What a great end to the season – Nebraska shut out Arizona tonight in the Holiday Bowl. I must say – that was a fun game to watch!
We woke up early today, all things considered. I went back to bed, but Nick stayed up and read for a bit before we had to take B-R to the airport. After the airport, Nick brought me as a guest to the UMD gym and we ran on the indoor track today because we weren’t having much faith that our long run path would not be icy if we ran outside. Even 7 miles on an indoor track that is 10 laps to a mile gets boring real quick, but all in all, we made it through. Got home mid-afternoon, and decided to be a good ‘mom’ to the pup and take her out to play in the snow b/c she & Cashew had a long evening by their lonesomes yesterday. I brought my keys with me with the thought of clearing off my car in the same outing. Which was great, until midway through our walk, I realized that my keys were missing. And Nick and I proceeded to search the path Pinot and I took for 2 full hours plus (until the sun set) searching for them to no avail. *sigh* I’m really upset about how stupid I was. But I am holding out hope that we will find them tomorrow. A lot of unintentional time outside today.
Tonight, despite my comatose mode, we got out and went downtown for the UMD vs Villanova game at the Verizon Center as part of the BB&T series. And I admit, getting out was good as it didn’t allow me to mope all evening. Anyway. UMD lost, but it was a good game. It’s been a UMD sort of day – fun as an alum 
UMD vs Villanova @ Verizon Center
"Swoosh!" - this is my favorite chant
We are cool
I’m still completely feeling like a dumba** for the key fiasco, but I’m glad we got out. I do want to just work from home tomorrow and search for the keys as soon as daylight arises, but I can’t. *sigh*. I feel bad that Nick is now working from home to try to find the keys and counter my lack of judgement in going for a long walk in the snow with them in my pocket.
DecemBear checks under the doormat
Team name is coming in handy tonight on the courts!
Washington Kastles vs St Louis Aces…. Currently up by 1 (but only just began game 2).
(link)
Hooray! Today, Derrek and Louie arrive from Nebraska and Nick and I get to play tour guide for the long weekend! With the forecast of sun and a high of 80 degrees, it is going to be a great day to be outside in the city. Our potential itinerary for today is:
-Dropping Pinot off at Doggie Daycare for an overnight
-Picking Derrek & Louie up from DCA around 9:30
-Heading into the city, and walking around the mall and monuments (Lincoln, WWII, Washington, Vietnam, Korea, Jefferson?), and also walking by the White House
-Lunch at Fogo de Chao – all the brazilian bbq’d meat you can handle!
-Heading back to the mall to check out some museums – the Air & Space museum (possibly with the Black Holes show at the planetarium), the Natural History museum (dinosaurs & hope diamond), and the American History museum (old glory, kermit, and so much more).
-Heading down to Nationals Park to catch the 7:05PM baseball game, pitting the Washington Nationals against the Pittsburg Penguins – hoping that Derrek will catch either a home run or a foul ball! (I’d settle for a t-shirt even ) Oh, and ballpark hot dogs for dinner, of course.
After the first full day in the DC, we’ll have to head back to DCA to pick up the car and make the trip back to Gburg. I’m a bit worried it’s a lot on our plate for the first day out, especially with the early flight those two are taking our way, but Nick tells me that his dad is up that early anyway, and that Derrek will have more energy than we know what to do with, so all in all, bring it on!
I have a feeling that I’m not going to get a chance to go back and edit these to what we actually did/pictures/reviews/ect until after the entire weekend over – but I’ll try to tweet what we’re up to over the course of the weekend, and the photos will come later!
Aaaah, bikes!
After a night of thinking it over, and my wonderful husbands abilities to comparison shop and find reviews online, we ended up with the Trek 7.2FX series. It looks like it will meet all of our biking needs – from the starting up now (I haven’t ridden in about 5 years; Nick said this may be his first ‘meant only for him’ bike ever), to all of the bike path/canal trails riding this summer, to possibly a triathalon next year?! Yep, we both ended up with this exact, pretty blue bike – it was the only one in the store left in Nick’s size, and the ‘women’ bikes, I’m told, were meant for women with longer legs and short torsos – which I don’t have.
