The First 48

Well, I didn't really know what to write about and I didn't want to leave you hanging for an extended period of time... so I sat here for a moment and considered a number of things.

1. Posting phone pics of sleeping husband and dog. I think they look hilarious but I doubt anybody else would.
2. Taking a pic/explaining random items from the huge pile of junk I cleaned out from my car (random searches today, and I didn't want to have to explain the box of leftover "goodies" from my bachelorette party...).
3. Finding a Headling of the Day.  No such luck.

Clearly I am reaching here.  So I'll just tell you about my new favorite TV show real quick, since that's what I'm watching.  It's on A&E and it's called "The First 48".  It's a reality/documentary show that follows homicide detectives through the process of solving murders.  The premise is that detectives have the best chance of solving a homicide if they get a lead in the first 48 hours.  I realize this sounds kind of morbid but for some reason it kind of fascinates me.

I find it very interesting to watch people in general.  It's even more interesting to watch the interactions between the detectives and the families of the victims, and between the detectives and the suspects.  It's so crazy the way they can manipulate the situation and make the person feel comfortable enough to confess.  I guess I should also say that there is minimal blood/gore and this is not really a "scary" tv show.  I mean, I've had moments late at night where my imagination totally gets the best of me and I swear somebody is breaking into my apartment to murder me... but usually I do pretty well.

Not that anybody usually responds, but do you guys have a weird TV show that you like that is kind of uncharacteristic?  I mean, I'm all rainbows and butterflies so I'm sure people would find it weird that I like this kind of show...

Welp that's all I've got for tonight. I don't even have a picture.

Unless something really cool happens, I probably won't post until after I return from my next work trip-which is coming up.  Just a fair warning!

Peace out!

Georgia on my mind...

And I'm back from a small hiatus! I promise to stop this weekly Monday posting thing... I'm not doing it on purpose.  Last week I traveled to the beautiful state of Georgia for work.  And while I know you would love to hear all about my job (har har), I will instead talk about what I thought of southern Georgia.

I flew into Jacksonville, FL on Monday morning (Valentine's Day) with (one of my) bosses. (If you've ever seen "Office Space", you'll get what I mean when I say I have 8 bosses.  I really do.)  The plane landed, I grabbed an iced caramel macchiato, and  I got my rental car while waiting for a coworker to arrive.  I walked up to the counter and I'll spare you the details but it ended with me getting a free upgrade to a 2011 Mustang Convertible.  YES PLEASE!

My sweet ride!

Monday night was pretty chill- the meeting (reason I was there) began really early the next morning, so I got Chick-Fil-A for dinner and watched the Westminster Dog Show... and rooted for the Min Pin obviously. 

Tuesday night after the meeting I went out with some coworkers for dinner in downtown St. Marys, GA.  It is a small, beautiful town overlooking the St. Mary's river.  Before dinner, I was treated to my very first experience at Seagle's Saloon with Cindy Dean the Porno Queen!  She is a legend in this little town.  She's been working this bar for 20+ years, and has the foulest mouth you've ever heard on a southern belle... I loved her.  I cannot even begin to repeat the things she said to us, but it was fantastically entertaining.  Here's a picture of Seagles Saloon.  See the red 'Vette? That's Cindy's!

After a quick happy hour at Cindy's, we ate dinner at the Silver Star Steakhouse, where I got a HUGE Chicken Neptune dish that carried me over for lunch AND dinner the next day. Srsly.

Wednesday was another long meeting day, and I attended a social on base with the rest of my coworkers.  I also didn't do much this night- I was pretty exhausted from such a long week.

Thursday the weather was finally beautiful enough to ride with the top down!  I purposely drove across base to the McDonalds for lunch just so I could put the top down.  It was great until I parked and I realized that southern Georgia also means SWAMP which means BUGS.  Holy. Bugs.  I think I've changed my mind about living there, that's all I gotta say.

After the meeting was over, I headed back into St. Marys (with the top down, obvi), parked, and took a nice walk around town.  It is just a beautiful little town.  Here are some of the blackberry photos I took.  I had my camera with me, but it was in the hotel due to restrictions on recording devices in the meeting. 

