No grass under my feet

Over the next several weeks I will be traveling several thousand miles. This past week I traveled to Connecticut/Newport, Rhode Island for my sister's college graduation and yesterday I was in New York City for the day. We are spending Memorial Day in ocean City, Maryland with some dear friends and then I will be spending part of the week of June 9th in California for a conference and then going back to New York City the week of the 15th. Less than two weeks later we will be going to Georgia. Honestly - I'm tired just thinking about it!

This past weekend was full of celebrating in honor of my sister Brittany completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island. Our grandmother flew up from South Florida to spend the weekend with us and I am lucky that I just saw her a few months ago in the Sunshine State.

   

We had lunch on the Newport dinner train which at times felt like the sinking Titanic because the track was a bit angled in some spots. Even though I ride the train to and from work everyday, I have never had a gourmet seafood meal and cheesecake while in transit. We went around the Narragansett Bay on the same rails that were once taken by the wealthy from Boston with homes on the Rhode Island coast.

                         

                          

Then we walked to the harbor and boarded the Majestic for a cruise around the Bay. It was pretty foggy at the beginning, but it did start to clear up. Something funny was on my camera lens so unfortunately several of my photos (boat one above) have a mark on them. We went by the oldest and second oldest lighthouses, in the U.S. I think, and also by the estate where Senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier were married in 1953.

Graduation Day was Sunday and the second Campbell child received her college degree!

Being at her graduation made me think back on mine and I don't remember anything about the ceremony except walking across the stage to receive my diploma and Blair whispering to me since she was seated behind me. I don't remember who the speaker was, but I'm sure a Dean spoke as well as Clemson President James Barker. URi invited John King of CNN to this graduation and I enjoyed listening to him talk about his past as a URI student working for the AP in providence and Boston. His AP job actually caused him to miss his URI graduation - this is the first one he has ever attended.

My sister is going to be working for a year and then attending graduate school to become a Child Life Specialist. I hope she finds/earns/enjoys lots of success!!

Facebook Birthdays

On Monday I celebrated a birthday. I am now old enough to rent a car without paying any extra fees. When I was a senior in high school and wanted to drive to Myrtle Beach for Spring break that seemed like the best method for traveling. Alas, no one was old enough so we never went. Now I don't even want to rent a car!

Last year my birthday fell on a Saturday and I went with Brad, my mom, and some other relatives to an Orioles game with the Clemson alumni club. It was great fun. This year, my birthday fell on a Monday which didn't really make it seem like a birthday. Does that make sense? Since Facebook came to Clemson in 2004, I have been keeping "in the know" about what "friends" are doing, their families, their jobs, vacations, etc. Well on my birthday I could not believe that more than 75 of these FF (Facebook friends) took a few moments out of their day to send birthday wishes my way.

It made me think about how, to be honest, I do not send many birthday wishes on Facebook, but I do call my close friends and/or send them and/or their children cards. I think I should pay more attention to the birthday list on the right side of the facebook homepage because if these FF were able to bring joy to my day, I should do it for them too.

I was also a little intrigued by the FF who sent messages. of course I had cousins, aunts, and close friends, but there were also old friends, like from elementary school and college friends, who I'm not in touch with anymore, don't know why sometimes, and looking back it is so trivial, but regardless they decided to say Happy Birthday. I have started to shy away from facebook, or at least I think I have, but now I think that even if I don't personally think it is a "proper" way to keep in touch, sometimes you ened to take what you can get from friends who may not be in your life otherwise.

Thanks everyone for distracting me at work on Monday as I kept getting Facebook alerts ;)

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Ours grows with lots of hard work and the help of my expert gardener husband!!

If you saw the last issue of Southern Living and the beautiful hydrangeas maintained by one southern man (yes, I said man), then you know why I love these plants. When we moved to Virginia in 2007 I was surprised by a large hydrangea that had the deepest periwinkle flowers in June and I knew I wanted to plant my own. This weekend, after reading about the type of light they like best, etc, we bought three of them. Consider them birthday gifts for me :). Last year we planted trees and this year we opted for two beautiful deep pink hydrangeas, a blue one, and a bright pink peony for the sunny side of the house.

