Good Night New York!

In 48 hours in NYC, we walked just over 6 miles, did the entire High Line from start to finish, saw 2 Broadway shows, may have seen a Food Network person in Washington Square Park, finally saw Greenwich Village, at 3 different types of ice cream, paid homage to the home of Hamilton (The Public theatre of course!), ate brunch in a really awesome brunch spot on the Upper East Side, and all around had a fabulous time.  

But more on all that (and more!) later.  Now it's time to go to bed.  Ugh!  Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?

St. Michael's Fun

Before yesterday's Balloon fun, we had a slight detour to St. Michael's MD, which is small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  It's a tiny little city on the water full of fun little shops and restaurants.  If you're looking for lots of excitement, St. Michael's definitely isn't for you, but if you're looking for kitschy little shops and quaint little streets, St. Michael's is your dream destination.

First stop was breakfast at the Crepe cafe for Bananas Foster crepes that were delicious! Then it was some wandering and some shopping - Friday's spoils were a silver and pearl ring from Silver Linings, a hand drawn picture from The Preppy Redneck, some snowheads and a Tardis from The Christmas Shop and a MD tee shirt from Crabi Gras. It was a good day to be a shopper!  We then headed over to have lunch which was very good - even though I have no idea what the name of the restaurant was.  After that, a last ice cream treat at JoJo's before we headed to stop 2 which were the outlets.  All in all, St. Michael's is the perfect summer destination for some quaint fun in the sun!  

Balloons!

A little change up from the usual Friday routine because I'm much too excited about my Friday and much too tired to think of anything else but the balloons.  For the last few months, I've seen the Easton Balloon Festival pop-up in my Facebook newsfeed ever few weeks, and to say that I was excited about it was an understatement.  It's been on my calendar since about April.  

Well today was the day and it was pretty darn awesome!  There weren't as many balloons as I thought there'd be, and I have to admit the lighting portion - the thing we all waited the 3 hours to see - was a little underwhelming.  A few quick puffs of propane and it was all pretty much over.  But I did managed to have a great seat super close to the action which allowed for some awesome pictures!  These are just a few from my phone, but I hope to have some better ones soon taken with the big girl camera.

So much more fun than spending a Friday at work!

Olympic Woes

At this time, every 2 years, I'm pretty excited.  I'm a big fan of the Olympics and most especially the Opening Ceremony.  It's just so big and dramatic.  There's so much togetherness and diversity.  In a world that's so darn divided all the time, it's fun to see hundreds of nations come together for at least a few weeks of the year.  

But this year, it's a little different.  Rio, unfortunately, is a bit of a mess. Between Zika, crime, and facility issues, they're not ready for the eyes of the world on them.  All I can think of is the athletes.  They've worked their lives for this moment, and they have to compete in some pretty terrible conditions - if they choose to compete at all.  At least 5 golfers have chosen to not attend because of health reasons.  This is the first year Golf has made it back into the Olympics, and the best players in the world aren't able to attend if they want to stay healthy.  How in the world does this make sense?

I very much hope that I'm proven wrong.  I hope that the athletes and families and attendees stay safe and healthy. But for now, we can only wish that London was able to hijack the Olympics back.  At least that way, athletes would only need to compete against each other instead of competing against the conditions too...

Dinner Under the Stars

As we all know, one of my favorite places to go in the summer is Annapolis.  And it's mostly because they decide to do fun things like shut down an entire street so all the restaurants can have open-air seating in the evening.  That's what Dinner Under the Stars is and that's why Annapolis is awesome!

Each Wednesday for the next two months, a block of West Street in downtown Annapolis will be closed to cars so that people can come sit outside and enjoy their meals in the beautiful late summer weather.  There's a band playing and people are dancing.  There are fairy lights strewn all over the place, and tons of people laughing and eating and drinking.  

