Mom's First Ren Fest!

Today (Sunday, to be honest) Russell woke up gawd-awful-early (...but then so does Mom) and spent some time on the computer...

..then he ran upstairs, jumped on the bed (waking up Garry and me) and said, "Hey!  Let's take Mom to the Ren-Fest!  It's Pirate-Day"  Ok...        So we did.

Well, the day started out rainy and it drizzled on us for most of the morning, although later on in the day it dried up and turned sunny.  Here's just a wild selection of photographs, in no particular order....

(Not Ale or Mead....Coffee.  It's cold today!)

(Garry..always searching for a sexy bear...finds this one!)

But then he found a bear he liked even more....

(Pirate Bear is rated "Arrrrrrr!")

We saw lots of shows..

(The Johnny Fox show is a treasure.)

(O - "A Fool" - demonstrates that simple skits can be entertaining.
Here he plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on a saw.)

(Lunch time!  Everyone has  a bite of gyros!)

(And potato chip.  1...really long chip!)

(Then for dessert..chocolate-covered cheescake on a stick!)

(There were a few scary sights....)

(Then we watched some jousting...)

A bit of video...


MD RenFest Joust from Damian Hart on Vimeo.

  Garry wanted to buy some costume items. He's going for "Druid / Green Man"

 

 (With his Froggy-staff...)
 Then we went to a spot in Odenton for dinner, then on to home. (Garry strikes a familiar pose...) And that was that day.---Monday morning, we were up at 430am...and drove Mom Edna to the airport.  =*(
The party is over.  It's back to work.

A Happy Mom Day

Mom Edna leaves on Monday which isn't going to make any of The Three of We happy.  She's been a delight on this trip, but we've had to work, Russ has worked on the lanai, I've gone to UB to work on Russ's PhD project.....well...there's been distractions.

But on Friday, Russ and Damian both took the day off work and spent the day with Mom.  In truth, he worked on the lanai and I worked on his PhD, etc., but we were still there during the day.  However, that evening we took her to a new place to eat...

Anytime Mom visits, we take her to some odd place to eat.  (Well..odd to her and her hillbilly background!)  We've taken her out for sushi and sashimi, she's had escargo on the cruise, ....it's always something.

So this time we took her to an Ethiopian restaurant!  From the "attempting to decypher the menu" to the incense, to the actual food, it was a great night.  And, once again, Mom discovered a new taste treat!

(Mom attempts to figure out the menu)

(The honey-wine arrives.  Toasts are made.)

(Russ internet shops while waiting.)

(The food arrives.  Mom notices a lack of silverware.  How do we eat this?)

(We show her how to rip of sections of the "bread"...)

(...and then pinch / grab the bits of food you want.)

(...halfway through the meal)

(The end of the meal.  It's all almost gone...)

We had a great meal, then we went home to enjoy a night in front of the firepit.  It was fun, but there was something wrong....

There we are..nighttime...fire.  Oh..and 2 computers!  Hehe!

Still it was a great night and we had a wonderful time.  Tomorrow night, the official christening of the lanai.

Lanai Nears Completion

Well, the project is nearly finished.  Russ and Anthony spent the day moving sawdust and rocks.  Then they moved the stones into place, creating the pattern that Russ and I (mostly Russ) plotted out.

Once they were in place, Russ swept the stones clean then started the next phase.  He once again covered the stones and the grooves this time with some sort of sand/silicone mixture that creates a sort of mortar when it's wetted down then dries.

As it started to dry we got out our bag of "sparklies" and began pressing them into various grooves and intersections.  The next day was sunny and the goo dried nicely.  So, that night---the last night of Summer as it turned out---we had an unofficial lighting.

The official christening takes place this Saturday with champagne, food, music, tiki-torches.

Ovo in DC

Tonight was the night we were all sort of waiting for.  Months ago we heard that Cirque du Soleil was bringing a new show, "Ovo," to the area.  So we bought 5 tickets then tried to figure out what to do with the extra two.  Ultimately we came up with the idea of flying Mom Edna out for the show so she could brag about "flying out to Baltimore to see a show!"  hehe.

With the extra ticket we tried to get Garry's gramma, Gramma Joyce, to go with us, but she was just never up to the trip.  We finally took Anthony, a young fellow who's been helping Russ with the lanai.

We drove down to DC, tried to get there in time for dinner, but didn't make it.  So dinner was Taco Bell.  Mmmmm.  Then it was on to the Grand Chapiteau for the show!

There's Mom Edna in front of the tent.  We got in with about 30 minutes to spare, so did a bit of souvenir shopping.  Everyone picked out a trinket for themselves.

Mom Edna got a coffee cup.  Garry selected a mask.  Anthony got a nifty sort of 'rasta skull cap thing.  Damian picked out a red shirt.  Russ bought the show's soundtrack (primarily for Damian because he likes the music.)  Plus, we kept the tickets to put in our scrap books.

