131 & 132: Last "getaway" of summer

131: Eddie and I got in the car around 6:15pm on Thursday and headed north. Traffic was amazingly good and we made it to Ridgewood, NJ around 12:45am and still had gas in our tank! We averaged a little over 41 miles per gallon....awesome! I took this picture from the car on our way:

132: Today we headed into NYC with Eddie's grandparents, mother and brother to go see 9 to 5. I got a chance to shoot a little in Times Square before it poured and got a shot that I dedicate to Ms. M. K. Baynor:Sidenote: Eddie and I got to talking with the Stage Door guy before 9 to 5 and he told us about meeting and working for many famous actors and actresses, including Julie Andrews. He said that she was a real class act, treated everyone well (including decorating the staff areas for holidays) and was just generally great. This makes me very happy since I love her so much in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. It would have broken my heart if he had told stories about her being a rude person.

Note to Readers

Eddie and I are having to leave a little later for Jersey so my photo of the day won't be posted today. Here's hoping for good traffic! *knock on wood*

130: Asian Grill

Tim, Eddie and I headed to Asian Grill for dinner tonight. I got my usual sushi and it made for a nice little picture. Dinner and the company were delightful. It's been nice to have Tim around...even though Eddie doesn't appreciate our special sense of humor. :-)

129: Timmy!

Tim is staying with us for a few nights because he is working a local band camp. Tonight we took a field trip to Rita's and then came back to the apartment to watching some TV (including an AMAZING Family Guy episode that involved Stewie being put into a dance routine with Gene Kelly with actual Gene Kelly video footage. Classic.)

128: Mirror Mirror On The Wall...

An uninspired day today in Photoblog-land. I wandered around with my small point and shoot and saw the mirror in our guest bathroom and thought it could make for an interesting enough shot for today. I've had this mirror for quite some time and I really like it. In the reflection in the mirror you can see the awesome shower curtain that hangs in that bathroom. I had my eye on this shower curtain for quite some time and was patient enough to be able to buy it when it was on clearance. :-)

127: Smells like Teen Spirit??

Sarah and Matt had some folks over to enjoy their new place in Virginia Beach. After we ate delicious cookout food we played some Rock Band. It was my first time playing and I must say that I really enjoyed it. One of the highlights was Katie singing some Nirvana. We decided that we needed to look the part:

126: With this ring...

Today I had the pleasure of being the "photographer" for a friend (and co-worker) as she was married. She is 58 and got married for the first time....and it was adorable! It was very simple and very much "Pam" (the bride). It was a good practice experience for me to shoot a wedding. I haven't made edits to all of the photos yet but here is one of my favorites:

125: PJ Party!

I had a really good Friday that included lunch out at Azzurri, SUPER DOUBLE COUPONS at Harris Teeter, Costco samples, Harry Potter and Rent. :-)

Currently, Eddie, Amy and I are in our PJs watching Rent (the DVD of the final performance).

124: All Star Cast

Tonight Amy and Katie joined us for Trivia!! It was a hilariously good time....despite the fact that we didn't even place. :-( I am, however, proud that we fought for our answer on the Navy Hymn and Dave ACTUALLY had the sheet music in his car. I love it!

I'm very much looking forward to spending the long weekend with Amy and Katie. :-)

123: Mmmm Sugar

One of the fun parts of living and working on a college campus is getting to attend the programs that are put on throughout the year for the students. Tonight I got to hit up "Carnifest", which was put on by the Summer RA Staff on East Campus. There were games like ring toss, balloon popping with darts, knock the cans over ("Can-tastrophe"), food eating, etc. that you could play to earn tickets for prizes. There were also candy apples, Rita's ice and cotton candy! Sabina was the Cotton Candy Chica and I hung out with her and took some pictures while she made it. My favorite picture was of her spinning some for Beej while she looked on from behind the ever important plastic safety shield.

122: Great Wall of....Newport News?

Eddie and I had coupons for cheap enlargements from Walgreens so we had some of our favorite photographs (taken by us) blown up to hang in our guest room/music room/office/etc. I was proud of myself for figuring out the configuration of the frames and accurately measuring where the nails should go in the wall. They've been up for a few weeks but I needed a photo for today so....here we are.

121: Concerto

I am a little sad that the moon is hidden by clouds this evening because it would have been nice to commemorate the anniversary of the moon landing with a picture of it. I guess my moon pic on day 107 was a little too early!

