This year we decided to host the Christmas festivities at our house instead of traveling out to my Parents place. It would be the first year for us putting up a tree in our new home and so we thought it would be nice to host the Family Christmas dinner as well. I think my mother was the most excited about it, for this would be the first year in a very long time that she wouldn’t have to cook or clean up afterwords. We also thought it would be fitting to share this wonderful time of the year with our family and friends, so I’ve added some photos from Christams day. We’d like to thank everyone for all the wonderful Christmas cards we have received and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
One of our favorite holiday social events has always been Sally’s annual Gloggfest and this year would prove to be no different! It’s always nice to get together with friends during the holidays and share the stories of the past year. This year Sally had a good turn out for the event and it was literally standing room only! I would estimate close to thirty people total and that’s a lot for her little DC apartment! But oh what fun… the Glogg and food was great! And while there were several close friends that couldn’t make the party… catching up with those who did was definitely the highlight of the evening. Here’s wishing everyone the happiest of holidays!
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any scarier this holiday season someone had to come along and make a video to remind us of the biggest holiday horror of all… giving your special someone the wrong gift!! The video is only about five minutes long, but guys you really need to watch it… it could save your life!!!
I’ve been playing hockey again now for about six years and truly enjoying every minute it! I played a lot as a kid, but I guess I never really got it all out of my system. The adult leagues I play on now are both competitive and a lot more fun then the youth travel leagues were. There’s still checking at the adult level, just not as much… this makes it a little easier for the older guys my age. I believe I’m the oldest out of all the players on both of my teams. Not that I’m old… it’s just that I skate well enough to play on teams that are made up of mostly college kids.
Me (#15) waiting for the face-off! (and thinking… “Hum, there’s ice on the tip of my twig”)
This past Friday night we (The Ballston Rhinos) had a game against the Iceholes at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington. What made this game different than others is that I was actually able to talk Julie into coming out to watch me play! She doesn’t normally come to my games because there always so late at night. Well, not only did she enjoy the game, but she also took some really great photos of all the action… Thanks Julie!! (View Photos, Slideshows, Videos & More»)
Well its taken a while, but Julie has finally finished fixing up her old townhouse and making it rent ready. It was mostly just cosmetics that needed to be done with a couple of small repairs like new faucets in the master bathroom. But now that the place is completely emptied out with fresh paint and clean carpets, we’re ready to put it on the market… for rent.
I’m not going to go into details about location or price… lets just say it’s in Arlington and very close to the Key Bridge. Our Realtor has taken on the job of finding a qualified tenant and then managing the property for us after that.
This is really helpful because it will free up our weekends once again. It seems like every weekend for the past several months has been spent working on the townhouse. Now finally, we can relax a bit and do something else with our spare time!
I’ve also added some photos of the inside that I took this past weekend while finishing things up….
Yes, the circus is in town and the whole family went to see the show last weekend. Kooza, which is one of Cirque Du Soleil’s newest traveling shows, will be performing on the Plateau at the new National Harbor in Maryland until December 14, 2008. If you’ve never been to one of their shows, I highly recommend taking the time to go. The performers of the French Canadian Cirque do an outstanding job of keeping the audience on the edge of their seats for the entire show.
For this show, there were a total of ten different acts with my favorite being the wheel of death! Kooza is a brilliant combination of music and acrobatics with a stunning and electrifying stage set! (View Photos, Slideshows, Videos & More»)
I was surfing the Web earlier today and ran across a twitter feed on another persons blog that I visit quite often. Normally I just read the quick one-liners and move on, but this one sounded too funny to pass up! Anyway the feed had a link to this video from the The Onion, a somewhat original (and very funny) news source. I have embeded the video for your viewing pleasure… Enjoy!
I’ve taken a break from my normal daily grind to throw a couple of images up from our Grand Cayman trip. It always makes me feel better to do non work related stuff during the day! No, I still haven’t gotten around to editing all the underwater photos yet. Nor have I had a chance to make a new travel page for the ‘Dive Trip’ section of my Web site. However… I did save a ton of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico! Sorry… I’ve been dieing to use that line!
A couple of weeks ago, while going back through some of the photos from our Fiji trip earlier this year, I came across a folder of images that I had not previously seen. The photos were ones taken by both Julie and myself with our small land camera on Castaway Island. We normally use large format cameras for our underwater photography, but now we also keep a small Fujifilm FinePix F31fd with us as a pocket camera (for those times when we don’t want to look like a paparazzi.) Although it doesn’t have the same sensor quality as a digital SLR, it does take very nice pictures and at a fraction of the cost of my Nikon!
Just about every evening, during the Castaway Island cocktail hour, Julie and I would go to the Sundowner Bar to watch and photograph the brilliant South Pacific sunsets. It wasn’t until I looked at the photos on a large monitor that I realized how nice they actually turned out. Here are a couple sample photos from the sunset collection taken with our Fujifilm FinePix F31fd… Enjoy!
Akismet is a WordPress plugin designed to filter out unwanted comment spam from your posts. The plugin works so well that I rarly have to check up on it, but when I do I’m always happy to see the stats for the amount of comment spam it has blocked. I was working in WordPress today and noticed that the year-to-date count for blocked spam was at 1500!! This might not sound like a lot, but it keeps me from having to login twenty plus times a day to check it myself. Way to go Akismet!!!
Well its taken a while, but Julie has finally finished fixing up her old townhouse and making it rent ready. It was mostly just cosmetics that needed to be done with a couple of small repairs like new faucets in the master bathroom. But now that the place is completely emptied out with fresh paint and clean carpets, we’re ready to put it on the market… for rent.
