Rocking Out!!!!!!!!!!

311 & Ziggy Marley

Last night Will, Michael and I saw Ziggy Marley and 311 in concert at Nissan Pavilion (plus the opening band The Expendables, I think). They were actually pretty good. We had such an amazing time! This was the first time at Nissan Pavilion for Michael and I; a very cool venue. I really liked how it was set up. This was also the first time that we both had seen 311, Will had seen them once before. 311 is Will's favorite band. I knew of them in the 90's but did not listen to them a whole lot. I have become a more recent fan, thanks to Will. I really have been enjoying them. They were crazy at the concert!! They are really good live. I hate when bands/singers sound good on CD but terrible in concert. It was great seeing Will so excited and into the music. I got to see a side of him that I had not really before...I LOVED it!!! He was dancing all over, but in a good way, not embarrassing at all! My favorite songs were "Come Original", "Daisy Cutter", "Amber", "Beautiful Disaster" and "India Ink".

Ziggy, was someone I was really excited to see. I am a fan of Bob Marley and have heard a few songs of Ziggy's that I like a lot. I thought he was very good. He had a fun, relaxing vibe and he is oh so cool. He was just beautiful. Beautiful hair. Beautiful smile. Beautiful essence. Just a beautiful man! My favorite songs of his were "True to Myself", "I Love You Too" and "Love is My Religion".

So, all-in-all a successful and fun trip. Will and I both agree that this was the BEST concert we had ever been to hands down!!!! We are glad that Michael was able to join us and hopefully we will be able to go to more concerts together. I was trying to talk Will into seeing Def Leppard and Poison! I like Def Leppard and Will was a fan of Poison when he was younger. I think it would be a pretty crazy concert!

Thank you Grandma Liz for babysitting!!!

Good Wine & Live Music - Who Could Ask For More?

Today we went to a local winery for some wine tasting and live music. It was such a relaxing night. We went with Wendy, Eric and the boys, Aidan and Alexei. The winery was such a beautiful location and the weather was perfect! We had our blankets spread out a nice distance from the band and next to the beautiful lake, which did have a sign warning guest of a "very large snapping turtle" - a little scary...

We brought tons of food; cheese, bread, crackers, spread, fruit, olives and much more. Colin had a wonderful time exploring everyones' plates. The wine was good as well. One was called the "Long Bomb", which was named after a football play. It was a tribute to a man who had passed away last year that had been a quarterback for a local college. The label was cute it had a drawing of the football play, I wanted to buy it for that reason alone! The wine was a dry, red wine...very strong.

The music - was nice. Not my favorite but definitely entertaining. The band, The Shane Gamble band has a myspace page...haha, throwing in a little plug for the guy! Wendy and I did enjoy critiquing his regular speaking voice...maybe that was due to the wine.

Colin got to hang out with the big boys while they tried to catch fireflies. He tried to lead them to a good place to hunt!

Colin got to stay up very late tonight, so hopefully he sleeps in tomorrow because mommy is a lighter sleeper than daddy...

Master Colin - The Protector

I just wanted to share a quick, cute story about Colin that happened over the weekend.

While Will was at a friend's house practising his bass, I thought I would try and get some cleaning done. Usually, the vacuum cleaner excites Colin and he just laughs at it, yesterday that was not the case. When I started it he instantly started crying and ran (well, ran as much as a toddler can run) to his toy basket for his lightsaber! He looked like he was going to charge the vacuum cleaner, but instead he reached up for me to pick him up. I tried to complete the cleaning while carrying him, but when I turned it on again he started swatting at it with his lightsaber (at least he was not crying anymore). Needless to say, it was not an easy task vacuuming while holding a baby that is trying to attack the heavy object you are trying to maneuver around the furniture.

It was cute watching Colin go into protector mode though! I finally gave up and will have to finish another time, when Will is home and can distract Colin with something else.

Such a cutie and cool baby!

Happy Father's Day

Today is a day to celebrate fathers! I am making a shout out to two wonderful men; my dad and my husband.

I was a daddy’s girl, and still am. My dad will always hold a special place in my heart that no one can replace. I have great memories of my dad and I when I was younger and now I am excited to make more memories of him as a grandfather. Love you dad!

Will is newer to the father job, but is doing a wonderful job! I love watching him with Colin, it is such a beautiful thing. I am so excited to spend our lives watching him grow as a father! I love you honey!

I hope you two have a wonderful day!