After a while, I finally worked up the courage to walk into Seagle's Saloon.... BY MYSELF.  This was a huge feat, as the typical Cindy Dean greeting is nothing less than a barrage of cuss words, making a huge scene in the process.  But I was lucky enough to catch her on a slow day.  She treated me to a few beers, we chatted, watched the news,  and she even left me in charge while she ran to the ladies room! Some of the guys met me there and we all headed out to dinner at Lang's Marina Restaurant.  I got a surf and turf deal, ate too much, and headed back to the hotel to rest up from such a long week.

Friday morning I got up, packed up the 'Stang, and dropped her off at JAX.  It was a sad goodbye... Anyway, I got to see the base from the plane, which was really cool.  And I finally made it home around 12:30.  It was a long week, but very successful!  I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend, and the nice weather. Because evidently it's going to snow tonight?!

Stay tuned for more travel adventures coming up shortly!

~SG

Happy Valentine's Day To Me...

Yep... it's pink.

Gonna be sore tomorrow...

After work today I came home, put on some comfy clothes, and tried to take a nap.  Doc decided this was not going to be allowed, and 30 minutes later went on a barking rampage because of the crazy axe murderer neighbor who was parking her car outside. I got up, threw some clothes in the wash, and was trying to figure out what to do when I realized I was wearing an entire workout outfit minus the sneakers/socks.  SO I decided to man up and go for a run since it was close to 50 degrees outside today. 

I am really proud of myself.  Not because I ran 10 miles (cause I didn't) or because my pace was 9 minutes per mile (cause it wasn't), but because I actually went outside and DID something.  Did my lungs burn? Yes. Did my ears hurt? Yes. Did I walk alot? Yeah, I did.  But I went outside and exercised and actually kind of enjoyed it!  I used to run quite a bit, and I love to run themed races and dress up in outfits with my friends.  I love the thrill of crossing the finish line, which makes you forget about all the pain it took to get you there.  I've just gotten out of the loop.

I really hope that this isn't the only time I'll go running this spring.  I know it is supposed to snow again this week (@#&*!) and that I will probably put it off due to the weather (slolam running through sidewalk snow kind of sucks, although it is distracting so you don't notice your lungs imploding as quickly).  But I also hope that I can motivate myself to get out there and do something-even if it's just walking- because now that I'm not dancing/coaching/working two jobs, I have alot of free time to sit on my butt and do nothing.  So far that's gotten me nowhere except to the realization that all my clothes are fitting pretty tight lately...

So. Feel free to leave some motivation, or info about your favorite 5k.  I'm going to go and pat myself on the back now.

And since I don't have any photos to share in this post (nice try if you think I'm gonna post a sweaty, smelly pic) I'll leave you with a picture of the artwork we had made with my wedding boquet and our wedding invitation.  The flowers were preserved after the wedding, thanks to bridesmaid Kendayl who took care of dropping them off.  The company is All Seasons Floral Preservation and they are just wonderful.  Nothing but good things to say!  It is a blackberry pic so sorry about the quality... Enjoy!

~SG

Snakes On a Train?

Headline of the day:

"Missing Snake Found On Train"

I hate it when that happens!

New Mission

Since I can't do anything normal in my life, I'm embarking upon a new mission with Joey and A Love.

We recently realized that we know A LOT of people that work for a particular restaurant chain- the Great American Restaurants (or GAR for short).  It's always fun to go visit a server at work, cause you get to see your friends, give them good tips, and sometimes you get a free dessert!  After our 2nd trip to a GAR in as many weeks, (we're the 3 best friends that anyone could have!) we've decided we are going to go...

 GARound The World!

Sort of like EPCOT ATW, we are going to visit each restaurant, eat dinner, have drinks, and visit friends.  Although we are not going to do this all in one day... as it is rather expensive to eat there and we ARE trying to save money...

List of GARs:

·  ARTIE’S

·  BEST BUNS

·  CARLYLE

·  COASTAL FLATS

·  JACKSON’S

·  MIKE’S AMERICAN

·  OZZIE’S

·  SILVERADO

·  SWEETWATER TAVERN

Why are we doing this?


Why the heck not?!  Delish food, friendship, and beers. And that's what life is all about, people. 

Any suggestions as to where we should go next???

Life Lately

Now that the Trip Report sequence is over, I can get back to blogging about ___?
I figured I'd do a little update since I've been "away" for a while...

In the 2.5 weeks since we’ve returned from Disney:

-Joey caught (and I subsequently caught) a nasty cold.  We were both down for the count for almost a week.  I’m still a little coughy and sniffly.

