Adventures of a Bathtub

I went to my brother's to watch the Indy 500 this past weekend...little did I know what other adventures we'd get ourselves into...
My brother has a new foster - 'Shark'. Now I understand why he always has only butt pictures...
He's hard to get a good picture of...
But 20 pictures later I finally did...
Couldn't leave out Zuni...
Boy do they sleep in weird positions...
So now to start the bathtub part of the story...there once was a bathtub in an alley of Baltimore...
And a matching sink and toilet...
So my brother decided to grab it and make a planter for his 'yard'...
He had lots of helpers...My brother's yard and the bathtub's new home...
My dad brought over some dirt from his yard...
And now the bathtub is growing peppers, tomatoes, and basil...
Then we took the hounds for a walk around Hopkins Bayview hospital...
The kids had fun at the Labyrinth...
Karsten doesn't look too happy about the whole bathtub thing tho...
Corrin and Max...
Look, Karsten smiling! (what you can't see is the blue cookie that my brother is playing airplane with to get him to finish it)...
And just for Corrin...

Lost Dog in DC

Another lost dog...if you live in DC, please take a look:
http://communitymattersdc.blogspot.com/2009/05/our-neighbors-need-help.html

Embassy Tours

A few weekends ago, family came to visit for an early bday celebration, and it was Embassy Open House weekend. So we went to a few...

1st stop: Sri Lanka, had some Sri Lankan tea
2nd stop: Serbia
My brother and mom out front
3rd stop: Benin (right next door to Serbia)They had a big party going on - food, drinks, dancing (see video at bottom)
and artwork on display inside
had to take a pic of the water one:)We were going to stop at Venezuela...
...but the line was too long and they had cut it off since it was too close to closing time
4th stop: Zambia, since the line was much shorter
They had lots of items on display as well (my mom and hubby looking at them)
Across the street, there was a big party at South Korea, which we didn't go to
What's this? The Embassy of Wyoming?
Lastly, saw a couple of cool elephants on the walk back home

Camping in Shenandoah Nat'l Park

Last weekend, to celebrate being done with my semester, I went camping in Shenandoah National Park. I went with two friends, and we joined a meetup.com group, so we met everyone else for the first time. We camped at Big Meadows...On the drive up on Friday night after work, we saw soooo many deer! Here's one close-up that we saw the next day...
We didn't see any bear, but one couple did on their drive into the park...we must have just missed it, because we weren't too far behind them...
It was Wildflower Weekend, which is why we went camping there, so Saturday morning we went on a ranger led 'wildflower hike'...



We were probably about a week too early for there to be a lot of wildflowers...here are some not so great wildflower close-ups...


Me, Heather, and Marc at the overlook, our turnaround point on the ranger led wildflower hike...
Snail checking out out the overlook...it's a long way down...
Another overlook along the hike, looking west...
Had a picnic lunch at yet another overlook, with our new friends Eric and Catherine...
Waterfall we hiked to on our 2nd hike Saturday afternoon...although we were told later that this wasn't the 'big one'...maybe we should have stayed with the ranger for this hike...
We found two black cobras just off the trail...
And what's this?
Oh, it's just a toad...but of course we all had to take photos...
So after getting a little lost (another reason we should have stayed with the ranger), we ended up hiking an extra three miles back to our campsite (not our cars mind you, those were still at the overlook where we started)...but we got to hike across the 'Big Meadow'...
We saw a few deer...and of course had to get more photos...
Cool tree...
Almost back to our campsite...
Starting up the fire to make dinner...I need to get me one of those...

Our campsite...
Playing cribbage...
Cooking dinner...couscous with red potatoes...
We headed home Sunday after packing up camp...stopped at some overlooks on the way out of the park...looking west, toward Shenandoah Mtn/Valley/River...
Heather & Marc...
Heather and I...
Looking east...
Required dead tree pic...
Marc snuggling with the Reynolds wrap in the back seat on the drive home...
If anyone wants to go camping this summer...let me know...I'm going to organize another trip...