(oops, forgot to put the CD in the picture)
As is usual for Cirque, the show was amazing.  My catch-phrase when describing their shows is: "It must be nice to just decide that gravity no longer applies to you."  They are always amazing.

After the show we got back in the car and headed back up the road to Bal'mer.  Along the way we stopped for coffee and ice-cream.  Then it was home, bed, and sleep-like-the-dead.

Mom Edna Arrives!

On Tuesday, September 14th, my Mom--Mom Edna to Russ and Garry--arrived in Baltimore! She'll be staying with us for a week or two and we've got a few things planned while she's here. Sadly, we really have to work most of the time, but we are arranging to take various days off to be with her.

First day here, however, Russ immediately puts her to work hauling stones for the lanai's firepit!

The lanai is coming along nicely, if slowly. We did have a few days of work meetings, trips to Six Flags, and rain, sohe didn't get it done in time for her visit. But it's getting there. The side "wings" are boxed out, more stones have been bought, the fire pit was lifted up another level, the base sand is down and smoothed out.

To make up for her enforced labor, he prepared a lovely faux-Chinese dinner.

Mostly, Mom has been in the following pose:

Kicked back, wearing jammies, cigarette in one hand, iPad in the other (reading books) with a cuppa-coffee within reach!  Hehe!  She seems very happy with that situation.   You go, Mom!

But it's not all sit at home and smoke/drink/read.  Last year, I hosted a "Talk Like A Pirate" happy hour at Howl at the Moon.  So, this year, the gang at work requested another.  As luck would have it, the date fell during the Mom-Visit, so I booked the show, gave out invitations, and bought some pirate gear to give away.  The night of the show arrived, we dressed up and went to Howl.  Here is Damian singing some song to his mom...loudly and badly.

And here's a picture of the entire gang having a great time at the party...

Wait...what's that?  You can't see the picture?  Maybe it's because NONE OF YOU BUMS SHOWED UP!  Not single one.  The entire time, it was just The Three of We, and Mom Edna.  Well...pbbbt!...on y'all.  We still ate our food, drank our drinks, sang our songs, and had fun!

(It's only fake outrage, everyone.  I know that half of you were out of town, half of you were babysitting minors, etc., etc)

Saturday morning, Garry and I slept in.  Russ and mom sneaked up early and got more work done on the lanai.

Soon...soon.

Saturday at Six Flags America

Today SAIC rented out Six Flags America for a company picnic day.  The three of we went and as a bonus took Garry's high-school buddy Cory.

Here we are, arriving at the park.

First stop was...the free beer stand!  

To keep things brief, let's just say there were many stops at the free beer stands...  We rode a few rides, then got I got the boys to pose in front of one of the coasters.

On our way to lunch we thought we'd stop for a quick tube ride.  The thing seemed calm enough.  You get in the tube, are dragged to the top, then sent on a leisurely float down the relaxing flume.

Or so we thought...what a surprise when we hit the flume.  Here's a little video of a boat coming out of the flume, with a hint of what went on for the entire duration of the ride...

SixFlags_BlizzardBlast from Damian Hart on Vimeo. 

After that it was lunch time.  Burgers, chicken, soda, ice-cream!  Yum, yum.

We rode a few more rides.  Here's a video of Garry and Cory on the Mind Eraser.


SixFlags_MindEraser from Damian Hart on Vimeo. Then Russ convinced us to get on a water-ride.  We got on one of those inner-tube white-water rides with a couple of nice ladies.  And of the six of us...Damian was the one who got absolutely soaked!  Here I am afterward, wringing the water out of my shirt.
  Russ and Cory acting up on one of the wooden coasters.  We came to the silly rainbow swing ride.  Of course, we had to go for a spin.  Here's Russ and Garry...

 
..but wait..where's Cory?  Perhaps this little video will give us a clue...

 
SixFlags_RainbowSwing from Damian Hart on Vimeo.
We rode another couple of coasters, then headed out.  We stopped at a mexican restaurant for food, then headed on home.  Garry struck his normal pose...
 

We got home.  Cory packed up and went home.

 

More Lanai Shots

Progress on the lanai continues.  I thought I'd add a few more shots.

You might remember that I mentioned we had a big, old, mostly-dead tree chopped down.  The guys who chopped it down cut it into large sections and left it.  So when Russ needed to bring home a load of sand or gravel, he'd rent a Home Depot truck, get the gravel, drop it off.  Then we drive the truck down to tree, prop a couple of beams against the bed of the truck to make a ramp, then roll the tree sections up the ramp and onto the truck.

That's the third truck full of wood that we loaded up and took to Garry's folks.

We came back from the last trip to find that Russ had begun laying out rock for the firepit.  He took a collection of what he called "flag stone" and made a jumbled-up creation.

I explained my understanding of the difference between "flag stone" and "field stone" and then explained that I didn't care for this style. I then described what I really had in mind.  He picked up some of the spare wall stones and tried a new style.

Much better!  We put our firepit ring on top to get a preview of how it will hopefully look when done.