Company

Our friend, Linda planned kind of a quick trip into town to play for a few days.  It is getting more difficult for her to walk very much so we were pretty choosy about what to do.  Day one was airport pick up, sit around and chat and have dinner at home. In fact, there was a lot of chatting over a 4 day period!

Pretty cool, huh?

Day two, I had a meeting in the AM so we got kind of a late start and spent a couple of hours at the National Gallery.  A little history about this painting that Linda is looking at: Ginevra de’ Benci (born c. 1458) was an aristocrat from fifteenth-century Florence, admired for her intelligence by Florentine contemporaries.^[1] She is the subject of a portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The oil-on-wood portrait was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., United States, in 1967, for US$5 million paid to the Princely House of Liechtenstein, a record price at the time, from the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. It is the only painting by Leonardo on public view in the Americas.^[2] 

Tom was working in Maryland for the week but came home that night to visit for a few hours.  We had dinner, spent some time at the pool, then he had to go back.  He finished his work up on Thursday and came home in the afternoon.  Linda and I had a leisurely day taking a short walk to our garden and after  dinner we had Tom take us right up to the Lincoln Memorial (which she had never seen up close) and drop us off so we'd have limited walking and could catch the elevator.

It really is breathtaking so it was even more unnerving to still see the paint splattered on the front of it from a vandalism a few nights earlier.  They're still in the process of cleaning it up.

 The Washington Monument is covered in lights right now until they finish the refurbishing and repairs from the 2011 earthquake.  It's completely covered in scaffolding so this makes it look alot better.  It was twilight out and the sky was gorgeous when we headed to see the Jefferson Memorial.

 The next day Tom was off work so we all went to the pool.  Tom and I did our swim work outs then we just relaxed in the sun for a bit before heading to Shirlington Village for a yummy bento box lunch and some window shopping.

 We said our good-byes and Tom took Linda to the airport while I threw together a picnic to take to the Navy Yard Outdoor Friday night concert where we met up with Oz, Jessie and baby Boston!

                  It was reggae music and Boston was dancing all over the place!  So darling!

Saturday morning we got up early to go to a swim clinic with our Tri training group then Tom ran me over to Georgetown University where I attended an orientation for "American Friends".  More on that later.  There were tours going on all over campus for new students and parents.  A lot of excitement in the air!

 We took a pretty drive through VA and into Maryland because I needed some new workout stuff and by the time we had run all our errands it was late afternoon when we arrived home.  Made dinner and crashed in our chairs with a Netflix documentary.  Phew!  Long but fun week!

Washington Kastles

So this stadium is block or so from our apartment, right on the water.  We pass it all the time and see these big hot shot players' faces on the outside but have never known what or who the Kastles were.  So Thursday I got a Groupon for $15 fix to the Eastern Conference Finals.  I knew Martina Hingis was  playing so I thought it would be fun just to see a pro play tennis so I got us tickets for Friday night.

 They were playing the Boston Lobsters....hence the other mascot along with Kastles tennis ball!

 It's not a huge stadium so all the seats are great!  So if you know anything about tennis, you have to throw all those rules out the window as THIS is a team sport and plays under the WTT rules.  There's a men and women's double match, a men and women's single and a mixed double match.  Scoring is completely different and it's not that quiet, dignified match watching atmosphere.  It's loud music between each point, mascots, big announcer voices, lots of cheering, CHEERLEADERS and plenty of good fun.

 So right before the last match they have "Storm the Kastle" where everyone up higher in the stands can move down anyplace they can find an empty seat!  I thought that was awesome!  How many times do you see all those seats empty down near the court or field of professional sports?

 The Kastles easily beat the Lobsters which meant they were playing for the championship on Sunday night.  They announced if you brought your military ID to the ticket office we could get free tix for that match!

 So Sunday after church we were running errands and it started to rain.  We were an hour late getting to the stadium but because of the rain they hadn't even started yet.  They were trying to dry the court when we arrived and it took about another 40 minutes before they were able to get started.

 But then the sun came out and it was beautiful!  So they gave us all this cool swag.  Friday night we each got a bag with the usual pen, notepad, glass mug, towel...trinkets like that.  Then Sunday they gave us all these red towels to wave.

Andy Roddick and Martina Hingis

 Teddy Roosevelt from the Washington Nationals dropped by for a little dancing while DJ Kool did a rap number between matches.  He's MY age!

 So, the thing I liked about this organization is that they're so community minded.  Tons of underprivileged kids there from Kastles camps and they give out tennis rackets to a bunch of those kids as well.  All kids 16 and under can go on the court after all the matches for autographs and ALL the players stay and sign.

 The tennis Sunday night was awesome!  Amazing hitting and the speed and strength were just staggering.  We had even better seats Sunday and to be that close and see the power behind those hits....just jaw dropping.  And the Kastles won!  Where else can you walk right down to the court and where they actually walk around and high five the fans?

