Where does the time go….

Seems like the weekend was just beginning but it came and went and another is on the horizon.

The week nights are pretty quiet now that parade season has ended, but now our Weekly Rehearsals have started back up.

Last weekend was a pretty fabulous one, Friday night a good friend of ours came to stay for the weekend. So once he arrived the first thing we had to do was head out for some dinner.Here we are waiting for our meal

Saturday was a busy day all around, during the afternoon it was the final Parade of the season for the Drum Corps. Thankfully it wasn’t too far away, so the hubby, our friend and I piled into the car and headed on out. The weather was iffy but the rain stayed away. Although I would have preferred the rain to the Uphill/Downhill action the roads took.

After the parade we drove home, fixed up the veggie platter we were bringing, took a quick shower, then went over to our friends house for a end of summer party.

Sunday, although sad that our friend was leaving, was a good day because we finally hit the new Cheesecake Factory that opened in town about a month ago. Now this wasn’t our first time at that Rodeo, the closest one before this one opened was about 45 minutes away. The last few years it was the annual trek down there for the Hubbies bday. Actually this year we went to the one in Las Vegas for the hubbies birthday dinner.

Below are some pictures of lunch, the only one I didn’t get a picture of was our friend Matty’s Macaroni and Cheese Burger, It was TO DIE FOR!

Memphis Burger with Pulled Pork and Coleslaw

Dulce De Leche Cheesecake

And so the new week began, Monday night was the Drum Corps annual Nomination of Officers for the coming year. And once again, I am running unopposed for the Drum Major position.

Wednesday the hubby and I took a much needed day off and headed on over to The Eastern States Exposition, or as it’s commonly known The Big E. Not very well known outside of  New England, The Big E is a roughly 2 week long Fair, or as I called it, the Deep Fried Agricultural As Seen on TV Fair. We got there about 11:45 or so and didn’t leave until we saw every last sight at around 6:30.

First order of the day was a Cucumber Mojito
Second order of the Day Fried Cheese Curds

Third order of the day Poutine (well faux poutine because they didn’t use real cheese curds)

The funniest thing I saw, chocolate for those Foot Fetishists.

The piece de resistance is always the Butter Sculpture

Anybody ready for a Lobster bake?

And that wraps it up. Friday is Month and Quarter End. It’s either going to be a crazy one or an uneventful one!

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Duncan

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“Sleepy Duncan”

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To the back of the line

This past weekend was wildly amusing and at the same time crazy.

Saturday we started back up with volunteering with our Greyhound Adoption group Meet & Greet’s. This is the best way we are able to spread the word of Greyhound adoption, and a nice chance to socialize both the dogs and ourselves with others in the group we belong to.

We usually choose the 2 hour morning shift, so that we can have the rest of the day to get our weekend errands done and still have some time for ourselves. We had a good time catching up with the other volunteers we haven’t seen since our picnic in June. Since the weather was nice we had a pretty good day of people stopping by, and some nice donations collected from what I understand.

Sunday was an all day affair with the Drum Corps. September marks Volunteer Fireman’s Conventions around the tri-state area. The day started super early with the bus leaving at 9am for a roughly 2 hour ride across the great state of CT. With a Noon start time we had to allow enough time to get there and changed and the bus to the end to wait for us. Or so we thought….

Plans changed very quickly once we arrived and found we were in the 8th division, a far cry from last weeks 1st division start. Since we had some time to spare and food and drinks on the bus we decided to leave the bus at the beginning and it would follow the end of the parade behind us. The Noon start time for the parade was pretty damn close (it’s rare these things start on time), and surprisingly we stepped off at about 1:10 which is amazing for a convention parade.

I clocked the parade with my Runkeeper app on my phone at 2.28 miles average pace was a 28 minute mile and roughly 1 hour of marching. The pace was such a high number because this turned into a stop and go fiasco for the first mile and a half. We finally rounded the corner and there was the judging stand. This usually means the end is near. The Corps sounded well even with the smaller than normal number of members marching. Through the judges and down Main St the crowd became thicker and thicker.

