Preparing for the Grand adventure

We've been bloomin' busy today. Stephen was up at the crack of dawn to go to the Rangers Club and watch the football. I had a little longer in bed, but was still up at 8am and doing laundry. We had to pack for our trip and also make up the beds and clean up the house as the day we get back we have visitors arriving. It was all go! On top of that we had a couple come round who have just moved from the UK and were interested in buying some of our electrical goods.



When they'd gone we had to make another trip to Target as Stephen wants to take his heavyweight tripod on vacation with us and it wouldn't fit into the case, so we had to find a large enough holdall. As luck would have it we found this pink and black mizuno bag which was long and slim. It didn't have a price attached to it, so we began the search of the area for the shelf it came from. I didn't fancy standing at the check out for 3 hours with a huge line of irate people forming behind us, whilst they searched the store for the mystery item! As it was Mizuno we tried golf...nope, not there. It was time to find a sales assistant as we could easily spend a fortnight searching the store for it!



The sales assistant was really helpful. It was apparently a baseball bat bag, so he took us to the correct aisle. Stephen was really wanting one that wasn't such a lurid shade of hot pink, so the sales assistant got us a $9 bag down from the shelf. It wasn't pink, but it also wasn't big enough (nor was it mizuno!). The $17 bag was also not quite big enough, so having run out of options he said he'd write down the stock code for the $9 bag for us to take to the check out with our hot pink mizuno one. What a star! I had a quick look on the interweb when I got home. We made a BIG saving!!



We've been struggling to get all the stuff we need into two cases and the hot pink bag. The airlines charge an arm and a leg for checked baggage and we are already going to have to check the large case and the hot pink bag. That's $30. If we check another case then it costs another $25! What a rip off! I had a brilliant idea. Take the small carry-on case and pack both our camera bags and the few odds and ends that we had left over in it. That way we're both only carrying on our one allowed carry-on case each, plus our one allowed personal item.



The reason we're struggling for space in the cases is that we're having to take clothes to cover a pretty wide range of temperatures. Albuquerque is 23C during the day and Grand Canyon is minus 9C overnight. We've pretty much having to take both swimsuits and thermals!! I've just checked the 10-day forecast and the Grand Canyon is expecting snow both days we are there. Aaarrgghhhh!

Jappy Jour at Jaleo

We had a Happy Hour (or rather 4!) at Jaleo, the tapas restaurant just across from the office, on Thursday. We were celebrating making (in fact breaking through) our sales target a whole month ahead of schedule. Man, we are GOOD!

We also had a graduate intern over visiting the office this week, so we had a good go at getting the poor boy plastered! We started him on beer, then a vodka martini, a long island ice tea, a margarita, champagne and a sangria all interspersed with Kamikaze's (shots). Tim manned up, took one for the team and volunteered to be the man to do shots with Ben. Ben managed to hold his liquor well though! He was in work bright and reasonably early the next morning, but did have to have a McDonalds for lunch (the classic hangover cure!) and head back to the hotel for a snooze late afternoon.

Larry, Rob and Rudy enjoying a beer

Me with Larry and Joni

Gracy and Andy


Lining up the champagne

Cheers!
l-r: Tim, Ben, Gracy, Paul, Dawn, me, Stephen

Sparkling Crystal City

We have been playing with my new camera - it does some cool stuff! Stephen took it out and about in Crystal City today, so here are some piccies of the office and the surrounds.

An extreme close up of Stephen!


Me in my messy cubie.
Count them. It was a two Starbucks day today!!

Mecca!

The lobby of our building

The building. We're on the right hand side, 3rd floor down.

The statue outside the building

A couple of the restaurants across the street.
We'll be in Jaleo tomorrow night for a Happy Hour.

New Camera

Have just popped along to Pentagon City Mall with Stephen for lunch and light shopping. As we are heading off to the Southwest on Sunday to visit all these fantastic places I felt compelled to give him a run for his money in the photography stakes. This meant buying a new camera for me as I simply couldn't have him snapping away with his big swanky camera and me getting out the Kodak Instamatic! Our other camera broke when we were in Hawaii and it was going to cost as much to repair as it would to buy a new one.

We just grabbed a slice of pizza after we'd finished shopping. It was a strange thing. I felt more hungry after I'd finished eating it. It must have been the pineapple topping - my body figured it was eating health food!!!

A pretty quiet weekend

We had a weekend which was busy doing "stuff"! We were driving about looking at bits of furniture, kitchen paraphernalia, flooring, blinds and other stuff we're contemplating bringing back with us. We got a little lost driving to the flooring place. Stephen was on the phone and not listening to the moaning satnav lady when she was telling him to stay on the I-95, but the good news was that, as we were correcting our mistake, we found a marvellous 1950's diner in Springfield to have lunch. It was all silver outside, and all booths with jukeboxes on the table on the inside. Very authentic! The food was pretty darn good too.

We went to the weekend office on Saturday night for a light snack and a few drinkies. Imagine my surprise when, out the corner of my eye, I spotted Dave Greenhalgh walk into the bar! I did a swift double take...it wasn't actually Dave but he was a pretty good lookalike!!

We met Andy and Marie on Sunday night for drinks and dinner. We haven't seen them for what feels like ages so it was good to catch up before rushing back to watch the Oscars ceremony. Gotta love Hugh Jackman!

The randomness of the Presidents Day Parade

The Mayoral Smart Car convoy - with his hat on the roof

There were military academies...

...and penguins (!)...

...and historical re-enactment societies...

... the horse and cart from Mt Vernon, followed by the street sweeping convoy!...

...there were clowns...

...and the obligatory pipe band...

... there was George Washington on his horse and his secret service detail... (this was a local renowned chili restaurant)

...there were guys with the American flag...

...and marching bands...

...and my favourite - the Alexandria Optimists Club...

...Stop! Don't shoot!...

A little pizza fun

Our visitors kept themselves amused for the final couple of days. Rita had offered to take them for some retail therapy on Wednesday so they all piled over to the outlet mall at Leesburg and a mall out the same way. Stephen took most of Thursday off and they went to Potomac Mills for yet more therapy in the morning before he headed home to do some work and they headed off for a little exploration of Mount Vernon and Old Town.

Everyone headed off on Friday and Stephen was busy doing the rounds of airports. There were a few flight delays but everyone eventually got off okay. We met up with Morag, Simon and the kids for dinner at Bertucci's pizza. The girls are getting bigger every time we see them. They grow up so fast!! We had an uproarious time, Stephen was doing an excellent job of keeping the girls amused, eating the soggy bits of food being shoved in his mouth and generally being climbed on!

NYC photos

The Empire State Building in its Valentine's Day colour scheme, seen through the trees of Bryant Park. The tents are for New York Fashion Week which was just kicking off.

The Empire State Building bathed in a golden glow


Times Square

Enough to feed a family for a week! A deli breakfast in NYC.

In Central Park

Skating in Central Park

Carriage rides round the park

The Bethesda Fountain

Strawberry Fields

The entrance to the Dakota Building

Rebuilding at Ground Zero

A 9/11 survivor. The statue sat near the twin towers and was a symbol of survival during the days and months afterwards.

This statue sat at the WTC plaza and was damaged badly on 9/11. It was moved to Battery Park shortly afterwards and, with the Eternal Flame, became a memorial.

The Statue of Liberty.
This is courtesy of Douglas as the sun was in the wrong place when we got there and all we saw was a silhouette.

Audrey, June and me at Grand Central Station

Stephen and Douglas in Times Square

The Empire State Building from the Top of the Rock

There was a huge orange moon to light us

Me looking frozen!