Coach

Billie Jean King started this league with her ex-husband so she was there as well.  She's with the owner of the club in this pic.  Looking forward to next season which is very short.  Some of these players are retired but some still compete.  They take time out of their schedules to participate.  There are only 7 home matches in the entire season.  We'll definitely go back!

Pistol Packing

So Tom signed us up for a day long NRA pistol course through one of his co-workers who has a business called Pistol Packing Ladies.  They mostly do courses (and social events) for women, but they also do couple classes.  He really wanted Taylor and I to do it but Taylor had to work.  Frankly, I had no interest in the thing, but sometimes we just do these things for our spouses.  He thought it would be good for me.

 Initial portion of the class was held in the instructor's home.  Snack bar (always important), slides, booklets, and a gun at each of our places.  The other couple brought their own guns.  Apparently they had recently inherited hundreds of guns when her brother died.  There were only four of us so we got a lot of personal attention.  Even though I grew up around guns (dad and brothers are hunters) it's never held much interest for me and I'm not even sure I've ever shot a gun.  I KNOW I had never shot a pistol.


We learned the difference between revolvers and pistols, learned a lot of safety rules, how to load, clean, fix if jammed, concealment laws, etc.  LOTS to learn over a 6 hour period including shooting a laser gun at a target for practice in Erika's home.  Then, the written portion of the test........

Next, off to the range in a huge rainstorm to do the real thing.  A little anxious I have to say because now you get the loud noise, the physical recoil after you pull the trigger and you're surrounded by a bunch of other shooters.

 Did pretty well my first few out of the gate but kind of went downhill when she had me try different guns.

 Yeah, Tom was pretty impressive!

Overall we all did pretty well!  So, it was interesting and an all right way to spend a day but I don't really ever see myself owning a handgun or hanging out at the shooting range.  BUT I did come away with greater respect for those who do.  These people were all very sincere about knowing the laws, doing things the right way, adhering to the safety aspects and taking the whole thing very seriously whether they were interested in it for recreation or for personal safety and self defense.

Wayne, Karen, teacher Erika and me & Tom

Painting the Town.....

 So we headed back to NJ to get Eleanor's house painted.  Kathy and Denny had totally prepped the whole main floor and bought all the supplies so all we had to do was come in and get started.  I brought my painting shirt but only brought this one skirt....no, I wasn't thinking and thought we had left our disposable painting suits at Marie's but apparently not.  After Saturday's 8 1/2 hour paint-a-thon we had to stop at Wal-Mart to find me something to wear.  Got a cute $17 dress and $5 flip flops (mine were covered in paint) but yes, it was probably the only time I've felt self-conscious about how I looked in a Wal-Mart.  This photo doesn't even begin to touch my appearance as my face, arms, and hair were still pretty splattered as I was the chief roller for the day.

 We went back to Marie's, showered and decided to go to Ocean City to the boardwalk.  We've been to Ocean City before (it's where Victor lives) but never to the boardwalk.  Ocean City sells no alcohol and thus has a very family friendly atmosphere and that boardwalk was packed with kids.  Much different than Atlantic City!

 So this is what we had for dinner:  We split a curly fry for our appetizer.....

Cool little ketchup holder!  This was a small!  Some people order "buckets"!

 Shared two pieces of pizza between the three of us......

We ran into Mr. Peanut

 Tons of Mini-golf, arcades, water park, rides.....not to mention the ocean!

Actually says "Greetings from Ocean City, NJ", but I couldn't get the whole mural in the picture

 Frozen custard for dessert......yep, very healthy indeed!

 Long walk down the boardwalk and suddenly our bodies started to feel the work of the day set in.  Back home and to bed for more work the next day.

Tom cleaning all the blinds

 Fortunately, we didn't have to re-do a lot of things from the day before.  We went with white on white.  Only did a few ceilings, covered the old wood trim with white semi-gloss (no, this isn't a design blog....just sharing), one coat on the walls and amazing what a difference it made!

Mike, Mikey, Lacy and Nicole

 Nicole (Kathy and Denny's daughter) and Mike brought their little ones who we've never met over and Mike power washed the out side of the house.  Made a huge difference!

Scrubbed kitchen floor

Ended the day deciding (and testing) which wood floor cleaner/polish to use on the floors.  Kathy and Denny are going to come back and do that.  We also had a guy answer our Craigslist ad and came and took the huge pool table from the basement (with quite a bit of help from our guys).  SOOOOO glad to have that gone.  Took out all the rest of furniture and brought all this stuff from the basement for a FREE curb pick up which we put on Craigslist.  Neighbors have come over for things as well.

Two days of very hard work (and our bodies are feeling it today) but we got a lot of stuff done!  Amazing what 5 people can accomplish when they put their minds to it!  Hoping the improvement will speed the selling of the house along.  We had hoped to do our training swim in the ocean over the weekend but we were about two hours behind our schedule so stopped for sandwiches and hit the road for home.  Came rolling in about 7 PM and collapsed into lounge chairs.  Beat.