-Due to said cold, I was at home on the day when everyone in DC had the worst commute of their lives.  Joey was not excluded from this- it took him 5 hours to get home from work last Wednesday.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here.)

-I got bold and…. Cut my hair off!  Ok, not all of it.  But a good 4 inches are gone, and it feels great.  My husband was disappointed because he thought I was “going to look like a whole new person”… but we won’t go into that.



Disregard the no makeup/workout clothes...



-And the best thing that’s happened…. Always needs a story.

The day before we left for Disney, we got some awesome news!  We have been pre-approved for a mortgage loan.  Which means we can officially start looking at houses!  Since we went to Disney, we kind of didn’t really do anything for the first week or so.  But as of this weekend, our search has officially begun.

Currently we are taking a look at what’s out there.  We are going to move further away from DC, most likely south.  Although I have friends wanting us to move west… we’ll see.  We are looking at what fits into our price range, has good schools for our potential children to attend, and ya know, isn’t a POS. 

This Sunday we went out and just looked at a bunch of places.  It is so funny to me the way people decorate their houses.  We saw homes that were clearly occupied by Grandparents, we saw some crazy kid bedrooms with neon green walls, and we saw wallpaper.  A lot of it.  We saw a house with the light switches 4 feet off the ground... and we saw houses that were just plain dirty.  We saw really nice interiors, granite countertops (yes please!) and whirpool bathtubs.

And that’s pretty much all I have to report.  The search has begun, and we are very excited.   I’m excited to have a yard of some sort for Doc to run around in (and also not to have to take him out at 5am every morning).  Joey’s excited about his “Man Cave” (must there always be a Man Cave?).  We’re both excited about how we are going to decorate, what room we are going to buy furniture for first, and everything in between.

Of course we need to find a house first….


~SG

PS: My nails match my sweater today. I'm that girl.

Trip Report: Day 5

Tuesday, January 18th 2010. 0830. WDW, FL.

We all kind of woke up slowly, drank some coffee, and finished packing our stuff. By 1000 or so, we were ready to say goodbye to our little villa in Saratoga. But we'll be back! We grabbed all of our suitcases and carry-ons, and souvenir suitcases (yep..) and went up to the main building to check into our flights/check our baggage (Disney is awesome). Then we took one last boat ride over to Downtown Disney. Of course on this, our last day, the weather was sunny, 78 degrees, and just plain gorgeous. Bang head against wall now. We did NOT want to go home, where an ice storm had just caused a 2 hour delay for the Government and school closings in Fairfax County... We ate lunch at Earl of Sandwich, shopped around The World of Disney, and bought WAY too many souvenirs.

Tired Shoppers

Here's a list of what Joey and I bought, as far as I can remember:

-Light Up Cinderella Castle from the Christmas Store (I was not given a
choice as to whether I wanted this or not.)
-Disney boxers for Joey (it's a tradition!)
-Disney necktie for Joey (it's a pattern so you can only see the Mickeys
if you look closely! So sneaky!)
-Mickey-roni. Yep, Mickey shaped pasta.
-Kitchen towels
-Fluffy Princess Aurora pen. Be jeal, it writes in sparkly pink ink...
-Golf Jacket, Golf Shirt (Joey)
-Present for my BFF Steph who's expecting a little girl in June!
-Various other presents for some pals back home
-Commemorative/decorative Disney Plate for our chotchkey cabinet.

Ummmm... I'm sure there is more but that's all I can remember at the moment. We met up outside the store with A Love and Warner, who each had HUGE bags full of stuff as well. We walked down towards Pleasure Island, and stopped at Paradiso 37 for one last pitcher of beer. We sat outside and basked in the sunlight until it was time to get back on the boat to go catch the Magical Express.  

I'm On a Boat!

The trip back to the airport on Magical Express is SO DEPRESSING. All the characters come on the tv screen and sing really slowly, "Now it's time, to say goodbye...... to all our company. M-I-C, See ya real soon!, K-E-Y, Why, because we like you!, M-O-U-S-E".  SO. SAD.

No! You're going the wrong way!

We got to the airport super early and headed off to our gates to await the flight home to the bitter cold. When we landed at Dulles I could feel the cold air coming into the plane, and I decided it was time to change out of my flip flops.

We had such a great trip, with amazing friends. The best part about coming home from a Disney Vacation is that you get to immediately start planning the next one!!!!! And Disney offers so many more vacations and
destinations other than Orlando...

