Recent Pics of Daisy

Autumn Vacation

We took a week long vacation while Tom's brother and his brother's girlfriend visited us from England.  We went to D.C. for a couple of days where we walked EVERYWHERE! - the national mall, the war memorials, the capitol, downtown, the white house, and around the tidal basin.  Our second day in D.C. was spent hopping from museum to museum all day.  We also discovered the deliciousness of tapas at La Tasca's and experienced some hot dishes at Nando's, a south african restaurant (both located downtown).  On our way back to PA, we stopped to walk around Baltimore's Inner Harbor for a few hours.  Other highlights from our vacation include a hike in Hamburg, PA (again!), dinner at my parent's home, touring Saint Peter's Village and other surrounding towns, and doing some shopping for great deals.

Halloween!

Halloween was a blast!  I was Olive Oyl, Daisy was a pumpkin, Ben was Sherlock Holmes, and Carter was an evil bunny.  Halloween was sort of hectic because Tom's brother Michael and his girlfriend Julie flew in the night before so we had to do some last minute shopping, baking, and decorating.  And I didn't get to take as many photographs as I would have liked, and in the midst of everything completely forgot to take a group shot :(

So cute!!!  I used to make fun of people who dressed their pets up for Halloween and now I'm one of them!!!

I also dressed in costume for work the Friday before Halloween.  The patrons loved it!

Family Day Hike

We went day hiking with the whole family today.  We hiked about 8 miles and stopped to enjoy the views at The Pinnacle and The Pulpit lookout points.  Gorgeous, gorgeous weather we had, too!

Highlights:  Carter and Ben discovered a cave under the rocks at The Pinnacle - very cool!  Daisy was off-leash for most of the hike and did so well!  Ivy lost her earring and then Carter and Ivy decided to sacrifice the other one in memory of the trip.  Mom brought Daisy a yummy bone to chomp on while at The Pinnacle, but it found its way into a deep, dark hole that none of us were brave enough to stick our hands down to retrieve it.  Poking around with a stick didn't yield any luck, either.  Stopped at a pizza parlor afterwards for dinner.  

Flashback, 1989 or 1990

Photo Books

I recently made three photo books using different services for each one.  I used Blurb, Shutterfly, and Apple.  Each of them have pros and cons, although I guess I would say that for the price, Shutterfly produces a great product with high quality photo paper and bound well.  Below are my notes for each product.

Blurb (MV '09 - hardcover w/ dust jacket) - high quality photo paper, well-produced picture quality, easy to use formatting program, easy to share book, nicely bound, comes with dust jacket OR picture wrapped cover option, most expensive.

Shutterfly (One Week in America - hardcover w/ picture wrap) - high quality photo paper, well produced picture quality, most difficult formatting program, nicely bound, picture wrapped cover (no dust jacket option), least expensive.  

Apple (Daisy - softcover) - high quality photo paper, well produced picture quality, easy to use formatting program, softcover binding is flimsy, second most expensive.

A Weekend in the Woods

We spent the weekend with friends in Mansfield, PA where we stayed in a hunting cabin outfitted with 8 bunk beds, a full fire place, and a double seater outhouse on the property.  The other girls and I couldn't build enough courage to use the outhouse and therefore had to make many trips into town.  The lack of a shower didn't bother us though... we had moist facial wipes and bottled water for teeth brushing, a luxurious experience that made us feel like new women afterwards.

The highlight of our trip was our hike at Tioga State Forest on the loveliest day ever.  The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect.  We hiked a trail that zig-zagged down to the river where we frolicked for a while.  The river water was refreshing on our feet and the dogs enjoyed splashing around.  We decided to be a little more adventurous on the way back up and stray off the trail to climb the steep hills between the zig-zags.  This plan wasn't well thought out as a few of us (including myself) became stuck when we didn't have anything to grab onto to help ourselves us up the VERY steep hill.  When we finally made it up the hill and back onto the trail, we decided that the climb was fun and exhilarating, but not worth trying again.