Washington National Game

I'm on a mission to see every sporting venue by the time I die. The main venues I am trying to accomplish are NFL and MLB. Maggie and I decided to goto Washington D.C. for a weekend and it just so happened that the Washington Nationals were playing at home. This Washington National game is number 3 for me in MLB. The game was the Nationals vs the Mets. The Mets won 8 to 5. Something funny happened as we left the metro walking to the ballpark. Of course there are always scalpers at these kind of games, either wanting or trying to sell tickets. As soon as we came out of the metro they were yelling the usual, but then a police car came up the road and they did an immediate turn around and tried to discretely sell tickets by covering there mouths. It was kind of funny because it was such a quick change from them that you don't see very often. Our seats were awesome! They were 3 rows back from the field behide the firstbase. I caught a foul ball from Danny Espinosa the National's second baseman. I was somehow able to catch it with someone in front and behind me going for it as well. We also got to see the famous Presidential Run. The National's mascots are Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson. In each game, they run around the field to see who wins. This time it was Jefferson by a slight margin. See the picture below.

Penne missing Brian

Here is a video that Maggie took when I came home after three months being away from Penne. She was so excited to see me, she didn't even let me open the door. Penne is a little like this when we leave for a couple hours, but it's only for a couple of seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaOxvZYgtbI

Brian's 24th Birthday

Brian and I were both able to come home to London over 4th of July weekend which was great. Before this I had decided to surprise Brian during the holiday weekend by celebrating his 24th birthday (he is so old). Some close friends, Staci Sparkman and Vickie Jackson have been making amazing cakes and I asked them to make one for Brian. I gave them numerous ideas and they decided to go with his favorite building "The Gherkin" in London, England. He calls it "his building", so I was very excited when they wanted to try this big endeavor. The cake turned out to be amazing and it tasted so good! Thanks again guys for doing this, it meant a lot. Again, Happy Birthday Brian!

Outer Banks

My mom decided to come down and visit me for a week after her work was finished. We decided to go to the beach and North Carolina is known for the Outer Banks. So that is where we went. We stayed in Kill Devil Hills and our hotel was within walking distance to the beach. It was perfect weather, warm water and beautiful beaches. We brought Penne along and to our knowledge this was the first time she has been to the beach. She didn't exactly love it and refused multiple times to go near the water. This doesn't surprise me considering the way she runs away when I try to give her a bath. On the second day, we went down the coast to Cape Hatteras. Mom and I both climbed all 267 steps to the top. It was rough climbing up but the views were well worth it. On the drive back up we also saw Bode Lighthouse. Overall, it was a great trip! Thanks Mom for going with us.

Races

My bucket list entails completing a triathlon and I somehow convinced Brian to sign up with me. So we are completing the Greensboro Christmas in July Triathlon on July 10th. In preparation for that we decided to complete a duathlon. We signed up for the University City Duathlon (5k run-19k bike-3k run) and it was last Saturday. Brian and I both finished second in our age group with Brian finishing in 1 hour 32 minutes and I finished in 1 hour 49 minutes. We were both really happy with our results and how the race went. We decided that it was something that we wanted to continue doing so we invested in some performance race bikes (thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us borrow their bikes for the duathlon). Brian was so happy with his bike that he wanted to sleep with it and woke up the next morning ecstatic that it wasn't a dream. Below are the pictures from the race and our new bikes.

Sports Games Galore!

So I know that we have been MIA but it has been quite busy of late. Brian got into graduate school at Ball State University in Muncie, IN and starts classes on May 16th. This weekend we are moving him up there and it is exciting for him but also sad that we will be living 8.5 hours away for a year. But we will make it through and it will only benefit us in the long run. Penne will be staying with me in Greensboro and we are going to try and see each other as often as possible with school schedules.

I just finished my first year of graduate school today and am very happy about that. I will be working with my Bariatric program this summer and enjoying the amount of free time that I will have by reading a ton of books and watching tv. I think the local library and I will be best friends.

Penne is doing well. However, within the last couple of months she has begun to bald on the sides of her body. The vet has yet to figure out what it is, which worries us. First they thought it was hypothyroidism and 2 tests later, it wasn't. So now they want to do a skin biopsy, but it is over $200.00 and we have decided to wait because right now it is only cosmetic. Otherwise, she is still a destroyer of toys and a lover of the dog park.

Also, Brian and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary this past Sunday. It is hard to imagine that we have been together that long.

In our spare time, we like to fulfill Brian's bucket list of attending as many different sports games as possible. So of recent we have been to a Carolina Speed game (arena football), Charlotte Bobcats vs Knicks game (NBA), Greensboro Grasshoppers game and Winston-Salem Dash game (both minor league teams). Above are some pictures from the Speed and Bobcats games.

(the player's lower back pad said Bye Bye, kind of funny)

(that is Carmelo Anthony down there)

Baking and Penne

So below are some pictures of what we have been baking at the apartment. The first picture is of a red velvet cake that had peppermint frosting and peppermint candies in the middle and on top. Brian decorated his first cake and it was very good. Then for today's Super Bowl I made carrot cake cupcakes with green grass frosting and football shaped oreos on top. I think they turned out well and it is what I was expecting in my head.

The video at the bottom is of Penne being calm, which never happens in our house. So with our new camera that we got for Christmas, I took the video while Brian was calming her down. She gets very excited when he comes home, so eventually he tries to get her to stop being crazy. This time he succeeded.

She is funny as always and yesterday after I came home from a conference she was playing with herself by pushing the crate door open and close with her nose. Every time it would bounce back open she would turn her head in amazement and then continue the game. I started laughing at her and she stopped. Wished I had that on camera as well.