Category Archives: weekend

Monticello

Posted by Leaf on September 6, 2011 None comments
We went to visit Monticello this past weekend.  A first for all of us.  I’ve heard all the wonderful things about Monticello for years and have always wanted to see it.  And overall, it was pretty cool.  I enjoyed hearing about the history of it, that it is 11,000 sq ft (talk about a McMansion) and that he was an architect and nerd, amongst other things.

Five Cent View - 11k Sq Ft
It doesn’t take very long to tour the grounds, just a cemetary, cellar and kitchen, and vegetable garden on the side.  They offer tours of the main house.  $22 gets you just the downstairs view.  Our tourguide was a crotchety old lady who spoke too softly and kicked kids out if they fussed.  I asked her to speak up and she told me to stand closer to her.  After the tour, we went to visit the cellar and kitchen.  It was a pretty large kitchen, which made sense because they said dinner included about 35 or so dishes. 
My dream kitchen - 7 burners and a spit
I’d imagine you’d need a pretty large staff to churn out such a lavish meal every evening.

After our visit, we drove through the University of Virginia.  None of us felt like getting out for a walk but we drove by the rotunda!

The County Fair!

Posted by Leaf on August 14, 2011 4 comments

The last time I went to the county fair was when I was 9 or 10 years old. I didn’t go see any animals, just rode the rides. This time we didn’t go on any rides, just went to see the animals.

Draft Horse demonstration
At the draft horse demonstration, they were pulling 5,000 pounds of weight. You could see the horses so eager to start pulling before they were even hitched up sometimes.

Pork
The piggies had very cute hineys.

I'm too sexy for my cage.
The bunnies that were disqualified for the pedigree judging were available for sale. It was tempting to get one. Look at how cute he is!

Cow Milking - Before
Another demonstration: Cow milking. You could see the udder slowly shrink as the pump worked.

Fried Oreos
And of course, it’s not the fair if you didn’t get something fried with the whole deal. These are deep fried Oreo cookies. Dipped in funnel cake batter and fried until they floated. The cookies were soft from the grease they soaked up. A pleasure.

Folklife Festival

Posted by Leaf on July 4, 2011 None comments

Every Fourth of July weekend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival comes around displaying cultures from around the world as well as showing off some government services. This year’s themes were Colombia, Peace Corps, and Rhythm and Blues.

My favorite part was watching the craftsmaking out of Colombia and some of the Peace Corps displays. It was super hot outside though so we didn’t hang around too long.
These are some of the sights we caught:
Arepas making
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How African women traditionally make shea butter
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Carpet weaving
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Touristing

Posted by Leaf on June 30, 2011 None comments

Last weekend, we went on a Ducks tour. Ducks are these land-water vehicles built by the Army for use during WWII. And as our tourguide, Steve, pointed out, they’re still operational because they were built by women. There was a lot of good information and we went by some cool places like Gravelly Park where we could see planes taking off and landing. Steve also let the kids take turns steering the boat when we were out in open water. The Duck doesn’t go fast. We would’ve gone faster paddling with oars. Everyone enjoyed the ride and I got to see many places around DC that I’ve never seen.

After the tour, we went to the U.S. Botanic Gardens. It brings back fond memories for me. I love that place. And each time I go, it’s new and different, inside and out.
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Assateague Island

Posted by Leaf on June 1, 2011 None comments

Assateague Island is a quick 30 minute drive from Ocean City. It’s a national park with wild horses (or ponies). They are genetically horses but they’re the size of ponies because they’ve adapted to the harsher environment of the island. There are about 120 horses on the island currently and the theory is, they got there because the locals released them on the island to graze so they wouldn’t be taxed for owning livestock. And they eventually went feral. These horses are beautiful.
Assateague Island
And even though they say they’re wild, I think they’re so used to people that they aren’t afraid of going near people. In fact, we saw a group hanging out all around the campers. They probably get treats from the people even though they’re not supposed to.

Assateague Island
The beach on Assateague is a lot more secluded than at Ocean City. I think the water was still too cold though. Not many people went in.

Assateague Island - Marsh Trail
There are also many mosquitoes on the island. We took a quick walk around the marsh areas to look for horses and got bitten a few times. We found a horse though!

