Posts Tagged ‘travel’
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
As I alluded to in the previous post, Aviva took her first trip to the East Coast last month. Joelle had a conference for work in Baltimore, and since both her parents live in the area, she made an extended trip out of it, spending time at each of their houses, and took advantage of getting Aviva some excellent grandparent time during the conference days as the grandparents played nanny (quite excellently, I might add). I had to work at the beginning of the trip, so this also served as Joelle and Aviva’s first time flying together solo – quite successfully, from what I am told. I joined midway through, and got to spend some nice time exploring Baltimore (National Aquarium, Inner Harbor, etc…) along with a quite wonderful weekend in Potomac, MD with Joelle’s dad and stepmom (and new dog Waldo – quite a character!).
As always, pictures tell the story:
Tags:aviva, baltimore, dc, travel
Posted in Aviva Tzipora Averbuch, family, travel | No Comments »
Saturday, July 12th, 2008
Over the 4th of July weekend, we decided to take a trip up to Whidbey Island, for a few reasons:
- It is close, only an hour or so away (including ferry time), so it was easy on my back for travel.
- Our friends Shannon and Damon have an amazing house they built on the Island – and by that, I mean built by hand: “hammer, hammer, saw, saw”. It was great to see them and spend time with them, and their new son, Griffin (and their dog, Ebey). They are great college friends, who we do not spend nearly enough time with.
- Because we stayed with them, I knew I could rest as much as my back needed to; taking breaks regularly to lay flat, etc… and not feeling obligated to do too much.
- We happen to just really like Whidbey Island – artsy, beautiful, friendly, and close.
- And of course, get Molly away from the loud bangs of illegal (and legal) fireworks.
- In particular, Greg and Clodagh had called out, on a past trip, the wonders of Double Bluff Beach’s off leash dog park on Whidbey – a few mile long open beach for off-leash access. We wanted to get Molly into the water again.
- I have been cooped up in the house for a while now – I was looking forward to just getting out of here for a weekend as I move back into working more.
It was just what we needed – it fit all of those goals above, and we are really super-appreciative of the Arndt’s for hosting us. Molly had a fantastic time too – she got to run around their property, go swimming, get lots of fun new treats, and just be one happy (and tired!) dog.
Pictures – click for larger ones as usual:
People:
Dogs:
Arndt House:
Videos – might need to visit the actual blog post to view:
Tags:dog, dog park, dogs, double bluff beach, ferry, fireworks, Molly, travel, video, videos
Posted in friends, Molly, seattle, travel | No Comments »
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Joelle and I made it back into town, very safe, but also, very sleepy. Will discuss more about the trip (it was great) once we get pictures online, but that’s a job for another day. Instead, I am just mindlessly catching up on a few things before heading for bed. Having the daylight savings time change the night we come back into town is actually good – it means only having to adjust one, so yeah us for scheduling this way!
Things I always need to catch up on when I come back into town:
- Microsoft Money – Balance the checkbook/credit cards/etc… (DONE!)
- Personal Email – we checked some while we were gone, so only 125 emails to read through, though must are junk (DONE!) (note: this does not include sending any to people, just reading)
- Work Email – monday. not going to get to until then.
- Blogs (Google Reader): 5000 articles to read through. A quick scan of things I don’t care about got me down to 200 or so to actually read. Will do that in the morning.
- Miles (MileTracker): Most useful program ever to track frequent flyer mileage. Our first flights came through already (SEA->EWR->TLV), but not the others yet.
- TV: Lots to watch. The DVR awaits!
- Sleep. Time to do just that!
Tags:catching up, jet lag, travel, vacation
Posted in travel | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Again, information likely only interesting to me; the random selection of stuff I am bringing on the planes to read (Joelle will read much of it, but she also has her own book or so). If you remember from previous posts, I tend to like to bring magazines, so I can leave them behind at the airport, etc… without feeling bad. So I’ve been saving these up for a bit (and most are from free subscriptions from airline miles):
As usual, you make the case of what this means about me!