Did you know that hydrangeas are known to bloom right around Mother's Day? Well, this was exciting news for me because that means they should always look nice right around the time of my birthday (May 10th). As you can see, our pink ones are in full bloom right now and our blue one is a few days behind. Last night I noticed some of the flowers opening up so I will take another picture once that happens.

In order to plant our new bushes, we had to till the ground, dig an edge, and mulch the flowerbed. Brad is a perfectionist, which is usually quite helpful, so he did the edging and I raked, shoveled and planted everything. I even buried an old rusty hook in the hole for the blue plant since it is supposed to make the color of the flowers better due to the acid content.

I am happy with how it looks and can't wait for them to keep growing. It sure is nice to see them everytime I pull into the driveway!

Good Friends are Gems

I know that good friends are hard to come by. I have had one or two experiences in a handful of years that really proved that to me. Although I wish things with friends never had to end, sometimes they do, and there is nothing left to be done. I think that sometimes new friends are brought into your life at precisely the right time.

For me, Blair is one of those friends. Althrough we knew each other at Clemson via Sigma Pi (oh the memories!), the sumemr I was living in Hilton Head as a nanny I called her to go out. And so it began. Since the summer of 2005 Blair and I have remained very close friends. We talk on the phone at least twice a week, send each other funny pictures of our pets and enjoy sending thoughtful cards to each other.

This past winter, Blair started planning a trip up to Maryland to stay at our new home and see the sights of Washington. The only other time she visitied this area was for our wedding, but I kept her so busy as a bridesmaid that of course she didn't have a chance to see the city. I sure did change that!

She visited the weekend of April 16th and I can't remember when I walked so many miles in one day (not including a race or exercise). After the "scheduled" delay flights from ATL always seem to have, we stopped for mojitos/sangria in Rockville before heading back to our house. Can't remember the last time I laughed so much at dinner while reading a book, but we won't talk about those details ;). On saturday morning we caught the metro to downtown and after I showed Blair my office we started the 16+ block walk to Georgetown. We had lunch at a restaurant along the waterfront and I got my soup for free since they brought the wrong kind, which made it even better! I had never been to this area in the daytime and enjoyed it just as much as Blair. After walking through some stores, we got in line at Georgetown Cupcake where we both enjoyed our first cakes from the infamous shop. Very delightful! We headed back towards the White House and I took her to the Washington Monument, Lincoln and WWII. We even had time to go through a few exhibits at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural history before heading towards the Capitol as the sun was going down. One last uphill walk to Union Station later and we were on our way home.

We spent a few hours in annapolis on Sunday since it is close to BWI airport and it was already time for Blair to go back to Atlanta. I had a wonderfult ime with her and look forward to another fun weekend in a few months (hopefully)!

Decorating Updates

Been lazy with my blog lately...sorry about that! In the past few weeks I have done a few decorating-related things. Brad installed a fan in our bedroom and I'm very pleased with the way it looks. It has also been nice since we have had the windows open the past week. I finally found bedding for the guest bedroom, just in time for our wave of weekend guests.

Also hung a collage of wedding photos in our living room above the couch. One day I know it won't be all about wedding photos, but right now I really enjoy having them on display, especially since it is a little bit delayed since we were in a small apartment immediately following our wedding.

Friends Galore

I am THRILLED that in the next four months, Brad and I will be seeing all of our closest friends and my family. I know that happened at our wedding, but understandably there was so much going on and this time it is happening over a period of a few months.

Brad's good friend from grad school and his wife are coming down from Philadelphia to spend next weekend with us. The weekend after that my mom is coming down (also happens to be her birthday). The weekend of April 16th one of my besties is coming up from Atlanata and she has never been to DC! After that we have my sister's college graduation in May and then our "it is becoming annual tradition" trip to Georgia to stay with a handful of friends and their significant others including my other bestie and her toddler and #2 pregnant belly. I guess I can't complain about not seeing friends this year! Feel blessed :)

Sunny Escape

From snow to the sun! I found out on Thursday that I will be attending our Annual Meeting this week in Boca Raton (pic of resort below). I cannot wait to escape the snow for a few days. Our schedule is full of meetings and various sessions, but at least I should be able to run outside every morning and I am positive that I won't see any snow for a whole week. Off to finish packing!