Monday, April 28, 2008

Boston - April 08

We went to Boston last week to attend the Suffolk University Awards Ceremony because Gar received the Harald T. Reiche Memorial Award. It is an award given by the Philosophy Department in memory of a former Suffolk Philosophy professor. It was a nice ceremony and and a nice reception afterwards at the Omni Parker House. (The video from the award presentation is in the blog post right before this one.)

Dad, Gary and I flew up to Boston on Tuesday and back home on Wednesday. We walked about 500 miles in those two days! Thank goodness the weather was great.



Gar's Award

Gar received the Harald T. Reiche Memorial Award from the Suffolk Philosophy Dept. at the Recognition Ceremony on Apr. 22. Afterwards, they had a reception next door at the Omni Parker House Hotel. I took video of the award presentation:

Monday, April 21, 2008

Mastergrass playing outside the store before their show inside the store.

Virginia Weekend

Weekend Getaway to Virginia

Gary and I took advantage of our Friday off this weekend and had ourselves a little getaway down to the land of sweet tea and bluegrass! We left rather late on Thursday night, so we stayed overnight in Harrisonburg, VA. It broke up the drive a little.

Friday, I was reading an article in the Roanoke Times about the author, David Baldacci's, second home at Smith Mountain Lake, which is near Roanoke. So, we decided to make a little detour and check out Smith Mountain Lake. It is really pretty there and since the weather was so nice that day, we had lunch outside on a deck situated right over the water at Harrison's at Sunset Cay. The atmosphere was very nice and the food was yummy, too.

We made our way to Buffalo Mountain and before long, it was time to head into Floyd for the Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store. This is an event not to be missed. It takes place every Friday night, but on warm spring and summer nights, there are bands playing outside all over town, not just in the Country Store. The local folks are always there and we now recognize several of them from our many trips to the hoedown, as we have nicknamed the jamboree. But, along with the local regulars, there are always visitors from all over the US and from abroad. This time, there were people from Scotland and Australia in attendance. A really good band named "Mastergrass" was playing that night.

The town of Floyd is in the middle of a revitalization project. They have built a 14-room hotel and converted an abandoned grocery store into several smaller shops. Sidewalks are being refurbished and they have built stone seating areas, a public restroom building, and they are in the planning stages of a town park. It looks nice, although I kind of wish they had left the town as it was. I liked the old Floyd. They did leave the old cemetery untouched. It sits right in the middle of town behind the new hotel. There is even a civil war soldier buried there, who died in 1862. Very interesting walking through that old graveyard.

Over the course of the weekend, Gary and I ate at least three meals at the Poor Farmer's Market, also known to us as "Felicia's." That's what dad calls it because he knows the lady that owns it and her name is - you guessed it - Felicia. Two of those meals we ate there were breakfasts centered around biscuits. Very tasty. Mabry Mill is also one of our go-to restaurants, but it doesn't open for the season until this coming Saturday, so we missed that by a week! Oh well, next trip.

The trip was nice, although a few more days would have been nice. These jobs of ours really cramp our style!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Doug's Birthday Weekend

Some Video From Doug's Birthday Weekend



Dillon is now "crawling," I guess you could call it. He gets from point A to point B, anyway!

Doug's birthday was celebrated with lots of family, food, and a really bad rendition of Happy Birthday. I think we need to get a recording of some talented family singing and we could all just lip sync!!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Pat's Birthday Party 2008

Trip to Okemo, Vermont

In March, we took a little weekend jaunt up to Okemo, Vermont, for a few days of skiing. Lauren was home for spring break, so she rode up to Boston with us and we picked up Gar and headed on to Okemo. We had fun in Vermont, skiing and hanging out. The Huangs came up and spent Saturday night and Harry and Brady did some skiing the next day. We had some good dinners in Ludlow - the town right next to the Okemo ski area.

We spent that Sunday night at Gar's apartment in Beacon Hill and Gar fixed us a nice dinner. We played some Cranium and I forget who won. I just can't seem to recollect that. It has been a while! The next morning, we ate breakfast at the Capitol Hill Coffee Shop and then we headed home, this time taking Gar with us and leaving Lauren in Boston to resume classes.


About Me

Maryland, United States