and the girls have to get ready to head back to school by the end of the month.

I am looking forward to a some quiet time this fall.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday in Baltimore

Yesterday myself, Sam and Tika headed up to Baltimore to pick up Kris. Every summer for the past couple of years Kris has spent the last weekend in July in Baltimore for Otakon. Otakon is a convention for fans of a variety of Japanese art forms including anime, Japanese music and much more. She travels to Baltimore and stays with a friend at her Aunt's house not far from the Inner Harbor. The girls always have fun and it usually takes Kris at least a week to come down from it. This year was no different - but she has fun, she thoroughly enjoys meeting new people that share a common interest and she gets to see a lot of friends that she does not see all that often.

So myself, Tika and Sam usually go up on the Sunday and pick her up. We always find a nice place to eat and try to enjoy the day in Baltimore. Grant it this year was a challenge to keep cool but it was fun. We did head into an interesting new store, well at least new to us as we had not seen it before. It is in the Inner Harbor area and it sells candy - and LOTS of it. 5 pound Gummi Bears, 1 pound Sugar Daddies and so much more. Tika found Vegan chocolate there that had pop rocks in it. That was quite a hot with Sam and Tika. Sam and Kris also found stuff that they loved and they enjoyed on the drive home .... I wonder how they slept last night?

As always we had a great day and now we are trying to figure out when to go to Baltimore again so we can go cruise on a pirate ship :-)