Taste of Arlington

Posted by Leaf on May 23, 2011 None comments

It was very crowded and the food was mediocre. Not sure I’d do it again.
Taste of Arlington
This may have been the best sight of the day for us. Jaleo’s giganto paella.

I felt like we spent most of the time wading through crowds to find the end of the line for whatever vendor was good. The other vendors that weren’t busy had no lines for a reason. Bayou Bakery for example, I mean shaved ice? Seriously? Thumbs down. I’ve been looking forward to trying their food but this “taste” doesn’t exactly leave us banging down the doors to try them any time soon.

On the plus side, the weather was perfect. Not overly hot or sunny. In fact there were a few raindrops but it didn’t last long enough to affect anybody.

Almost the end of the world

Posted by Leaf on May 21, 2011 None comments

I don’t know who these crazy ass religious rapture folks are but I’ve read their theory in the paper. They thought the world was going to end today at 6AM. Well, it’s 8:30PM and the only thing that almost felt like the end of the world was when my PC crapped out yesterday. I was getting these hard drive errors and I couldn’t access any of my files and it was just a mess. All I had was the Internet. Good enough. I watched a crapload of Weeds on Netflix.

Luckily we have a nerd in this house, and I ain’t talking about Gina. I tried fixing it by restarting the PC a few times and calling Dell who gave me nothing because I was no longer under warranty. A 1.5 year old computer. I was ready to buy a new one. Turns out it was a virus. I felt so dirty. So violated. It’s cleared now though. All clean! We were playing Plants vs. Zombies again this morning.

Whew!

Dogs and Cats

Posted by Leaf on May 16, 2011 None comments

After taking a hiatus from volunteering to walk dogs around for adoption, we went back this weekend.  They usually assign me a small dog and him a large one.  Guess they don’t want the dog to take me for a walk.  This time, he got a 50 lb puppy, Lincoln, and I got a 2 year old pit mix girl named Oreo.  She was as sweet as could be especially when she looked up at you with her puppy dog eyes.  But you could definitely tell her preferences.  I think she liked boys.  I mean, she didn’t mind me so much and was nice enough, but she was kind of aloof towards me.  Then, when a little boy came up to her, she went right to him, leaned into him and then as he was petting her, she rolled over for a full on belly rub.  My jaw dropped, HEY!  You don’t do that for me!  Later, another guy came up to her and she did the same thing.  I decided to swap for Lincoln.  He was a leash puller and had way too much puppydog energy so he ran him a few laps when he first got him and by the time we swapped leashes, Lincoln was pooped and fell asleep.

The next day, we met with a friend for lunch at Bollywood Bistro in Old Town Fairfax.  The food was good but I think we’ll stick to our tried and true, Raaga.  Old Town Fairfax is a neat little place though.  Fun to walk through with lots of restaurants and little shops.  By luck, there was a farmers market in that area that day, so after lunch we headed there and bought a ton of stuff.  Boy have I missed farmers markets!  I got beets, bok choy, a cantaloupe, strawberries, spring onions, and swiss chard.  I would’ve gotten more but I knew our fridge was already bursting at the seams.  I seem to like to buy a lot of food.  It’s the only shopping he can tolerate and I have to get out my shopping urge somehow.  While at the farmers market, we saw a lady walking her cat on a harness.  We approached her to ask her what breed of cat she had and she said it’s a mutt cat she adopted a while back and she doesn’t know why but this cat enjoys walking about outside on a leash.  That cat was browsing the market and greeting some of the vendors.  It was pretty neat to see.

Popular

Posted by Leaf on May 11, 2011 None comments

Sunday while we were walking to the grocery store, we saw a jogger who ran into a buddy of his stopped at a red light in a car. The buddy honked at Jogger and he waved and chatted with him through his car window. By coincidence, the next car over was another friend of Jogger who also honked and waved at him (all during this red light). The light turns green and Jogger continues on and we see him getting honked at by yet another driver who is a 3rd friend of his… he slows to give him a hello. Geez what is he, a local bartender? He knows everybody!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Posted by Leaf on March 19, 2011 1 comments

I organized 5 of us ladies for mani pedis. Hey! It’s my first time (pedi at least) so I needed to turn it into an event unto itself.
Fire Engine Red