The best part of the last stretch of the parade was marching through the Bikers who made a path of American Flags for the parade to march through, this was kinda surreal. The end was not soon there after and it was time for Hot Dogs and Water, I had a water but opted to get a Choco Taco  from the Ice Cream Truck. It is very rare we stay long enough to see the Trophies presented to the winners, but since they were scheduled to be given away around the time we were getting ready to leave we stayed.

The first 2 trophies were the Musical ones, of which we didn’t win. My feelings on this are mixed, on the one hand had we had a stronger corps, a few more members might have made a difference. On the other hand the song the Fire Dept wanted us to play isn’t a winning song by any stretch of the imagination. I think had we been able to play the song we played for the last 2 Convention parades, in June and Last week’s, (where we took first and second respectively) we may have had a better chance. Others will say it’s not about us winning it’s about the Fire Dept, as they pay the bill to have us, So it was a rather good day for them as they won the Best Overall Trophy for the entire state and will hold the title for the next year. Not sure if this means we will get more parades from them or not but I was happy for them.

The long ride home made the day roughly 11 hours from the time we left the house to the time we got home. After a quick dinner, a bad movie, catching up on my blogs and email, and tired as hell we headed to bed. If only sleep came as easily as the being tired…..

To the beat

Well now that I have a moment let’s see what I’ve been up to.

The hubby took a short (long weekend) trip down south to visit his family this past weekend. This was a good weekend for him to go  since I was busy with Drum Corps activities.

He left Thursday and came home Monday. I took Friday off so I could run some errands that I knew I wouldn’t get to over the weekend. I also was able to get my car washed, and to prepare the stuff for the dessert I was bringing to Game Night on Saturday. Then Friday night I had a nice dinner date with my Girlfriend/ALA.

Saturday was a long day, 5 hours round trip to the parade, march, and home. That was the bulk of my afternoon. The parade was about a mile and a quarter, we lucked out and were in the first division. After the parade I went home, napped, made the dessert then headed out to Game Night at our friends.

Sunday was going to be another busy day, the Drum Corps was asked to participate in our towns September 11th memorial ceremony. This was a relatively simple day, just 3 songs were needed during the middle of the ceremony. The Drum Corps did an outstanding job from my lens.

Now it’s Wednesday and we start back up with Rehearsal Season for Drum Corps and 2 final parades this week and next.

Not much else to report really….

Weekend Redux

So after that fabulous lunch you saw in the last post, after lunch we wandered over to the Disney Store, then on to Toy’s R Us for some shopping for the nephew as this was his Birthday gift.

The main attraction of the trip though was to see Harry Potter: The Exhibit.

Now I am not the biggest Harry potter fan but the exhibit was great. There were a ton of props and costumes from all of the movies as well as some back story to all of them. I wish pictures were permitted but alas the one above is the best I could do while waiting in line.

After HP we headed over to this interesting burger bar called The Counter. The fun thing about this place is that it’s a Make your own Burger bar. They hand you a print out and you pick and choose all of the options for your own burger.

I chose a beef burger on caibatta, with dill pickles, lettuce, coleslaw, and Taziki sauce.

This was my Absolutely Fabulous Margarita

Sunday was a lazy day at home, I really wish I had more to report than I do for sunday, but all we did was lay around and watch movies,

Monday (which was Labor Day) was another day of a lot of nothing. More movies with a dash of getting the lawn mowed since it had been weeks.

This coming weekend is a busy one for me, there is a huge convention parade on saturday with the drum corps, and a 9/11 tribute we are playing at on Sunday.

But for now I sit at work and look at the rain, the rain that has been falling for 2 days now.

New York.

The concrete jungle is our stomping ground for today. Grabbed the nephew and off we went.

First 2 stops were The Hershey’s store then the M&M store. Now it’s lunch at Roxy’s Delicatessan.