Where will we go next????? Taking suggestions!

Til next time,

SG

Trip Report: Day 4

Monday, January 17th 2010. 0900? WDW, FL.

We slept in the next morning. When we woke up, Warner was gone. And it was pouring rain. Suddenly, the door opened, and there was Warner, with a huge bag of breakfast platters. "I felt bad, so I bought breakfast. I don't know why I feel bad though..." We filled him in on the night's events ("What happened after China?") and ate our delicious food, while waiting for the rain to let up. I'm talking monsoon rain. And thunder and lightning.

Usually in Florida the rain lets up after downpouring for a few minutes. I guess today it decided to downpour for hours. Finally, we admitted defeat and donned our ponchos to head over to EPCOT. We only had 3 ponchos, and Warner stated that "ponchos are a sign of weakness" and that he would buy one when we got to the park. Big. Mistake.

Poncho Pals

We were all soaked through on the walk to the bus stop... But we trekked on anyway so we could do the rest of EPCOT that isn't the World Showcase.

Rides we rode in EPCOT:
Soarin' (Twice!)
Mission Space (NASA Flight Simulator. Ugghhhh)
The Seas with Nemo and Friends (In this biiiig bluuuue worlllld)
Spaceship Earth
(Test Track was closed due to the rain. Sad.)

A Love being eaten by a Shark!

After a few hours, a lunch break, and feeling my uggs squish every time I took a step, we all decided we needed to go home and change before our dinner reservations that evening. So we went back to Saratoga Springs, put on some warm clothes and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... took deliciously awesome naps.  (Really exciting, I know. But hey, we were on VACATION. We are allowed to relax!)

When we woke up from our naps, we all kind of hung out, looked over the pictures we'd taken so far, and slowly started getting ready for dinner (our last night). Disney Vacations always go TOO QUICKLY!!!  The rain had stopped THANK GOD and so we were able to venture out sans ponchos (but I shoved them into my backpack because I did NOT want to be caught in the rain without one!). We rode the bus back to EPCOT and first headed over to Soarin' to use our fastpasses. I love that ride. I highly recommend riding it more than once, and always ask to be in the front row! Then we walked over to Coral Reef for our dinner

reservations.

The rain finally stopped!

Coral Reef is an awesome restaurant that I've discussed before in this blog, where you sit next to a HUGE fish tank (?) (I don't think "tank" is the right word, since the entire EPCOT ball can fit inside it with room to spare) and eat your dinner while watching various fish, sharks, sea turtles, sting rays, etc. swim around. We enjoyed another delicious dinner, had a bottle of champagne (thanks, A Love!) and some free desserts to finish off the trip.


View from our dinner table






Champagne

We were exhausted, happy, full, and sad that our trip had to come to an end the next day. We decided to just go back to the hotel to start packing our things so we could take advantage of the time we had left in the morning.

EPCOT Ball at Night

Only one more day to go! :(

~SG

Trip Report: Day 3

Sunday, January 16th 2010. 0830. WDW, FL.

Today kind of happened in two parts. Part A was me going to support the Masonettes at Nationals. Part B was the rest of the crew going to Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney. I'll start with Part A and then go back in time :)

Part A:

I woke up early, got ready, donned my "Mason Dance Team" tee shirt, and cabbed it over to Wide World of Sports to meet up with the family, friends, and alumni (we had QUITE the cheering section!) who were there to cheer for Mason. They were competing in the Pom division and the routine looked REALLY good in practice. Their goal was top 3 and they had worked so hard! I love catching up with my Masonettes alumni. We were like a family during college- we spent more time with each other than we did at home, especially over winter break (what's that?). We watched all the teams in our division, cheered REALLY LOUD for Mason, and then we had a few hours to kill. Good thing we got to watch some amazing dances while we were there. We ate a lot of stadium type food, (I passed on the beer....for now) and took some funny pictures. I did some fouettes in the hall, ya know, the usual...

