Ash and I had a rather eventful weekend and enjoyed the lovely weather.  On Friday night we met Chantal, Chris, and Mom at "Sunflower" in Vienna for dinner.  If you haven't been there, I highly suggest you try it out.  Personally, I advise that you get General Tso's Tofu your first time there.  I forgot what I ordered, but it was delicious.  I think it was the "Sunflower Surprise."  And if you love Mushrooms, they have a fantastic "Mushroom Palate" dish which is unbelivable.  Sometimes I think I'm going to turn into a mushroom, that's how often I eat them.

So since Chris and Chantal were up in Maryland for a wedding the entire weekend, they were kind enough to let me borrow their Wii Fit and a couple of other games.  First off, the Wii fit is hilarious.  I was pretty sore on Saturday after doing a few of the workouts.  It's funny as hell.  What a great concept that system is as a whole.  First you weigh in, then it calculates your BMI and assigns you a category.  I was assigned overweight, which I guess isn't much of a surprise.  Then you workout doing a variety of exercises.  Aerobic, Strength, Yoga, and Athletics are your choices. 

Saturday morning I took a few pics of the dogs and planted my Tomatoes.

 

Fortunately, the keg was empty.  Here's Sam being photogenic and Lo's on the lookout post:

On Sunday we had a wedding and helped out our family friend Karly take some photos before the reception.  I'm not going to post any of those though because we took like 300 photos and still need to go through them all.  The light was awesome, and here's an awesome one with my Ash at Green Springs Garden and then the both of us at the reception.

And finally, before the wedding I began what I'm calling "Creek Cleanup."  Since the dogs and I are down there every day that the weather permits, I decided it was time to start picking up trash.  What really made me notice the amount of it down there was when we had 6 inches of rain a couple of weeks ago.  The amount of glass(broken shards) it pushed up to the path was unbelievable, and obviously we can't have Sam & Lola splitting open their paws on that stuff.  Anyway, I collected a black bag full of glass, plastic, and.......well, trash.  All in all, there were 39 bottles and cans, a flower pot, the blade of a plastic hockey stick, and all sorts of other junk.  They've been placed in recycling. 

The coolest find was this Lipton can!  I have no clue how old it was, but it was one of the peel back tops. 

Posted by Pear at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (976) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Ash & I's One year anniversary!  It's absolutely crazy that it's been an entire year since getting married in Duck, NC.  So this past weekend, as a little celebration, I put together a sneaky outing.  She had no idea where we were going, but we started off in Middleburg, which she figured out quickly because it's a straight shot on Route 50 West.  Here's a bunch of photos:

At lunch in Middleburg, I think the place was called "Horse Tavern" or something like that.

After Middleburg we set out upon the second leg of our journey.  Ash thought we were staying around Middleburg, so when she inquired a couple of times as to where we were, I said the GPS stuck me on the wrong road and we were winding around a mountain back towards the Loudon County area.  The weather was perfect.

After about 45 minutes, we arrived to Charles Town Parkway (or something like that).  Once we crossed the West Virginia border she knew where we were going.  But I must admit, I was impressed I was able to keep it a secret for so long.  Ash was a great sport though and didn't pester me too much!

What a fun time we had.  We didn't lose too much money on the slots or horses, and actually we were ahead for most of the night. 

The next morning, after having a ridiculously delicious homemade breakfast, we got on our way and stopped in Harpers Ferry.  The weather turned south, but that area was pretty cool.

We were completely wiped out the next day, but it was well worth it!  Thanks to everyone for being with us last year on this day.  1 year down!

Love Mash

Posted by Pear at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1386) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok!  Found some more photos of the Tomatoes!  As you can see they're mucho bigger than the photos I posted before! 

You love the dryer background, admit it: 

This is a photo I took of the moon

Pansies out back. 

Random pic of the creek: 

And another! 

Enjoy your weekend! 

Posted by Pear at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1250) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, so Ash & I had managed to lose not one, but both of our digital camera chargers.  We have the ELPH for portability and the Digital SLR for special occasions.  About two years ago we lost the Digital SLR charger.  $40 later we had a new one.  Yes, $40.  You could build the thing for $10, probably cheaper.  As recently as this morning, both chargers were still missing.  Anyway, to the point. 

The charger for the ELPH was found this morning hiding inside a duffel bag!  The last sighting for charger #CB-2LB G was in the living area and there were rumors it was in a backpack.  I had checked both but no luck.  But upon peeking underneath a moutain of clothes I spotted the duffel bag.  Unzipped it and wallah!  The charger tried to get away again but tripped on - get this - an extension cord.

I got to work and charged it up and thought I had some new photos of my Tomatoes and all sorts of other things, but no such luck.  These are all I could find. 

 

I just transplanted a couple of them and they are much bigger than what you see here. 

 

The plants are reaching 12" and look great.  I plan on dumping them in the garden on the 1st of June, weather permitting.  Anyway, my excitement has been contained because the photos on the ELPH are pretty boring.  But, since we haven't been posting for the past week, here's a couple of other ones I pulled from the dogs at the creek and my beard shaving! 

 

And as crazy as this sounds folks, my head did hurt the next morning.

It is Ash and I's anniversary this weekend.  How crazy is that?  We've been married one year on Monday!  We'll post pictures from the weekend.  And now that I'm in charge of the chargers, we're 75% guaranteed to be posting in no time!

Posted by Pear at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1872) | TrackBacks (0)

Ashley, BC, Cindy, Alexe, Lindsay, and I traveled down to Radford this past weekend for Brooke's graduation from RU.  I've been down that way before, but never to Radford itself and it was a beautiful town.  Ash graduated from Radford, which most of you know, so she was able to escort me around and show me some of the choice places she used to frequent as recently as 6 years ago.  Very neat!  Enjoy!

Photos before graduation(who's that silly tart in khaki pants?), at the Cooke building, a box with diplomas, and Brooke walking in and walking out!  Congratulations Brooke!

   

  

After the graduation, Brooke's customized message, and Ash showing me around her dorm. 

   

Back at Brooke's apartment, Ashley and Brooke, chasing a sunset, the fountain from Ash's post prior to this one, party, etc. 

 

And on the way back we decided to hop off onto Route 11.  I saw a sign for the Natural Bridge so we decided to stop off and see it: 

  

  

As you can tell, that's not the Natural Bridge.  It's a mountain.  We ended up at the Visitors center, but the GPS told me to take a right, so I listened.  We ended up on a back road winding through the mountains - wide enough for 1 car - and headed towards the "Natural Bridge Christians Fellowship" or something.  Haha.  While usually I'd be quick to blame the GPS, I typed in "Natural" to the thing and just hit go instead of looking at the destination.  I mean, who the hell would have thought there'd be a fellowship tucked away in this Valley that had anything to do with the Natural Bridge?  Crazy.  Anyway, with no way to turn around, we rode it out for about 40 minutes.  There was definitely some scenery though, which was nice.

Posted by Pear at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1619) | TrackBacks (0)

Its been a long time, but at last I am back to good old Radford. My old stomping grounds from 1998-2002. Not quite sure where the time has gone since graduation, but I'm sure I won't have a problem diving back in to it all. My sister Brooke, will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Parks Recreation and Tourism. Gooo Brookie!!

Here are some pics from back in the day: 

The famous Radford Fountain, people have been known to take a dip once or twice!

The roomies at good old 1114 Clement.

Posted by Ash at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3799) | TrackBacks (0)