Hey mister bartender come here I want another drink and I want it now

I took my girls and my niece to visit my Mom down in NC over the weekend - nothing really to report, just didn't want to owe a bunch of drinks to my blogging friends (it cost me $9.99 to enter this post from the hotel, but I figure that's cheaper than the drinks).

I'm traveling for work this week. Went out to dinner and ordered a Mojito - the waiter carded me. I felt good about it, until he looked at my ID and said "I was way off!" He could have kept that comment to himself.

There are quite a few Irish pubs near the hotel - too bad I need to be sharp for tomorrow.

John Lee Hooker / One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

I'll do anything for you to see you smile

So, early this morning I heard Haley yelling "Mom" and some other unintelligible words from her bedroom. I went up to check on her and asked her "What's wrong, sweetie?" She said, still sleeping, "Mom is making us wash our faces before Ziggy kisses us!" Ziggy is our short tailed cat (you may recall the story behind his short tail from a much earlier post). Haley was very upset and confused by the whole concept of having to clean up before being kissed by a cat.

I snuggled with her and she settled down. Then after a few minutes she stirred again and shouted out "You're in MY spot!" I asked her, "What do you mean?" And she said "That's where I sleep, you are in my spot." So I got up and started getting ready for work, having been put in my place by my lovely daughter - at least she gave me one of her priceless smiles as I was getting up to leave.

Eminem / Mockingbird

Sweet dreams are made of this

Spent the past weekend in Highland County at the annual Maple Festival. Friends from our DC days met us there and we shared a cabin in the George Washington National Forest for the weekend.

We were the first to arrive Friday night and faced the often awkward task of figuring out sleeping arrangements. There was a lower level with a large bedroom, king-sized bed, private bath, and a sitting area with a tv. The other bed was a double bed in a loft area above the main gathering/kitchen area. My nature is to always defer to others to have the nicer accomadations - I hate conflict and don't want to be viewed as taking advantage. Karyn had a very good argument for us sleeping in the lower level - she and the girls tend to sleep later than other people and their kids. I thought the other couple would be pissed, but finally chose to let the girls decide. They wanted the loft, so that's where Karyn and the girls ended up - I ended up on the couch...

We settled in, then headed back out to find someplace for dinner. We came across a "pizza joint" (Haley's words) named Jason's and stopped there. There were spinning stools along a counter and the girls wanted to sit there so we did. The pizza was good and the people that ran the place were very friendly. They suggested we have some dessert, so I decided to share a piece of apple pie with the girls. I rarely am in the mood for apple pie, but figured we were out in the country so it might actually be good. It was fantastic. The crust was made with maple sugar in it which gave the pie a hint of maple taste. mmm.

We returned to the cabin, played a game of Scrabble (I won!), got the girls to bed and opened our St. Patrick's Day beverages. The other couple and their two kids arrived later in the evening. They got their kids settled in and then we stayed up until 3am catching up.

Saturday we headed to a maple sugar farm then to the town of Monterey to enjoy some pancakes with local maple syrup. I tried the buckwheat cakes and really enjoyed them. We did some shopping around town before heading back to the cabin and just relaxing for the evening.

Sunday we packed up the cars and headed to Warm Springs to check out the The Inn at Gristmill for a possible future trip. We also checked out Hot Springs and had lunch together before heading our seperate ways.

It was a nice trip - beautiful countryside, good friends, family, yummy food, etc. A few things to remember for future trips:

• make sure the accomodations will work for everyone involved
• you can never have too much toilet paper, but you can have too little
• don't try to get much accomplished with 5 kids

Eurythmics / Sweet Dreams

Local talent signs record deal

It should be interesting to follow the coming months in the life of an artist on the verge: Ross Copperman

I got a Nikon Camera, I love to take photographs

I stumbled across this blog using the Next Blog feature and really like this guy's work:

A Distorted Perspective

Paul Simon / Kodachrome

Four Things

What, no music category?!?!

Four Jobs I've Had:
1 - Gift Shop Clerk at Monticello (home of Thomas Jefferson)
2 - Law Firm Messenger
3 - foreign Observer in Cartegena, Colombia
4 - Cabinet Maker

Four Movies I can Watch Over and Over:
1 - Pulp Fiction & Kill Bill
2 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
3 - To Kill a Mockingbird
4 - Almost anything starring Audrey Hepburn or Jodie Foster or directed by Pedro Almodovar

Four Places I've Lived:
1 - Bolivia
2 - Richmond, VA
3 - Washington, DC
4 - Charlottesville, VA

Four TV Shows I Love:
1 - Without a Trace
2 - Desperate Housewives
3 - Arrested Development
4 - The Daily Show

Four Places I've Vacationed:
1 - England/Scotland
2 - Rome/Florence/Venice Italy
3 - Bahamas
4 - Mexico City/Taxco/Acapulco Mexico

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:
1 - Homemade baked mac & cheese
2 - Pad Thai
3 - Saltenas
4 - Warm brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce

Four Sites I Visit Daily:
1 - MSNBC
2 - Roanoke.com
3 - iTunes
4 - Google

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
1 - Walking on the beach with my girls
2 - Roaming a big city (New York, London, San Francisco, Rome, etc.)
3 - In a pub drinking Guinness with my friends
4 - Hiking in the desert

Tag Four Other Bloggers:
1 - joelsquest
2 - cspew
3 - rob
4 - lifeofcrazy