Instead the photo of the day is of my clarinet. I made a mental note yesterday to use it in an upcoming photo and figured today was a good day since I hadn't taken anything else all day and didn't have anything particular in mind.

120: Metro Band

I played with the Hampton Roads Metro Band this evening since Dad called and said they needed extra clarinet players. My chops are sadly out of shape, which was frustrating. (Note to self: Play clarinet more.) I took this picture from my seat in the clarinet section while Dad was introducing one of the songs. Funtimes!

119: Pyro

Eddie and I spent a very relaxing afternoon with Tim, Amanda and Hannah. The afternoon included chicken on the grill, pool time and lawn games. We ended the evening with some sparklers (though illegal in Chesapeake??) on the deck. They had the tiki torches lit and they made for some neat flame shots.

118: Evening Sky

We had some pretty nasty storms this afternoon but the evening skies cleared and were very pretty. I took this with my pocket digital from our parking lot.

117: "Frankly, Charlotte, I don't give a damn."

The subject heading of this entry is the line uttered by the substitute trivia reader in reference to Gone With the Wind.....oh man. Trivia itself was sub-par due to the absence of our beloved Norris. However, I loved spending time with the people on the team because I don't get to see most of them at any time other than trivia. Tonight I laughed so hard that I cried and it was a great feeling. I love the time I get to spend with the people on our team!

Today's picture is a silly one of Jacqui and Matt:

116: Lobstah!

While we were in Chatham we went to Yankee Ingenuity, which is my favorite store. I wanted to buy just about everything in there but managed to walk out without anything. The rest of the day I kept thinking about this little clutch/purse/wallet that I had seen there. I ended up walking back into town (not very far) from the baseball field before the game started to get it. It is a fun little souvenir of our trip and a handy sized purse for bumming around.

115: Home again, Home again

Eddie and I left the Cape this morning and were able to spend a little bit of time with his family before flying back to Newport News. (I don't do well with vacations ending but the complimentary beverages and snacks with our free business class upgrade helped!) I took this shot from the airplane as headed home. Even though it was a short vacation, it was really nice to "get away" and enjoy the summer a little bit before everything goes crazy again.

114: Guessing Game

Eddie and I had another very relaxing day on Cape Cod. We enjoyed a nature walk at the Monomoy Nature Refuge and a walk along Main Street in Chatham before our usual dinner from Nick's and a Chatham A's baseball game.

Today's photo of the day is a guessing game for you. There are three photos in this series.

Photo Clue #1:

Photo Clue #2:

Photo Clue #3:

As you can see, it is a World Series trophy! They had two of the Boston Red Sox World Series Trophies at the Chatham A's game tonight. They are holding the Cape Cod Baseball League All-Star game at Fenway this year so these are "on tour" to the Cape games to promote the event. I'm not Boston fan and am more of a baseball fan by proxy (though I do enjoy it) but it was pretty neat to see the trophies in person.

Sadly, Eddie and I head back to New Jersey tomorrow and will fly back to Newport News tomorrow evening. Though it was a short trip, it was completely worth coming up. Like I said yesterday, it wouldn't be summer for us without being here.

113: If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air

Ah Cape Cod. Eddie and I got here this afternoon and I'm so glad we decided to come even though it's only for two days. It just wouldn't be summer without some food from Nick's and a Chatham A's baseball game. (This is our fifth summer in a row that we've come here.)

The game tonight started at 5:30, which is different from the usual 7:00 game time. I rather enjoyed it as we had good light for pictures for most of the game. This is my favorite from the game....I took it before the game when they were preparing the field for play.

Tomorrow we are going to do some exploring, walk around downtown Chatham and go to another A's game. (I love it up here!)

112: These vagabond shoes...

