Work travel for Charlie - early October 2011

Charlie went on a couple of trips for work in October.  First up, at the very beginning of October, he went to Denver for a two day conference.  Then he went to DC for a conference a couple of weeks later...

I left early on Sunday, October 2nd to fly out and get a day to see some of the city.  The big stop on Sunday was the Coors Brewery with a few co-workers who'd also come in early.  The brewery is actually in Golden, Colorado - 15-20 minutes outside of Denver.

Taking the walking tour was neat, and there was a free sampling of 3 beers afterward.  I tried the new "Native Colorado", which is a new beer being sold only in the Colorado area, and the "Batch 19" - a pre-prohibition style beer.  If they ever distribute the Native Colorado nationally, I'd recommend that

It was also very scenic in the area, here's some more pictures from my phone.

I also went to the area downtown around the baseball park (aptly named "Coors Field"), which was near the hotel I stayed at.  There were a lot of cool restaurants and bars in the area, and I snapped a few shots of the area outside the ballpark.  Katie and I will definitely need to make a trip out to Denver at some point.

A few weeks later, I went to DC for a couple of days to teach and participate in a training.  I didn't get a lot of time to visit the city for this one - so here's the best photo I had of the Capitol.  Good thing we visited there a few months ago!

A Golf Trip and a Going Away Party - End of September 2011

So we've been neglecting the blog a little bit - it's been busy!  Which means there's a little more to write about but less time to do so.  Hopefully we'll catch up by the end of the year.

First off - since our last post quite a few friends have had babies.  So congrats to Joey & Cathy (Katie's friend from college) and Adrienne & Brian (Charlie's friend from high school), who both had baby girls on October 19th.  Our friends from Columbus Jodi & Keith and Jeff & Melanie also had babies in the last month or so.

OK, so on to what we've been doing - or at least what we were doing a month or so ago.  Toward the end of September, Charlie went on his annual golf trip with his Theta Chi friends.  Every year they go to a different location - in the past, this trip has gone to Florida (Vero Beach), Ohio (Columbus), and Kentucky (Lexington).  In the 4th year, they stayed toward the East Coast since a few more people are out here than in previous years (us included).  The trip was to Frederick, MD.  Charlie's friend Brian came along on the trip this year.  On Thursday (Sept. 22), the two of them picked up Charlie's friend Mike in Hoboken, stopped at Fiore's for lunch - the world famous Beef and Mozz sandwiches - then drove down to Frederick.

The trip was fun as always - Charlie got to see friends from college that he doesn't see as much as he used to.  Unfortunately, the bad guys won "The Cup" - the trophy they have for this annual outing.  We played 5 rounds of golf in three days - 2 rounds Friday and Saturday, and a morning round Sunday.  We were soaked on Friday's two rounds at Musket Ridge Golf Course - but did get both rounds in.  If you're ever in Frederick MD - Musket Ridge, Maryland National, and Hollow Creek were the 3 courses we played - Charlie says Maryland National is very nice but would recommend Musket Ridge above the other 2!

A view of Maryland National clubhouse

The whole group

Charlie admiring his divot

The next weekend, Charlie had to leave early Sunday to travel to Denver, but we still managed to have an interesting weekend.  First, our friend Kelly, who worked with both of us at KPMG in Columbus, was having a going away party.  Kelly had been doing a rotation in New Jersey, as well - and was leaving for a new job in the Raleigh, NC area.  So we went down for her going away party in the city.  We had fun seeing Kelly and some former friends and co-workers from Columbus who had come up for the weekend - Karen and Brooklyn.  We went to Prohibition Bar, which featured a good cover band.  It was an early Halloween party - so Charlie went as a golfer..seems to be a theme with this post, and Katie broke out her NKOTB hot pink jacket from the early 90's orignal boy band concert.

The next day, we had 2 visitors.  Not the kind of visitors we've had before like friends or family - but two guys who were about Griffey's size!  Charlie's co-worker was out of town and we were watching her two chihuahua-pinscher mixes, Benji and Dallas for Saturday and Sunday.  After a rough start which included both Benji and Dallas jumping into the pond in our backyard (Griffey had already made that mistake over a year ago), we played with the 3 dogs all day.  Benji was a bit of a loner, investigating the new smells from our backyard and the house.  Dallas and Griffey loved to wrestle with each other, and Dallas seemed to particularly like Charlie.  That night, we had a slumber party downstairs, then Charlie was off to Denver for work.

Charlie lounging with the dogs 

Sit?
The dogs don't seem to be listening to Katie! 

There we go!

Celebrating Grandma Dorothy's 90th birthday - weekend of September 10th

The weekend after Labor Day we traveled down to the Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland to visit Grandma Dorothy.  We left Friday evening looking forward to a fun weekend with family.  The weekend was to celebrate Dorothy's 90th birthday.  Dorothy is Charlie's grandmother from his dad's side - at 90, she is still active and lives in her house in St. Michael's, MD.  She didn't seem to admit it was actually her 90th - she kept saying "that's what they tell me" :)

The weekend was a great time catching up with lots of family - Charlie's parents came up from Cincinnati with Chuck ("Grumpa"), Charlie's grandfather (paternal).  Also visiting were Charlie's Aunt Lynn, Uncle Jerry and their kids - Kris, Dana and Kai.  "Kids" is a relative term - Kris, Dana and Kai all have children of their own these days, though this weekend trip was too far and too quick for their families to make the trip as well.  Also there was Charlie's cousin's Hal and Bunny (and her husband Chris), as well as two of Dorothy's friends from St. Michael's.

