Redskins

For the past several years we've had Redskins season tickets with some friends.  Sadly, we've decided this is the last year as season ticket holders.  Between the cost of the tickets, tailgating/concessions and now babysitting - it is A LOT.  Not to mention that the team has been doing terribly and ticket prices go down throughout the season so it would actually be less to just buy tickets as needed.

Our distribution of the games for this season rocks - home opener and all the division games!  Last weekend we headed to the home opener against the Dolphins.  It was a perfect day for tailgating and we made the most of it which helped make up for the loss to the Dolphins.  Boo!

Here we are in our annual photo...

Clearly time for me to get a new shirt!

Up next is the Eagles game on Oct 4!  We have a good mix of Eagles and Skins friends so should make for an interesting day!

Ocean Dunes Water Park

Earlier in the summer, I entered to win passes to one of Northern Virginia's water parks and in early August I found out I won - hooray! Thanks Our Kids for offering these great raffles.  After we got back from all our vacation travels, I checked out the passes and was surprised to see that one of the parks was located just a few minutes away from our house; I was also surprised to see that the water parks all close after Labor Day weekend, which was a week away - yikes!

We made plans to head over to Ocean Dunes Water Park on Monday afternoon of Labor Day weekend, the last day of the season. As soon as we got out of the car and Mason saw the water, he went crazy and was having a tantrum while we waited in line.  We need a plan to control this kid around water!

We got into the park and it was packed!  There were three pools - a kiddie wadding pool, a lap pool and a regular pool.  There were also water slides and a large water feature that I don't even know how to explain - picture below.  Mason bee-lined for the the water feature and we spend the afternoon going back and forth between that and the kiddie pool.  We wrapped up the outing with some ice cream.  

Ocean Dunes was a great way to end the summer and now that we know it is here, I'm sure we'll be back multiple times next summer. Hopefully next year, Mason will reach the height requirement for the slides!

National Book Festival

I've been in super catch up mode at work after three weeks of vacation so I have a backlog of blog entries...good problem to have I think!

For the past 7 years I've been volunteering at the National Book Festival with the Junior League of Washington, DC.  The DC chapter of JL focuses on literacy and this is one of our most visible events in the community with 350-600 volunteers annually; its also my favorite volunteer event!  Most years I have been volunteering as a captain in the book signing lines, which is exactly as it sounds - authors sign their fan's book and I manage moving people through the line with a team of other volunteers to support me.  For the popular authors, people will line up hours in advance so you have a lot of time to talk to folks.  My favorite experience at the Book Festival was in 2012 - I had John Green as one of my authors.  He had @ 1400 young adults in his line. I spent hours talking to the kids about why they love John's books and how they relate to themes and characters.  Some of the kids cried when they met him - it was amazing!  We got to a point where John had about 5 minutes left to sign books and there were still 100+ kids in the line.  He asked to have everyone stand sideways in line and open their books to the page they want signed.  He got up and walked down the side of the line, furiously signing the books and he got every single book signed!  Huge cheers and applause broke out when he was done. Since then I've been working my way through his books, and now movies!  I have become a huge fan and I love that day and experience.

This year I had Al Roker of the Today Show fame.  I do not have a good track record of meeting celebrities - I get nervous and tongue tied but I was quite pleased with my Al interaction!  He was kind, quiet, and had awesome style!  

This was a different experience than I've had in the past because of his celeb status people were as excited or in some cases more excited to have a photo op than to have their book signed. Anyway, despite 12 hours of being on my feet, managing 6 author's signings, and running up and down the lines it was a great day.

We just found out next year's festival will be Sept 24 at the Convention Center - save the date and I hope to see you there! 

Talking with my Mouth Full

Every year I make a slew of New Years Resolutions, one of which is always "read a book a month". Most years I end up reading half the books over summer vacations but meet the overall goal of twelve within the year so it counts, right?!?! For the last two years, I have failed miserably at this resolution. When I have a few minutes at the end of the day, I'm exhausted and just want to watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory that I've already watched 10 times.

I'm happy to share that I just finished Talking with My Mouth Full by Gail Simmons. Sadly, this is only the second book this year - I have a lot of reading to do in the next 4 months! I love the show Top Chef where Gail is a judge and have ways wondered who is this lady and what gives her the right to critique these people and their food. The answer is in her book and she has an amazing career in the culinary industry. Early on in the book, Gail shares that while trying to determine her professional direction a family friend told her to write down what she loves. Eat, write, travel, cook - and that was the start of it all.

I'm feeling very inspired post reading this! My sister and I have dreams that we'll start an events business where she runs the event logistics and I run the business side.  I think we need to get back to this plan.......