Eddie and I are on mini-vacation now before the craziness of his ResLife training schedule begins. Today's entry is going to be more of a photo-documentary of our day rather than just one picture. Cheating, maybe...but here it is:

Eddie and I flew into LaGuardia this morning and saw this out of the plane window:

Eddie's sister, future brother-in-law and mom came to get us at the airport and we all drove into the city. We parked in a garage and got to Times Square to get our discount Broadway show tickets. Eddie and I got tickets for us and his friend Jenn to see "9 to 5" while the rest got tickets for Phantom. We then began to walk around for a while to kill some time. We went into FAO Schwarz Toy Store and I realized how much of a kid I still am because I got REALLY excited to see their Muppet Whatnot Workshop where you can design your own Muppet Puppet to take home!!! (Logan, this one's for you!) If they weren't as pricey as they are I would probably get one. Here is one of the displays of some of the Whatnots that have been created:

(Sidenote: Eddie's sister Karen is engaged to Mike who was with us today. While in FAO Schwarz we got to see the piano from Big. Mike and I were talking about going up to play it and he said that he would start to play the bassline from Chameleon and then I could bust in and start to play the melody. This was one of many times that he has made a musical or "nerdy" comment that has made me thank Karen for finding another musician to bring into the family of athletes.

After a lunch at a pizza joint we headed to our theaters for our respective shows. 9 to 5 was quite good. Allison Janney was hilarious (as expected) and I just loved her. The show was really well done, entertaining and well-performed. After the show we stood by the stage door to get autographs. Not everyone came out....including Allison Janney (sadness!) but we were able to get some to add to our Broadway wall. There was also a pet adoption shindig going on a block down called "Broadway Barks" where there were random Broadway folks around...including David Hyde Pierce and American-Idol-turned-Broadway-actor Constantine Maroulis who we found standing next to us eating pretzels:

Good day in the city. We got back into Ridgewood and got to watch Kevin play baseball and then had a great meal afterwards at home!

Tomorrow morning Eddie and I head up to Cape Cod. I'm hoping to have wireless at our hotel but we might not. If not, I'll be back on Tuesday evening!

110 and 111: Adventures in Student Affairs

As many of you know, Student Affairs is not my first "career"....I started out in music education. I have really enjoyed my experiences learning about Student Affairs over the last three years while working in the office here at CNU. I've been able to be pretty involved and was excited to be able to go to a conference at Lynchburg College. Last night Eddie and I drove up to Lynchburg and stayed in a campus apartment with the other CNU attendees. I liked the color of the extra-long twin mattress and made it my subject for the photo of the day. (The internet was pretty lousy, hence the lack of posting until today.)

The conference theme was "It's My Life" and had sessions about balancing life and work within Student Affairs. I love learning new things and thinking about things in new ways so I really enjoyed myself. I will have a blogpost at some point in the future involving the conference giveaway that we received from the keynote speaker. Today's photo is not from the conference but instead from O'Charley's where Eddie and I stopped on our way home for dinner. (I love their California Chicken Salad and we don't have an O'Charley's around here so it was a treat.) One thing that I like about the O'Charley's chain is that they personalize the mural to have items, people, landmarks, etc. that have to do with the region. The one in Harrisonburg features a JMU football player and a UFO.....not sure why there is a UFO but it's there. The O'Charley's we went to in Amelia County is the subject of today's photo of the day:

I was very much amused by the giraffe's placement right behind Patric Henry's words...almost as if he was speaking them himself. Not sure what giraffe's have to do with the middle-of-nowhere Virginia....maybe Harrisonburg's UFOs dropped them off?

Note: Eddie and I are heading up to New York/Jersey tomorrow morning via plane. I expect to have internet there but may not on Sunday and Monday because we'll be on Cape Cod(!).

109: Speak softly, love, and hold me warm against your heart

Today Eddie and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a late dinner at Azzurri, our favorite local place to eat. When we arrived I found that Eddie had put a vase of flowers and a card on a table for me. When we finished dinner, Marco the owner gave us each a restaurant t-shirt (I had been eyeing them for Eddie for a while). I love that we are "regulars" at a restaurant and know the owner and his family.


It was a really nice way to spend the end of a busy day and to feel special on our anniversary.


I had a photo of the flowers and the card at the table but Eddie and I posed in our bathroom mirror for a picture of us in our new t-shirts.

Also, in case you are wondering, the title of today's post is the opening lyrics to The Godfather theme, which came on the music at Azzurri when we were finishing dinner. It was Eddie's idea to use the lyrics as the title.

P.S. I wanted to say a special hello to loyal blog reader Pop-Pop! Thanks for the phone call tonight!

108: Aesthetic Experiences

Tonight Eddie and I met up with my parents at the Drum Corps International show over in Suffolk. For those of you not familiar, DCI is marching band's "major league" where young adults come together, rehearse like mad and tour the country to earn scores to hopefully win finals in August. The musicianship, precision, and teamwork is amazing to watch.