Busy Monday

Today Will and I both worked a half-day, so we could get everything ready for Aunt Donelda's visit. For the west coast friends and family, Donelda is Will's Aunt from Florida. She was married to Grandma Liz's brother, Ed. Uncle Ed sadly passed away a few months ago from cancer. I only met him once, but Will was very close to him and always has so many great things to say about him. After meeting Ed and Donelda, I instantly liked both of them and was very excited to get to know them better. I am sad not to get that chance with Ed, but I feel that through his family that so respected and loved him I am definitely getting to know the sort of person he was. After his passing, there was a site for people to read about Ed and to leave comments. I looked through quite a few of them and there were people leaving comments from all over the globe. His life touched so many and he accomplished so much. Will and I were so impressed and inspired. My heart goes out to all of the Gallagly's and Brack's that lost a wonderful man.



Donelda is currently driving the eastern states on her way to Canada to visit her family. We are so glad she could stop by for a visit. We had some fancy cheese and wine at our place first. I had a lot of fun picking out the cheeses and we got to try a new Chianti wine (both mine and Will's favorite) from Italy. It was a very good, dry wine.



Donelda looks amazing! For all that she has been through this past year, she really looks great! She was also in amazingly good spirits. Colin was very interested in her and the new books she brought him. She bought him an Elmo potty training book and a Thomas the Train book, both are the ones that have buttons that make sounds. Colin LOVES them!! He pushes the buttons that play music and starts clapping. Then looks at us to let us know it is our turn to clap, so cute!



Liz and Michael were able to make the trip up as well. Michael's cat Missy, passed away today. She lived a very long life for a cat. Michael has had her since he was in pre-school and now he is 21.



We all went to Red Robin for dinner. We thought a kid friendly place would be easier than a fancy place, Donelda agreed and thought everyone is in need of a good hamburger everyonce in a while. Dinner was great! Colin kept everyone entertained and ate a ton of food (as usual).



**Note** I started this on Monday, but was not able to finish it until this morning.



We had a great visit with Aunt Donelda, Grandma Liz and Uncle Michael! Thank you Donelda for making time in your travels to see us! We love you and hope to see you down in Florida soon!

A Party and a Zoo

We had a weekend full of family time...I loved it!!! On Saturday, we made our way up to Maryland to Jamie and Ann's house for our nephew Ryan's 4th birthday party! We had a great time, which we always do when hanging out with them! Colin was a bit shy at first but he warmed up after a little bit. Playing with water helped. Out on the deck was a table that you put water in and kids can splash around. Colin LOVED it!!! He had fun playing with his cousin Brady, well playing next to him. I do not think that they are at the age of really playing with someone else. Colin got a little to happy with the water and ended up pretty soaked. Brady amazingly stayed pretty dry and he was trying out some pretty intense maneuvers with his cup! I think he will be a clever one :) Colin will be the talkative and loud one!



Colin also met a teenage girl that he adored! He was trying to chase her around and have her chase him...ADORABLE! At one point, he had a magician's hat on and was waving a butterfly net attempting to run around the house! He is still working on the running, which makes it even funnier to watch. I sadly forgot my camera, but will try to get some pictures of the magician's had from Grandma Liz.


On Sunday, we made our way to DC, which Will just loves to do!!! Not really. He is not a fan of the metro or the crowded district, but he did wonderfully yesterday! We met up with some of Will's cousins from Florida, Gavin and Penny. It was such a beautiful day! We ended up going to the National Zoo!!! Colin loved the elephants!! He had a harder time noticing the other animals who were escaping the heat by relaxing in the shade.


Afterwards, we had pizza at this little restaurant outside of the metro area. It was pretty good. A French/pizzeria...kind of an odd combination, but good food! Colin did very well for not having much of a nap. He took a turn sitting on every ones' laps, even Cousin Gavin! He just made himself comfortable and ate their food! Once he was somewhat full, he started the task of organizing all the ice cubes at the table, which in a way helped the waiters clean the table!



Colin slept the whole way home and so when we got home, he had a burst of energy. His parents did not. We were so tired from carrying him, walking and running after Colin.





What a day!

Belated Wedding Pictures

The Happy Couple!

Almost two years later, I am finally sharing some pictures from our wedding. Some of you will have seen them on Myspace or Facebook, but for those of you not on that circuit...here you go!

William and I got married on August 29, 2007. We had a small ceremony that suits us just fine.  We may plan to take a trip (in a few years) with some of the parents and renew our vows in Ireland, but we will see.

The day we got married it was VERY hot! So, in some pictures you can probably tell by looking at us. We still had a wonderful time. After the ceremony we went to Old Town Alexandria and had a wonderful dinner. It was an amazing day!

