nothing to see here…
We went up to Philadelphia on Saturday to visit some of Monica’s family: her uncle and his wife, her cousin and his wife and son, her second cousin, as well as her mom and brother.
It was a good visit as Monica hadn’t seen some of them in years, and they were meeting me for the first time. Of course, I’m so charismatic that they all liked me right way. 
Here are some pictures from the day.
I had to stop by the local grocery store yesterday, so I pull into the parking spot, and I notice I’m a little close to the curb. I back up a little, and I cringe as really bad creaking and banging noises emanate from beneath my car.
I sat there for a few seconds, afraid to get out and look at the result of my bad parking job. Finally, I look.
Apparently, my bumper had caught on the curb and as I backed up, the right side of it pulled away from the car and completely separated from a piece of…something…that is in the front of the right wheel well.
Wonderful.
I couldn’t do anything with it there, so I had to drive home. While driving, as I approach 30 MPH, I notice a whirring sound. When I get home, I see that the piece in the wheel well that had separated, was forced back by the wind and caused the tire to rub against it. It rubbed enough to create a hole.
Wonderful.
I get home and start to really inspect the damage, and I realize that I might be able to fix some of it myself. I was able to reattach the piece back to the bumper and almost push the bumper completely back into place. The part underneath the bumper must be bent because it’s not exactly flush with the rest of the car as it was before, but it’s pretty close (most people won’t be able to tell). So that, coupled with the hole in the piece in the wheel well (which you can’t really notice), means I’m going to have to get it fixed.
At least it doesn’t look too bad and the car functions fine, so I can get it fixed at my convenience. After checking with the local body shop, I realize they always have the consumer in mind with their M-F 8-5 hours of operation.
Is everyone happy now? Everyone complained about all the rain we got and now it’s as if the earth is turning into the sun. Walking outside is akin to just stepping out of the shower. It is so hot and humid outside, it makes me miserable.
Of course, Monica loves it. I maintain it’s from her warped sense of temperature awareness due to growing up on an island. I also think she’d take almost anything after two months of straight rain.
So two months is a bit excessive, but what happened to spring temperatures? It’s gone from rain, rain, rain to sweat, sweat, sweat. Even lil’ Jack is panting like crazy the second he steps outside.
It seems he agrees with me, so that makes me right.
I forget to mention yesterday that we saw The Hulk. Monica totally did not want to see it and was convinced it was going to suck, but I “twisted her arm”.
So maybe she was right.
I mean, it was a decent movie, but I don’t think the acting was very good (what was Nick Nolte doing?), and it was a bit slow in some parts. The action scenes were very good though. I guess I’ll have to think about it some more. Who would have thought the Hulk would have a tough time with a poodle?
One more thing. Our friend, Mike, had surgery last week, and we just wanted to tell him to get well soon. So…uh…get well soon, Mike!
Ok, so the gallery is fixed now. Seems I floogled something during the upgrade process and not everything was copied over correctly. Thanks to the folks over on the discussion forums at the gallery for helping me debug the problem. Oh, and I just made up the word “floogled”.
I added a wedding day countdown over on the ride side…something Monica has been bugging me to do for a long time. At least you’ll have a few weeks watching it count down.
Didn’t do a whole lot this weekend. I went to an alumni board meeting yesterday while Monica relaxed at home. Yesterday evening we went to the Taste of the Town, a food festival where you can sample the cuisine from local restaurants. Luckily the rain held off and we were able to eat alot of good food (although the plate from Trader Joe’s was disgusting).
We relaxed more today. Grilled out some tuna steaks on our still new grill, and they were delicious. Maybe we should have set up our own booth yesterday.
Finally posted those pics for you, Deb. There’s more to come. Enjoy.
Hmmm…apparently, there’s a bug with the new version of the gallery software. You can look at the thumbnails in each album, but you can’t look at the full size pictures when you click on them. I hope to fix that ASAP.
My Dad and stepmom came up to visit this past weekend. Went out to dinner on Friday night (to our new favorite restaurant – love the food, hate the commercials), and had a great time. Spent Saturday driving around town showing them our wedding sites and even got the chance to give him his father’s day card and gift in person this year.
In between dodging killer thunderstorms and two trips to Fort Belvoir, they bought us a brand new grill for a wedding present. It’s great! The rain held off long enough yesterday for us to try it out, so we cooked some steaks and had ourselves a good, old fashioned barbecue.
It was great seeing you, Dad and Marlene. Hope your drive home was traffic free.
Holy cow! This would be so cool!
I just hope they use the characters and storyline from the old ’80s cartoon and not from the crappy new ones.
So we were invited to an Emmy Lou Harris concert last night by our friends, Mike and Laura and also joined by Steve and Amy. Country folk music hasn’t been our style of music in the past, but we decided to broaden our horizons and give it a shot.
It was surprisingly good. She has a very good voice and, backed by a very good band, put on a great show. She played for about two and a half hours, only interrupted by a brief intermission and what turned out to be an intense storm. Dark clouds rolled in during her first set followed by gusts of wind and torrential rains. Everyone on the lawn section at Wolf Trap went scattering either from getting wet or fear of getting struck by the frequent lightning and thunder. We were protected in our seats by the roof, but as the rains and winds kept up, the whole theater was filled with a mist, and Emmy Lou kept right on playing throughout and made for a unique experience. Quite the show.
Thanks to Mike and Laura for providing some great Thai food and to Steve and Amy for the tasty chips and drinks, all of which we enjoyed while sitting on the lawn before the show. Sorry that our cookies weren’t that good. We promise to get you a good macaroon, Mike.
