International Travel - Part 1

Now that I have (finally!) completed my series on our End of Summer Adventures, I want to post a few entries on two international trips that I had the opportunity to enjoy in 2010.  

First up - Taiwan!

End of Summer Adventures - Part 4

Continuing with my series on our End of Summer Adventures (yes, I know it's December), I wanted to take you with us on our day trip to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

We could not have asked for a more perfect summer day.  Ok, maybe we could have asked for some slightly cooler temperatures, but by the end of our trip, we found a way to cope with the scorching humidity.  More on that later.

Our cat is weird.

Our cat is weird.  The evidence is as follows:

Fact 1: She likes to hide behind doors and wait for you to stick a finger or toy in the crack so she can attack it. 

Fact 2: When she feels that you are devoting too much time to the computer (never mind the fact that you have a 20pg paper due in a week, even though you've been procrastinating instead), she will lay on top of the keyboard until she has your full and undivided attention.  This is occasionally connected to the status of her food dish.

Fact 3: Her favorite napping place is on the back of the couch.  She doesn't mind if she slides down behind the couch cushions.

Fact 4: In addition to hiding in paper grocery bags, she likes climbing into the laundry hamper.  She specifically has an affinity for climbing into the bag that holds the dirty socks.  

Still, she is awfully cute.  I think we'll keep her.

End of Summer Adventures - Part 3

**Editor's Note:  Yes, I know that Thanksgiving is exactly one week away, which means that summer is long since gone.  However, sometimes life gets in the way (read: kids and I are back at our respective schools), which means that blog updates get pushed back.  I promise I'll get everything updated eventually!

Continuing with our theme of visiting National Parks before the end of summer vacation, our next adventure took us to the Maryland side of Great Falls to the C&O Canal.  

For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to visit, "C&O" stands for the "Chesapeake and Ohio" Canal.  Take a few minutes to get your history on and learn something. 

Annie's First Day

Well, we all thought that little Annie needed a night at the vet so that she could have a little surgery done.  Turns out she didn't need it at all, so we got to pick her up a day early!

We thought that she would need some time to get acclimated to each room in the house; we figured on one room per day.

Annie knocked that expectation out to approximately 3 minutes per room.

This adorable new member of the family explored the house... 

...jumped all over the piano... 

...and then settled down to allow herself to be fawned over by the kids.

This is one seriously happy, lovey kitty. :)

New addition to the family

Meet Annie!

We've adopted her from the local shelter, but we can't bring her home yet.  Our beautiful new 2-yr-old orange tabby needs to get spayed first, so we'll have to wait four long days before we can pick her up from the vet.  We're really excited, especially since she is just about the sweetest kitty in the whole world!

Welcome to the family, Annie!

Way behind in my updates...

I know, I know - I've been horribly remiss in posting updates.  In between this and this, there's been a lot of this:

...and this...

Updated: School Boundary Study

Our local school district has decided to redraw the local elementary school boundaries.  We knew this was being discussed, but we were not informed that our childrens' school would be affected until the district released map pdfs yesterday.  Needless to say, we were quite shocked to learn that two of the three proposed changes include an option to move our neighborhood to a different school.  We oppose this change for numerous reasons, many of which are captured in another blog that my husband and I update infrequently.  However, we feel strongly enough about this issue that a very detailed post went up today in anticipation of my husband's attendance at a neighborhood meeting hosted by the district on Monday.  We can only hope that the district board sees reason... 

UPDATE:  My husband attended the "meeting" and provided a report of the proceedings along with the literature handed out at the meeting.  To say I am appalled at what transpired is a gross understatement.  You can read my post here if you're interested. 

An Experiment in Contest Baking

Ok, so it wasn't exactly the Gold Medal Flour Baking Contest, but I did sign up to enter a baking contest put together for the annual office picnic.  With more than 100 people in the division, I shouldn't have been shocked that there were 17 entries, but still - dang!  17 entries!  

End of Summer Adventures - Part 2

Our next adventure took us to Manassas Battlefield, where I was determined to begin fostering an interest in all things military history in my children.  Some of my favorite memories as a child were of visiting Fort Macon and Fort Fisher with my grandfather.  (I'm pretty sure that those trips and our long talks about history and the causes of war were some of the major reasons why I joined the military.)  With those memories in mind, I wrangled the kids into the car and we headed off to Manassas.

Henry Hill, Manassas Battlefield - 55mm, f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 200

The weather wasn't terribly fabulous that day, as we had the remnants of a tropical storm moving through.  The up-side was the improved lighting conditions that helped me avoid overexposed images (which had been a problem the day before in Great Falls).  So while the kids were having fun running all over the expansive open fields...