DC

I'm here in DC for a conference for work, M and I came down last week Thursday to get in some sightseeing. Then starting Monday, it was down to business and M flew home while I attend session after session. A few observations we had of DC....

1. There are as many Starbucks here as there are Dunkin' Donuts in Boston.
2. People here are much friendlier...much much friendlier.
3. The Hyatt is nickle and diming us.
4. Chinatown is very un-Chinatown like with a serious lack of any Chinese food.

Here's the run down of things done and meals eaten:
Restaurants:
Capitol City Brewery (Penn Quarter) Bonus--got to keep my margarita shaker and they threw in a pint glass for Hubbleson!
Woodley Cafe (Adams-Morgan area)
Rosa Mexicana (Penn Quarter) Our best meal in DC
Haad Thai (Penn Quarter)
Sports Tavern--I swear this was the official name
Ristorante Luigino
Cure--in our hotel...so not worth it and we had a really overzealous waiter that I swore was about to hug M when we left.
Potbelly's (Penn Quarter)

Sights seen:
National Zoologic Park
White House
Lincoln Memorial
Vietnam Wall
World War II Monument
Korean War Memorial
Jefferson Memorial
Hirshorn Sculpture Garden
Hirshorn Museum
National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
National Gallery of Art
United States Botanical Garden
Capitol

More later...I have a session beginning soon. Oh, I've made much progress on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan even after frogging it once because it was mammoth the first time around!

Wii Fit and Knit

Knitting news first. I was pleased to see that someone marked one of the sweaters I've made and shown in Ravelry marked it as a favorite! This was the troublesome sweater that I had to seek help from a fellow knitter in the UK who I'm immensely grateful for! In other sweater news, I was making the Little Star sweater and we are now a on break...I made it up until the neckline and the tip of the star is askew from the center of the neck band and I have no idea why and I'm too frustrated at this point to look into it further so it will most likely require ripping out and starting over which I think I'm unwilling to do.

I have recently started on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan with Cascade Sierra yarn. My gauge is bigger than what they call for in the pattern so I'm risking it and going down a size in the pattern. I'm not sure at this point if I'm actually going to do the yoke pattern or just make a cardigan. I would post a pic but Ravelry makes you post pics on Flickr and I always seem to have issues getting pics to import from there. I tried it three times the other night and no go. Come on Ravelry people....there's gotta be a better way!

Wii fit! Ok, this is more fun, more addicting, and more useful than I thought it would be. Being a researcher, they had me at graph! The idea of having my weight and BMI calculated on the giant TV screen while M watched was daunting at first but I powered through! There are several categories of workouts...aerobics, yoga, strength and balance. The more you do, the more they increase the reps and you can also unlock other exercises as you advance. And to stoke my competitive nature, M and I are ranked against each other. So far he's better on all of the balance ones but is struggling all over the place trying to do tree pose saying that 'My leg doesn't bend like that!'

Oh, another thing...after it calculated our body weight it says 'Ow' when M and I step on. Bastards!

Vermont...In Two Parts

Not this weekend but the weekend before, M and I went to visit the inlaws and extended family. We left on Saturday morning because I needed to make some orange mocha brownies. Here's my issue with the recipe...it calls for Coffee Extract as if this is a real product. I googled it, nothing. McCormick site, nothing. Penzeys? Nope. My mother in law suggested making some triple strength coffee and adding that, I did that and doubled the amount and I couldn't taste the coffee at all. The other issue is that the recipe calls for both Grand Marnier (weighing in at $18 a bottle) and orange zest. I wondered if I could have just used the orange zest because when the heck am I going to use this Grand Marnier? Anyway, they were fine, nothing exceptional.

The extended family came over for a little grill out so it was nice to see everyone since we hadn't seen them since Christmas. On Sunday, we took a walk out into the woods before we left. For your viewing pleasure:



























































































Last weekend, we thought "What could sound more appealing but to drive another 3.5 hours? Let's go to the other side of Vermont!" So off we were again, this time to spend the weekend with our friends in Burlington for M's birthday. On Saturday we attended the Magic Hat Block Party on Church Street and did a little bit of shopping and walked through the farmer's market..

The highlight of the weekend was the general lack of a planned itinerary and this stuff:

What is it, snow? you might ask? Let me remind you we are suffering through a dewpoint of 70 so that's a no. It's cottonish stuff floating down from trees everywhere. It looked like it was snowing without all of the bitter cold and post snow pick up.