Masonette Alumni showing our serious pom skillz

Hours passed (I won't bore you with the dance details) and suddenly, it was time for awards. I don't get nervous when I compete, I get nervous for awards. It is SO NERVE WRACKING!!! They sit you on the stage and go from last to first, it's awful. There were 10 teams in the final competition. As they went from 10 down to 4, we DIDN'T HEAR OUR NAME, this was HUGE!!! Mason was awarded 3rd place (nationally) in Division 1 Pom. This is humungous for Mason- previous best was 5th (my year! Woop!) and we had never medaled. I am SO PROUD that I was part of the building blocks for this team to get 3rd place in a national competition. The alumni were jumping up and down like we were when Mason won the game vs. UCONN in '06. It was that kind of moment. But enough about me....

2010-2011 Masonettes with their Medals and 3rd Place Trophy!

Part B:
Obviously I wasn't there for this part so I am going to do my best. From what I know, they woke up eventually and headed to Hollywood Studios, where the crowds were horrendous.

The Crew without me at Hollywood Studios

They got a fast pass for Tower of Terror and saw the Muppets 3D movie. (One of my faves!) Their Tower of Terror experience was hilarious. Warner bought the pictures and subsequently left them on a Disney Bus... thank goodness for awesome Lost and Found!

Tower of Terror

I'm glad I didn't have to go on this ride... it is a free fall drop and while it IS a Disney ride, it's still my least favorite due to the anxiety I suffer while waiting in line and up until the very second before we fall. After that, they decided HS was too crowded, and they headed over to Downtown Disney. They were stalling because I had strictly instructed them NOT to go to EPCOT without me. See tonight we were scheduled to go Around the World... and, just in case you don't know, Around the World is a drinking adventure where the participants have a drink (or 2) in each "Country" in EPCOT's World Showcase. There are 13 countries. It's a lot harder than it sounds. Trust me.

Anyway, they went to Downtown Disney, got some lunch, and did some window shopping. By this time, my extremely impatient husband wanted to get the show on the road, so they went to EPCOT (but promised me they wouldn't drink a drop!). They rode Spaceship Earth while they waited, and Peyton and Casey went to Mexico to have a few beers. They missed the memo about not drinking. This was the beginning of the end.

AROUND THE WORLD

I finally arrived at EPCOT with my Masonette and XO pal, Krystle, in tow and we met up with the crew and Krystle's fiancé, Robert, who had met up with the boys in EPCOT. It was FINALLY time to start the festivities. We took a "before" picture of us in our jerseys, and I met a very drunk woman who latched onto my wrist and wouldn't let go. It was terrifying.

Before...

Then we went into Mexico and started the fun with a shot of tequila and a Dos Equis.

Let the games begin!

By the time we arrived in Canada (country #2) it was clear that Pasey (Peyton + Casey) had had quite a few beers. We worried they wouldn't make it! In Canada, we drank our Moosehead and found a hidden Mickey in one of the totem poles.

Joey pointing out the hidden Mickey...

Next stop? The UK! We all drank cider from the Rose and Crown, and I had a good time calling the phone booths and watching confused children answer the phones when they rang. In France we got Grand Marnier slushies- orangely delicious. By Morocco, it was clear that we needed to eat some dinner. Luckily Morocco has the most amazing food EVER. I always get the Shawarma Lamb Platter. It's effing amazing. This was also the time when Peyton and Casey left. I guess they underestimated how difficult it is to drink around the world! Japan was our next stop and here is where we lost the boys. Krystle, A Love and I decided to wait for some of our Masonette friends, so we sat down under a tree and had a long conversation about ???.

Celebrating with Masonettes Alum

Since this post is getting long and boring, I'll finish up with:

Joey and Warner made it all the way around the world, drinking in every country. We (the girls) met up with them in Mexico after sake bombs, turkey legs, bud light, etc. We ended our night in Mexico with some light-up goodies, lots of tequila shots, and some margaritas.

End of the night, back in Mexico!

Joey, Warner and A Love left ahead of me to go home while I hung out with my girls for a bit longer. So I had a nice relaxing walk out of EPCOT at the end of the night with my margarita in one hand and wearing my light up Mickey bopper ears. I must've looked SO cool when I ran into my friend Amanda and her Mom...

When I arrived home to Saratoga, I was greeted by A Love and Joey who were waiting for me outside the room. We decided to let Warner sleep it off..... so we went to the hottub and probably scarred this little kid for life. Except his Dad seemed to think it was funny that 3 drunk people were hanging out in the hottub with his 13 year old kid. Whatever.

The day was over, Mason got 3rd, Joey made it around the world, again, and Warner did not pass out in a bush. I'd say that was a pretty successful Day 3.

~SG