SNOW DAY!!!

Here are some pictures of our park and Chopper's and my snow day. This is the most snow that we have had here since John and I moved to Baltimore. My university is closed today for 3.5 inches of snow! Yeah!

Chopper had a lot of fun bounding through the snow. We ran around the park like crazy people. It was a lot of fun.

Whistle Stop, Baltimore!

This weekend was Barak Obama's Whistle Stop train tour. He started in Philadelphia, went through Wilmington, Delaware to pick up Joe and his wife and then came to Baltimore to make a speech. After the Baltimore stop they went on to D.C.

Everyone got into the spririt of things:

We live about 1 mile from the train station and the street in front of our apartment building and several other streets around our neighborhood were completely shut down. You couldn't park your car on the street and when it got close to the time they were going to be here, you were not even allowed to be on the street.

Barak was going to give his speech at 4:15, so we left at 3:00 to go down to the War Memorial Plaza. We had to go through a metal detector, which went surprisingly quickly. There were quite a few people there, but I think that the cold weather kept a lot of people away.

Morgan State choir performed before the president elect showed up. They were very entertaining.

When Obama arrived (on time, which was surprising) there were about 4 people that were introduced before him. Every time a new person was introduced and it wasn't Obama the whole crowd groaned. It was pretty funny. Some people had been there since 1:00 pm, so I think they were getting cold and crabby.

Obama's speech was very good, short and sweet. I was very glad that we went.

Another project finished

A friend of mine is having a baby in February, so I have been working on a baby sweater for her and I've just finished it:

Front

Close Up of the Design

Back

Chickies Rock, PA

To start the new year out, John and I thought we would go on a hike. Last year we had a goal of hiking 100 miles, we fell short by 2 miles. This year we are starting early, so we can be sure and get to 100.

In my Structural Geology class last semester, we were supposed to have taken a field trip to Chickies Rock in Pennsylvania, but it was cancelled due to weather. So I drug John out to visit the largest anticline on the East Coast: Chickies Rock. It was a nice day, the sun was shining and the temperature was about 36 degrees. We made it to the top of the formation and got a great view of the Susquehanna River.

Chopper had no problem negotiating the rock formation - I think he's part mountain goat.

We were planning to also hike along the river to view the rocks from below, but in Pennsylvania it is still hunting season and we didn't have any bright orange, so we decided to not hike further. One mile down and 99 to go!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year! We did not go out on New Year's Eve, just stayed in and watched Robbie Knievel jump over a fake volcano on a motorbike on tv. As you can see, Chopper was very impressed:

The New Year's Extravaganza in downtown Baltimore was postponed because of wind. Apparently the organizers did not want searing hot fireworks to fly into the crowd and cause irreparable harm. So, they had them on New Year's Day at 7 pm. We went to that. It was a great show.Watch a short video:

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! John and I roasted up a tofurkey and potatoes and cracked open a can of cranberries.

After we had recovered from our Thanksgiving feast we went to Washington, D.C. to visit the American History Museum that has been closed for three years for renovations. I did not see the old museum, but I was not impressed with the new one. Perhaps it was the massive amounts of people that were there and the disappointment of the First Lady exhibit not being open yet, but I did not really like the museum.

It was a very nice day out and we walked from the Capitol Building down to the Lincoln Memorial and back. That's about a 3 mile walk! It was very interesting because they were already getting ready for the Inaguration and building the stage and bleachers.

You can kind of see the stage on the very bottom of this picture.

We've been to D.C. many times, but we still haven't been to all of the monuments and places to see. This time we walked up to the Washington Monument and got a good look at that. The marble was pretty cool - I saw some pyrite in it.

Great Falls, Va and Md

On November 23, John and I went to Great Falls, Va and Md to have a memeorial to John's sister Tami. It was such a beautiful day. In the picture above, we are standing on the Virginia side of the Potomac. There were a bunch of kayakers going over the falls.

This is the flood levels of past years. As you can see in the background the river is very far off and low. I can't imagine the floods getting up to these points! As recently as 1996 the levels got quite high.

On the Maryland side, we crossed the falls over a bridge and tossed in the flowers. The bridge railings were a little wobbly, so it was quite exciting to lean over and watch the water rush by.