Happy National Bike Month to us with the new sets of wheels and all the accessories! (Yes mom, we both got good helmets!)
After the bike store, we used our new trunk rack to drive the bikes down to the Cresent Trail for a brief 6 mile ride between the drops of rain. This is the most comfortable bike I’ve had in awhile – the seat didn’t hurt at all (a first for me!) So all in all, very excited to do the biking thing this spring/summer/fall.
The rest of Saturday was wonderful, between QT with my #1 and a long walk with the pup – I wish weekends were much much longer!
With the cool new phone, I’m trying out the twitter thing for short updates during the week, but I’ll still try to update the actual blog fairly often too!
Last week was really busy for me – I had a subcontractor meeting late on Monday, followed by a big customer meeting on Thursday afternoon. Between prepping for both meetings, I was at work late lots last week – but the thought that got me through was that I had enough extra hours to take Friday off!
We kicked off our spring bocce season last Wednesday night with a 16-3 victory, and ‘brick red’ tshirts (as opposed to the lovely pale pink we got last summer). Pinot loved having CJ to hang out with during the game and during post-bocce dinner at Bullfeathers on the Hill. I think we’re all looking forward to this season!
Thursday was wonderful, well, post customer presentation (that went well too, which added to the bliss) – just knowing that I had Friday off, and that the weather was going to be great all weekend.
Friday, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast at home with Nick, then Nick went in to school and Pinot and I set off to run the Capitol Cresent Trail. We got done a bit early and hit up lululemon for some new running gear – I’m all about their manifesto. As a side note, I LOVE the Bethesda shops that allow you to bring your dog in shopping with you and I heart my new running outfit. Then we set off to meet Melanie for lunch at Brown Bag (well, technically in the park, but the food was from Brown Bag).
Headed home, and then Nick and I set off to celebrate our 1000 days of marriage (woohoo!) at the Italian Pines in Gaithersburg, which had really great Italian food with a home-cooked sort of feel.
Saturday mornining, we were up and at em early, heading out to do the 8 mile MS walk. The bus ride to the walk was rather humorous because the driver had no idea where he was going, and Pinot was in the bus seat with us, but the walk was a really good time. It ended at Glen Echo with free subs from Subway.
Saturday night we headed out to celebrate Melanie’s 27th birthday at CoCoSala - all the food was all wonderful, and I loved the ambiance! (Nick and I almost thought that the food was better than the dessert….) After dinner, the 4 of us headed over to the Kennedy Center to see Shear Madness, a whodunnit comedy that was rather entertaining. Ended the night needing a jump, all in all, a great evening!
Today, Nick and I gave Pinot the day off (poor dog, 18 miles the past three days), but we headed out for an early-ish morning run in Bethesda followed by brunch and a leisurely day at home. Nick is kicking off Dynist week this week at school this evening with his group and all the Wisconsin folks that came into town.
On a seperate random note, we’re thinking about getting bikes! Yay!
I didn’t really take many pictures this weekend (shocking, I know) – but Melanie took quite a few with her new birthday camera on Saturday night – I’ll link/upload a few of those when I get them!
…and what better way to enjoy it than going out for a long run. my longest in a long time, pinots’ longest that i’ve done with her at least, we clocked in at about 5.2 miles yesterday evening. pinot set the pace, which was averaged out with her sniff breaks and everything. wow – it was nice to have her motivating me towards the end (and completely different than when we first set out when all she wanted to do was smell and i felt like i was dragging her along!)
i wish the nice weather would keep up! boooo to coldness again this weekend.
Some favorites from 2008 – a bit late, but fun nonetheless. Here’s to a wonderful 2009!
(Updated – I don’t recommend rock you slideshows – this one wasn’t working properly, so it has been deleted and replaced with a picasa slideshow in another post!)
