Saturday, July 25, 2009

Amanda's Birthday


This is a shameless post to highlight a cake that I made for my friend Amanda's birthday.  I made it from a tweaked strawberry box cake.  The frosting was homemade, as were the chocolate covered strawberries and decorations.  It wasn't perfect, but it tasted great and everybody loved it!


After we had dinner and recovered from our sugar comas we went out dancing.  It was a great time.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Dad's 4th of July Visit

Last weekend Dad came in town for the holiday.  I'm so proud of myself because we did so much while he was here.  We saw two movies, went to a Nationals game, and toured historic landmarks.  

The highlight for me by far was visiting Mt. Vernon on Saturday.  We toured Washington's home then visited the Grist Mill (a legit, working mill from back in the day), which was such a treat.  


Dad would probably say his highlight was watching NASCAR on Saturday night in lieu of fireworks.  The Coke Zero 400 at Daytona was an awesome race, definitely a photo finish.  Jeff Gordon, my favorite, leads NASCAR drivers with most wins in restrictor plate races, but he didn't do too well that night (28th place in that race, though 2nd overall in points for the year).  At least he didn't DNF.  Tony Stewart won the race when Kyle Busch lost control in literally the last few seconds before they passed the checkers.  It was a race marked by several intense crashes and lots of jockeying by the drivers.  I really wished I had DVR that night.


It was awesome having Dad here and I missed him the instant I dropped him off at the airport.  I can't wait to see my family again at Thanksgiving!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Half Way There

Six months have gone by in 2009.  It's hard to believe it's already July.  My Dad is here visiting for the holiday and while I have a few moments here before we get started on our DC adventures I thought I'd do a little update on how my new year's resolutions are going.

Here they are:

1. Learn conversational Spanish: Does anyone have Rosetta Stone Spanish?? I'm looking for this on Craig's List or Ebay but I haven't gotten it yet because it's so expensive.
2. Take belly dancing lessons: I started taking classes a month ago and I LOVE it! I'll probably take another class after this one ends.
3. See a volcano when I'm in Hawaii in February: Well, I drove by one but I didn't go to the rim.
4. Run the Cherry Blossom 10 mile in 90 minutes: I ran it in 96 minutes - 2 minutes better than last year.  I'm going to try to run the Army ten mile in 90 minutes.
5. Train for the marine corps marathon and try to run it in October (or at least the half): The training is so hard.  I ran 13.1 miles a few weeks ago but I'm not sure if I'll make it to the race.  I've also gained 10 lbs since I started training - which I tell myself is muscle but I know I've been indulging my increased appetite a bit too much.  Stay tuned ...
6. Visit another country: Not yet
7. Continue my guitar lessons and learn a new song on the piano: I've come a long way on guitar; still working on piano
8. Visit Annalise in the summer so she can show me Moab: I didn't get to go because I had a family reunion in Texas the weekend that I scheduled my trip to Utah. I'm hoping to make it out there this fall.
9. Keep following where the Lord leads me spiritually, emotionally, relationally, geographically ... Always


That's the six month update.  Hopefully I can get good enough at belly dancing to record a little video and put it up here.  Don't look for that any time soon, though, my movements still resemble the Elaine dance too much to justify an audience.

Look for a blog about Dad's visit to DC some time next week.