Year 2 - Day 96 - April 7

There are lots of checkmarks on our chart .... that means that Black Eyed Susan voting time is getting close! :)

Year 2 - Day 95 - April 6

We have both wanted to visit San Francisco for a long time.  We tried to make that last summers vacation, however, we had a free ticket and by the time we decided to take a vacation, there were no free flights available to SF or any of the surrounding airports.  This year, we booked early and nabbed them!  We are planning on making a giant loop....SF for a few days, down the coast for a day or so, and then a couple days at Sequoia/Kings Canyon and a couple days at Yosemite before completing our circle through Palo Alto & back to the airport. 

When I'm excited about something & can't really move forward but want to make a plan, the first thing I always do is hit up the library for books.  Well, now that it's 2011 I hit up the library's website for books & then show up at the drive through window a couple days later. :)  I sure hope that you don't live in my town & want to plan a vacation to SF in the next 2 weeks, because I have those books.  We have several styles of guidebooks to browse through - Lonely Planet, Fodor's, Frommer's, & Nat Geo.  We're pretty excited!!

Year 2 - Day 94 - April 5

You're Finally Here!!!!!!  Speaking of finally - I finally got my hands on Melanie Watt's new book tonight!  It's pretty good - I can't wait to read it to kids tomorrow!  They're going to love it. :)

Year 2 - Day 93 - April 4

Today I had 2 meetings after work.  While waiting at a red light to get to my first meeting, I found myself across the intersection from the apartment complex we lived in for our last year at UD.  It's probably owned by a different company now because the outsides of each building were redone.  When we lived there, we decided that the entire complex must reside on the black line that you see on maps to denote the Maryland-Delaware border. This hypothesis came from the fact that if you turned right out of the apartment, you soon came to the giant blue "Welcome to Delaware!" sign.  However, if you turned left, you had to drive a bit before you came to the "Welcome to Maryland!" sign.  See? We were obviously on the line. :) 

Year 2 - Day 92 - April 3

The best part of living in my townhouse was that I didn't have to cut the grass.  Since they used the same lawn mower on the whole street, we all shared "germs" (weeds) so I never worried about having the perfect lawn.

This neighborhood is a whole different ballgame.  With the exception of the one we inherited & one house with older residents, every lawn is perfect around there.  We spent a lot of $$$$$ buying the ingredients for what basically amounts to a 12 step program for the yard.  Top soil, weed killer, grass seed, fetilizer....(all to be used at different times) ... Wish us luck....a lot of luck.

Year 2 - Day 91 - April 2

Moments before this picture was taken, there were 2 hanging plants.  Kevin was talking with his hands and knocked one right into his lap.  He did catch it, and there was even minimal dirt spillage.  But it was pretty darn funny....

Year 2 - Day 90 - April 1

I left the house this morning (2 1/2 hours later than usual!) for a meeting & lunch with my MLLI group.  I planned this as a personal day a really long time ago, and was looking forward to it.  But it turns out that the day wasn't just for a meeting!  Mike's friends called & suggested we go bowling later in the evening.  Since I thought it was silly to drive all the way home and then back to Timonium, I first killed some time at Towson Town Center.  I was the only person there who wasn't rich and/or a Scandinavian nanny with a flock of children.  Most of the stores were empty with several clerks chit chatting with each other.

After getting my fill of rich people stores window shopping, I went to TJ Maxx down the street to do some real shopping.  They had all kinds of outdoor and garden items for great prices.  I got a pan to do pizza on the grill, some gardening gloves & tools, and an assortment of other items for bargain prices.

Mike gets out of work early on Friday, so we continued our time killing by seeing the King's Speech.  I read weeks ago about them re-releasing the movie with a PG13 rating to widen the audience, but was unaware that the changeover was happening today.  We realized we were seeing the PG13 version when one scene had some bad word dubbing.  It's kind of crazy that one scene with bad words can change a whole movie's rating, especially because the language in this movie was used for a purpose.  Excellent movie, I approve of its Oscar.

Finally, we met up with friends at Michael's for dinner.  I made the best decision ever with my dinner.  I wasn't starving since I had a late lunch, so I got the ceasar salad with the $6 filet add-on.  It was almost a whole steak!  I'm glad I didn't spend $30 on the actual steak.  We never ate at the restaurant for all the time Mike lived over there, but it was good.  Everyone enjoyed their meal, and we had a wide range of food between appetizers, salads, sandwiches & entrees.

Bowling was fun too ... we did duck pin because there was a shorter wait, and I didn't completely stink. :)