Tags:reading, travel, vacation
Posted in books, travel | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Back to the States from Paris, United offers a bit more variety as well:
www.united.com/movie/listingpage/0,6752,8_3,00.html
Chicago to Seattle portion, which is our final routing, is back to one of the movies we may have already seen on El-Al. Oh well:
www.united.com/movie/listingpage/0,6752,1_3,00.html
Tags:flying, movies, travel, vacation
Posted in travel | No Comments »
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
We’re heading to the Seattle Home Show later this afternoon with our friends Mike and Elisabeth, our usual partners in crime for this particular event. We haven’t always had a great need to visit the show, as it is mostly focused on remodeling, landscaping, building, etc… but it is always a great place to get ideas and advice (though often, the companies who can afford to participate charge more than I am willing to spend; it is the gotcha of these types of events). There are a few things I am looking for this time though:
- Electricians to bid on replacing the remaining 25% of our house which is still Knob and Tube wiring (all safe, but insurance companies seem to want to get you to get rid of the stuff, plus, our light bulbs burn out quicker than they should, which is just plain annoying). We’ve received one bid from an electrician who I have worked with in the past, but for something of this magnitude, we’d want a couple more bids.
- Insulation experts/weatherproofing. Our gas bill is higher than I would like, especially given that our basement is freezing. A bunch of this I can likely do myself, and it is on my list to learn, but some stuff (blowing in wall-insulation, for example), is clearly in need of professional assistance.
- Roof cleaning (gutters/moss/etc…) We’re in pretty good shape up there, but before next fall, I’d like to get a good cleanup done. Seems like I could do this myself, but Joelle has no interest in me getting on the roof; frankly, she’s right – I don’t trust myself that much either!
I am sure there are other services out there as well; one nice thing is that even though these companies are expensive, they tend to have pretty good promotional deals offered if you book at the show. I assume this is even more so during the last few hours of the event (which is when we’ll be there). If they haven’t hit their numbers, I assume they might be a little more willing to play "let’s make a deal!" Let’s hope so!
Tags:flying, movies, travel, vacation
Posted in housing, seattle | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later- actual written time, 7:06 PM, Dec 11)
Sitting in the middle seat on my flight back (we got to the airport early so we took middle seats through standby in exchange for getting home an hour early), I realized quite a few things bother me about flying these days, so might as well enumerate them:
- Coach seats (at least on Alaska Airlines) has absolutely zero room for laptops. Seriously, it is so crowded to be typing on these things – the keyboard area is pushing into my stomach, the screen is folded over to be even able to fit, and the tray is at a very unergonomic height, so my arms don’t feel so comfortable. If I were a common business traveler, perhaps a smaller laptop would help – I’ll have to try bringing the work mac-book with me next time, as it’s much smaller.
- Whatever happened to dinner on planes? Especially when they fly from that key 6-9 pm hours. When exactly are you supposed to eat dinner if you need to board at 5:15 or so?
- No two TSA people say the same thing – one says to put your boarding pass away, the other says “reminder: we need to see your boarding pass”, the video playing says both at the same time! Plus, people take way, way too long taking their shoes on and off.
- Middle seats suck!
- Why don’t all planes have that movable headrest so you can make your own personal sleeping area? It can’t cost the airline more than 50 cents extra per seat once at airplane purchase time to put those in. Makes me want to fly Continental, the only airline I know of that has those.
- The food in airports is just not good. Granted they have a captive audience, but couldn’t someone come up with a decent, ubiquitous eating venue? Especially for vegetarians. McDonald’s and/or an awful caesar’s salad just don’t cut it.
- Finally, airlines – stop seating me next to talkers. Really. I am all about striking up random conversations with people in most situations. But there are two I want people to just shut up – airplanes and barbers (cut my hair, in and out, no need to find out my or your lifestory).
On a random note, I did run into the condo upstair’s neighbor randomly at the airport. It has been a good week for my goal of running into people I know at places – 3 or 4 different people at the Seahawks game on Sunday (including Pure‘s CEO), and now this. Also found out 2 or 3 more people from high school have moved to Seattle, and I didn’t even know about it – weird; I usually know these things.
Tags:dining, flying, food, school, seahawks, seattle, security, travel, video
Posted in travel | No Comments »
Joelle and Aviva spent the first part of the trip at Grandma Sue's in Virginia - had a great time!
Got to ride a train around Burke Lake Park
Went to the AAPA Conference (American Association of Pathologists' Assistants) in Baltimore, where Aviva met some of Joelle's old grad school friends
Spent Labor Day weekend in Potomac with Grandpa Allan, Grandma Barbara, and their new dog, Waldo! Waldo was quite intrigued by Aviva, and the feeling was mutual :)
Smiley time with Grandma Barbara!
Aunt Amanda came in for the weekend to see Aviva; she got to see Aviva's new game of "everything goes in the mouth!"
Took Grandpa Allan and Grandma Barbara out for their anniversary for some very good Lebanese Food
Aviva had a great time at Girls Shopping Day out!
Took a great trip to the National Zoo to see the animals
Had to cover Aviva's eyes for this one!
Just relaxing on vacation!
More relaxing :)