A week or so later we went on our honeymoon! We had a great time in North Carolina on the beach. It was sweet, Will proposed on the beach so we thought it would be nice to celebrate our marriage at the beach as well!

Since I am not a huge fan of cake, we bought a bottle of wine from the Cotton Gin in North Carolina. It was a cute shop we saw on our way home. They sell a lot of wine and crafty things. We opened the bottle of wine (It was called Atlantis) on our one year anniversary. Thus, replacing the cake. Whenever we make a trip to NC we try to pick up the same bottle of wine (we both really liked it). We currently have one waiting to be opened on our next anniversary, which is less than three months away!!!

Some pictures are the original versions (thank you to my father-in-law) and others I recently edited.

Some crab, some wine...and a broken computer.

4 Day Weekend

Will, Colin and I had an eventful 4 day weekend! Makes it hard to go back to work tomorrow...

On Saturday, we had Uncle Eric & family over to celebrate Aunt Wendy's birthday! We had a lot of fun eating dinner, visiting and playing Guitar Hero. One thing that was not overly great about the evening, was that our air conditioner was not working. The thermostat had the temperature as 90 degrees, which was as high as the thermostat would read. It was pretty miserable. To add to that, not knowing that the air would not be doing its part in keeping us cool, I chose to make a crab bisque to go along with a chicken and veggie dish that was prepared in the crock pot. So, a hot meal in a very hot home! At least the food turned out really well...I was excited to try the crab bisque recipe I had. Even with the heat, we managed to have a good time and enjoyed spending time with our adorable nephews and Colin's Aunt and Uncle.

On Sunday, Will took Colin to Dale City to spend some time with his mom and dad. I got to spend time with a girlfriend from work and her friend. We went to some wineries close by. It was a great day...nice weather, great wine and a delicious lunch! I was good and only bought one wine, a really good dessert wine from the first winery. For lunch we went to this place called Magnolia's. It is an old mill turned into a restaurant. I had a portobello sandwich. Delicious!

While trying to find the last winery we ended up driving too far. We discovered this by the "Welcome to West Virginia" sign! This was my first time in the state, but it was getting late so we did not get to spend too much time there. Oh well, I will make Will take me back, I have heard the area is beautiful! I want to head that way for an outdoorsy vacations. At our last wine tasting stop, we were given our money's worth (tasting fee). I think I counted 13 or 14 wines that we tasted. I had been to this winery before and it is one of my favorites. They have a Zeus wine (red) that is really good (if you like dry wine) and they end with their raspberry dessert wine that you drink with piece of chocolate...VERY delicious!

Monday was not our favorite day of the weekend. Our home computer got a virus, which messed with the operating system. We tried to fix it ourselves, but gave up and had to have the Geek Squad at Best Buy do the job for us. Since my class is online, this made doing homework a bit difficult. Bright side! I think I have convinced Will to get wireless...now I can use my laptop to do homework. Yay!

Tuesday was wondeful! Colin let us sleep until 8 AM! That has not happened in a very long time. We had breakfast and got Colin to daycare around 10 AM. Will and I went to the mall, got some fancy coffee and walked around until it was time for our movie to start. We saw Star Trek. Very good movie! I do not remember much about the series but the parts I did were referenced in the movie. Afterwards, we had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant. It was so nice to spend time with Will, just the two of us. But it is hard to go stay away from Colin, so we picked him up early and went home for some familly time.

Oh...Colin is saying banana...or at least he is trying to say it. It comes out more like..."nanana". So cute! The poor guy has been teething, so he had trouble falling to sleep last night. He ended up sitting on the couch with us until about 9 or 9:30...late night for the little guy.

What a wonderful weekend!

More Photo Fun

Here are a few more...

I love these two pics! The first is at the Renn Fest last year & the second is at Gettysburg.

Colin & daddy at the coast in NC (New Years) & just me goofing around.

Me again w/my new highlights (the technique made them not so noticeable) & Colin at Grandpa B's place.


This picture my friend John took. I really like this technique, but only for certain pictures.

I may not be able to post the rest of the week, work is going to be busy (I have to have my test scripts written by Friday), but Will and I have a four day weekend...so I will write more than.

Photo Fun

I finally had some time to edit some of the pictures I have been taking with my camera I bought a while back. Here are a few of the finished photos!


Colin on Thanksgiving & with daddy a few weeks ago.

Colin at the park & at his Grandma Liz's house.

Colin on his first birthday & last football season.

I will post some more shortly! Hope everyone is having a good week!