Saturday during the day we met Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jerry and Kris, Dana and Kai for lunch at the Crab Claw which is a cute restaurant in downtown St. Michael's right on the water that specializes obviously in crab and other shell-fish.  Charlie stayed away from the shell-fish and just had a burger but Katie tried the crab-cakes.  Afterwards we went back to the rental house to take naps and watch college football.

Saturday evening, the family had planned a very nice dinner at the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford, Maryland where Dorothy and Granddad Dave spent a night of their honey-moon some 45 years ago.  The restaurant was a couple of town over from St. Michael's and separated by the bay, so the best way to get there is by ferry.  Charlie and I had never been on a ferry before so we got a kick out of driving our car on the ferry and got out of the car to take pictures of course.

The dinner was lovely with many stories from family members and toasts to Dorothy who has accomplished so many amazing things and is truly an inspiration to all of us to enjoy all life has to offer.  

After dinner, we all went back to Grandma Dorothy's house to watch the Michigan-Notre Dame game, which was quite a nail-biter.  Charlie and Tom were cheering for Michigan and Kai is a Notre Dame fan, so we had both sides represented.  Michigan pulled off the win which made Charlie and Tom very happy.

On Sunday, Leslie and Katie hit the shoppes in St. Michael's while Charlie, Grumpa and Tom took a leisurely stroll and back to the house for football and naps.  The St. Michael's area is such a beautiful part of the country and we had a great weekend relaxing and catching up with family.  Griffey really enjoyed coming along too and exploring the area.

Labor Day Weekend #2 - The U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows

Going in reverse order here, but that's OK...

On Sunday we went to the Winery tour (see previous post).  But the day before, we'd actually gone to the Tennis U.S. Open, which was midway through the two weekend tournament.  The tournament is held every year in Queens, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.  This is very near the Mets' ballpark, Citi Field (it's the same stop on the NY subway).  Charlie had been to the US Open finals the year before - Rafa Nadal won the tournament over Novak Djokovic - but this was Katie's first time.  We went for the 4th round on Saturday.  The way it works - you can buy tickets to the "Grounds", which gets you into the area and you can watch any of the matches on all the "side" courts.  You can also get into the Grandstand, but that is a first-come first-serve basis, and often requires a wait.  Next, you could buy tickets to either of the two larger stadiums - either Louis Armstrong, or the gigantic Arthur Ashe.  This also gets you the "grounds" admission, too.  The Ashe stadium is considered "center court" - so it has the most notable names.

We got there a little before noon, grabbed lunch, and walked around the grounds for a couple of hours.  Right outside Arthur Ashe Stadium there is a big bar area where it seemed like lots of people come to hang out and watch the matches on the big screens...reminded us alittle bit of the parties at the big horse races.  There are lots of smaller courts along the grounds and it was really neat to be able to see some of the side matches up really close.  At one point, we kind of stumbled across a match that featured the #1 seed for women's doubles.

We bought the tickets for the Arthur Ashe stadium for Saturday's daytime matches.  This got us the chance to see two tennis legends - Roger Federer in the first match and Serena Williams in the second.  Both won their match to move on to the quarterfinals - so it was a neat day where we got to see something that only comes around once a year.

Cheers to Labor Day Weekend

On Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, we celebrated by going with our friends Brian and Adrienne out to Long Island for a Winery Crawl.  Actually only 3 of us were drinking, because Adrienne is pregnant, but she enjoyed the scenery and the time out and we enjoyed having a DD :).  Brian and Adrienne packed a cute basket full of snacks and lunch.  We started off for the 2 hour drive to the North Fork of Long Island which boasts over 30 wineries.

Our first stop was Vineyard 48, which we all really liked.  We got there right when they were opening for the day, so we got great service being that we were the only customers at 11am on a Sunday.  Charlie and I are not big wine people but we loved tasting and we even bought 2 bottles from Vin 48, one of our favorites was a Peach wine and the "Red 48" wine - which was their house red that was fairly priced but very good.

Next was Shinn Estate which was a cute little bed and breakfast with a vineyard.  The wines were not bad, but the atmosphere was a bit more subdued and quiet; not nearly as fun as the last place, but it was still nice to sit there and try a flight of wines.

Next up was Pellegrini Vineyards, which was probably our 2nd favorite.  They had a beautiful tasting room and great patio.  We got 2 wines from there as well - they named their Reds for people like us.  One was called the BBQ Red and another was the Steakhouse Red....we got the Steakhouse Red of course!  And have since finished it, with a grilled steak a week or so later.

(Pellegrini's Tasting Room)

Next up was Martha Clara Vineyards....this place was by far the largest and the most crowded.  It had a huge tasting room with 2 very long bars and the service was exactly what you would get at a crowded bar.  They had  a very lively band and a large outdoor space that it seemed like lots of people had brought the whole family including the dog to hang out all day, but we were on a mission to squeeze in 2 more vineyards.

(Martha Clara Vineyards..this place was packed!)

Our last stop was Paumanok Vineyards which also had a nice patio.  I still don't think we know the different between a Merlot and a Shiraz...but it was definitely a beautiful day to sit outside and was really fun enjoying all the different wines.  It was great place to wind down what had turned into a long day.

Once we were done at Paumanok, we left the North Fork for the 2 hour drive back to White Plains.  We had dinner there at Emma's Ale House, a fun pub named after the owner's dog.

Needless to say, we were happy to see our own doggie when we got back that night!