I was very glad that we made the trip to the show because the Cadets and Carolina Crown performances were amazing. (You can't go wrong with Bernstein and Copland!)


I took a lot of pictures over the course of the evening and had a hard time narrowing my choice down. I ended up choosing two....both of guard. I know I'm cheating with having two but I have my reasons:

#1: I loved these flags and was pleased that I captured a nice shot of them. I used Photoshop to show just the color of the flag and make the rest of the photo black and white. I am quite pleased with the result.

#2: This is a shot of the color guard of the Carolina Crown. A friend from JMU (who marched snare, played oboe in symphonic band and marched guard for the Cavaliers!) is on staff with them so I wanted to send him a shout-out even though I wasn't able to spot him on the sidelines tonight. The Crown guard looked great!

107: I see the moon, the moon sees me

It was 9:00 and I was without a photo of the day so I was excited to see the moon shining outside. Eddie and I went outside with a tripod and the camera. It took me eighty million tries (give or take a few) to fiddle with the settings enough to get a decent shot. I'm not pleased with the results but it was good practice with adjusting settings while in manual mode.

106: 'ello Guv-nah

CNU is hosting Governor's School for Humanities and Visual & Performing Arts this summer and the students will be moving in soon. This is a program that I was a part of in the summer of 1998 at the University of Richmond. It was one of the most influential experiences of not only my young life but my life in general. It was the first chance to really get out of my comfort zone, to meet a very diverse group of people, to find out who I was becoming and to embrace music and the arts in a way that I hadn't before. I have very fond memories of the friends that I made there and of the experiences I was able to have.

In perusing the CNU website for the program I noticed that Dr. Eric Ruple is on the faculty still as part of the program. He was one of my professors during Governor's School (and also got to see him at JMU since he was a member of the music faculty). It was funny to read his bio because it mentioned his daughter, who was born the week before the Governor's School that I attended. Time flies...

So in honor of Governor's School tonight I photographed a figure that I created during one of my afternoon classes. I can't remember the exact assignment but this little guy travelled with me through four years of college, three post-graduation apartments and two residence hall apartments as a married woman. He's a little weird looking but I enjoy him and like having him on my shelf as a reminder of the wonderful month I spent at Governor's School.

105: That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said.

I started this morning by listening to A Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland with narration by Gregory Peck. Katie had texted me on her car ride home about it. I turned it on and got all teary like I always do. Perfect way to start my Fourth of July.

Sean, Andrea and I spent the morning and afternoon at a surprisingly not crazy-crowded Busch Gardens. We were able to nearly walk onto many of the roller coasters before lunch. We took in a few shows and enjoyed wakling around. We then went to Williamsburg for some Fourth of July action. Eddie met up with us and we hung around people watching, playing In A Pickle, and listening to the fife and drum corps before the (mostly lame) firework show. (Traffic was craptacular on the way out...it took us an hour to get to the road to get us to the interstate.)

I enjoyed taking pictures during the fireworks show but due to where we were sitting I could get better shots of the audience watching than the actual fireworks themselves. It was an interesting change of perspective. This photo was taken with the assistance of a monopod and a longer exposure during one of the bright fireworks blasts.

Happy Fourth of July all!

104: Hot Pocket!

Sean and Andrea made it into town this afternoon for a visit for the Fourth. Katie also joined us some fun and a viewing of Mary Poppins. (It is one of my all-time favorite movies!!) I am glad that they were able to make it up for a visit.

Tomorrow: adventures at Busch and in Williamsburg.

103: The Ladies Mann (Like the Brothers Grimm...but without gross fairy tales)

It was once again Family Night at trivia. Tonight we welcomed Barbara Mann, Jacqui's mom, to our group. I love that our trivia team has hosted many family members. I like that we are all the kind of people that love their parents and siblings and bring them along to meet our friends. Our mighty trivia team tied for third this week and lost in the intellectual duel of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

102: But, a lot of people, that's their story: good times, noodle salad.

We had a staff shindig this afternoon/evening in celebration of surviving the four orientation sessions for the incoming freshmen. There was a lot of great food and good conversation. I had my camera but never took it out despite the cute kids in the pool. I was quite content just relaxing and enjoying food and company. So for the photo of the day I took a picture of some of the pasta salad that was left over that was quite tasty.