After attending this evening, I've decided it's now my goal to try every restaurant on the street before this program ends.  Tonight's dinner - our first and definitely not our last - for my friend and I was from Luna Blu - an Italian restaurant with a huge selection of yumminess.  They were offering a 4 course menu for $38 which was a great deal when you think about how much food we had - Antipasti (Burata Crostini with tomatoes and speck), Salad (Caesar), Pasta (Penne Vesuviana), and Dessert (Chocolate Mousse.)  On top of all that, we could have purchased half-price bottles of wine too, but we chose to go with iced tea.  

All in all, I had a fantastic time and I can't wait to go back again!

Trivia Tuesday

~ After logic-ing an answer based on our knowledge of Moses, our team is now planning to be known as Team Jesus... : )

~ The first 3 categories tonight were Beer, Frats, and Poker.  Our team - down to 3 players tonight because of vacations - was made up of a gay guy and 2 straight (very girly) girls.  I'm still fairly shocked we managed to guess all 3 answers and get them correct.  Go Team Jesus!

~ As a Catholic girl - one who managed to get a question on the Red Sea correct because of Moses - I should be ashamed that a question on John Paul II's funeral was answered incorrectly.  Boo Team Jesus!

~ Finally, Finally, Finally a Broadway question!  But Annie?  Really?  You couldn't have asked a little tougher question?

~ We are without a doubt the absolute worst when asked about Hockey.  Tonight's half-time question was t name 5 players that have had the most Hat Tricks in their career.  It took us the entire 5 minutes to come up with the names of 5 hockey players period, let alone the ones that have had the most hat tricks.  Why oh why do the hockey gods hate us?  Just as an aside Kurt Russel or Emilio Estevez do not count as hockey players.

~ Contrary to the opinion of the whole team, there are 4 states of matter, not 3.  I'm fairly certain in 18 years of school, plasma was never brought up - not even once.

~ I'm super good at deciphering Crossword puzzle clues.  I'm super bad at counting the lines out and filling in certain letters to help solve the puzzle.  

~ After feeling so darn cocky after we did so well in the first half, it was decided in the second half, that really we did need the rest of our team.  They help us not to suck so badly...

~ Suriname is in South America not somewhere near Vietnam (contrary to it's similar sounding name...)

~ A theodolite is used by a land surveyor and is also a word that I'm planning to sneak into conversations because it's fun to say.

~ And though I've never seen the movie Seven - an episode of Supernatural in which they quote it is adequate to base the team's guess on.  If only we thought it was adequate at the time, we would have wagered 40 points instead of the safe 0.  Then we wouldn't have been in second to last place (second to only one team who started playing at half time mind you...)

My New Favorite Thing

It usually takes me a while to come around to technological things.  Facebook was around for a good 2-3 years before I jumped on board.  I just hopped on Twitter in the last 2 years or so. And don't even get me started on Pinterest - I have NO idea how I waited so long for that life-changer!  My thoughts are that there isn't a big use for it.  Why does anyone care what I'm doing at all times of the day?  Why can't I just bookmark things instead of pinning them on a board?  These are the ridiculous thoughts that go through my head, and then I'm proven wrong - it happens quite often, as you can see.

So when Facebook Live came about a few months ago, I was stumped.  Why oh why would anyone need videos of people?  And why do those videos have to be live?  They'd have the same punch if they were recorded and then uploaded.  Wouldn't they?  Plus, why would anyone willingly record themselves?  I don't know about you, but on video my voice is all funny and all thoughts leave my head.

Anyway, this is why I hadn't bought into it all.  Until my friends went on the #BestRoadtripEver.  This road trip has taken them all over the country.  And because of this, they've been facebook live-ing their adventures and I do believe these videos are the best thing ever!  We get to hear all about the fun things they've been doing, hear all sorts of fun questions and homework for us and get to see how happy they are exploring.  Every day I anxiously await the next video and having the chance to comment with all of our other friends.  I do believe they're better at this than some Travel Channel hosts.  And it's all thanks to Facebook Live!