Puzzlepiece Weekend Part 2

So Saturday night, Andrea and I had sooooooo much fun putting up some new shelves for my bathroom redesign project. Check it out! There was even a laser show (from the laser line level that my bestest gave to me to assist in these types of projects)! :) What do you think about the bathroom? Cute, huh?

While the Puzzlepiece is sleeping...

Andrea's visiting the Burg this weekend and we're having a great time! So much fun that she's passed out on the couch right now b/c of all the places we've already been to today. Last night, she got here but it was pretty terrible weather so we just hung out at the house, caught up, and then discussed some potential travel options for later this year (Ireland, maybe?!?).

Today, we decided to hit up the Farmer's Market. Always a good time (even though Betsy's Baked Goods weren't there). And I may be volunteering with the Farmer's Market some to help them green up their practices and give them ideas for what they can do better. Didn't buy too much since I'll be out of town the next week, but I did get this super cute crocus that's not supposed to bloom for about 2 weeks so hopefully it won't happen while I'm gone.

And no trip to the Farmer's Market is complete without getting some deliciousness at the Cheese Shop. Andrea was really excited about that! :)

Then, the shopping began - fabric store, Marshall's, Stein Mart, Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, and Hallmark. Wow. Alot! Found this funny shirt at one of the places...I think Marshalls.

And that brings us to now. Andrea's snoring just woke her up so we're going to figure out what we're doing next! Maybe there will be more pictures to come this weekend....

CBNERRVA Blog

As I told my boss the other day "open up your mind to the 21st century". hahahahah

Aquariums, nature centers, museums, and non-profits are all getting into the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. I thought it might be time for CBNERRs to join in the fun! We don't have a newsletter for our reserve, so I thought this would be a much easier way for us to get information to people that are interested in our events and research projects. People can automatically subscribe and get an email everytime I post a new entry (as you all know since you're in the blogging world) therefore streamlining the process.

So this is the pilot that I'm pitching to my boss. Let me know what you think and if there are things that you would like to see on a blog such as this! I'm open to suggestions and I'll let you know if I get the green light!

http://cbnerrva.blogspot.com

Podcasting

Podcasting is kind of a new thing for me. I mean I've heard of it mentioned b/c my friend Michael listens to them all the time and he's referred me to some, but I haven't actually gotten into them until lately. And now I really like them. For those of you that don't know, a podcast is an audio broadcast that you can subscribe to over the internet - and a lot of people download them to their ipods to listen to them wherever and whenever. It's fun to subscribe and get new ones on my ipod and then listen to them on the way to work. I can catch up on all kinds of stuff during my commute!

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Virginia Society of Technology in Education (VSTE) conference in VA Beach to learn a little bit more about podcasting, education blogs, making videos, etc. It was pretty interesting and I definitely learned a lot of cool tech things.

And it definitely was good timing b/c I got asked to do a podcast episode for the National Ocean Service's podcast, Diving Deeper. Diving Deeper is a twice a month podcast where they interview NOS scientists (and educators, apparently) on what they do. The EC from Maryland and myself went up to Silver Spring to record it on Tuesday. Had to sit in a tiny room to make sure no extra sound was in the recording, and then we did our little script, listened to it, re-recorded a few spots and that was it! The host is in the process of editing it and then it'll be put online in April. I'll keep you guys posted on when it's available. But you can check out the other podcasts here - http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/podcast.html

Mom in the Burg

My mom came to visit me this weekend and it was a great time! Friday night we spent some time at Jes and Rob's house so that my mom could finally meet Ms. Ellie! She's so darn cute and I'm going to miss her terribly when she's in WV (probably not as much as I'll miss her mom but still I'll miss her). It's been so fun seeing her grow up over the past 8 months. Here's one of my favorite new pics of her that Jes took! :) I can't wait to visit and see how much she's grow over the next two months.

So Saturday, my mom and I tried out a new breakfast place that I'd been wanting to try and it was quite tasty. More of a local place than the 100's of breakfast places in the touristy part of town. Then we decided it would be fun to take a drive to Smithfield, so we took the free ferry over to Surry and then drove down to Smithfield. We went to some shops and just walked around Main Street. It was so nice outside and such a cute town. Very fun. We headed back on the ferry to the Burg and got some great seafood at Berrett's! I love that place. And since I've given up meat for Lent (but not seafood) it was the best meal that I've had since Lent started. Then we went to the movies and saw Slumdog Millionaire which was awesome!! I highly recommend it.

Sunday, we ate some breakfast and headed over to Target and Trader Joe's to run some errands. My mom had never been to TJ's so had to show her around. Then we went to the Williamsburg Winery for a tour/tasting and some tasty lunch at the Cheese Shop. All in all a really fun weekend and I even got some fun surprises along the way which was fun! :) I wish my mom could have stayed longer or lived closer but it was a fun weekend still, and I'm looking forward to Easter weekend when I'll have some more time with the fam at home.

This afternoon has been highly productive and I've gotten a lot of cleaning done. I feel like it's time for a fresh start, so I guess cleaning the apartment from top to bottom is part of that. Getting organized and keeping busy...that's the plan!

A Chocolate Affair

Last weekend, Williamsburg was hosting A Chocolate Affair to raise money for Inclusion, which is to inspire and include children from diverse backgrounds in the community. The girls and I figured it was a good cause and for only $15 you got to try tons and tons of chocolate, so why not?

The event was really fun and definitely a "grown-up" event that we all enjoyed, even though after 30 minutes we were having chocolate overload. There were representatives from all types of businesses and restaurants from all over Williamsburg that created things for us to try. Here are some pictures of what we tried.

Passion fruit dark chocolate - one of my favorites and definitely the prettiest!

Bacon dipped in chocolate - actually didn't try this but I did have a bacon brownie which was from the same table and it was great!

Of course it being Williamsburg, there was a display on how to make chocolate.

Pretty centerpieces.

Chocolate Fountain



Another one of the more interesting concoctions - fries with chocolate ketchup which was actually really good too.

Beach Trip

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I wanted to put some pictures from our girls' trip to Corolla a few weeks ago.

Amber, Andrea, and I rented (for FREE!) a colleague's beach house in Corolla on the OBX and went down for the weekend to enjoy some time away. We had some drama on the way down with TWO out of the three of us having someone hack into our credit cards but we got some food, had lots of wine, some music, and we were ready for the weekend. Checked out the house and got settled. Even took a little walk on the beach while the hot tub was heating up. We cooked a little dinner and enjoyed the sunset from the house and then my friend Sarah, who lives in Corolla too, came over and we had some hot tub time. Wayyyyyyy too much wine later, and after the hot tub shutting down a bunch of times on us, we still had a great time and enjoyed each of us having our own room to get some sleep.

Saturday, we just hung out at the house for the morning. Amber and I went on a walk on the beach and found some awesome stuff. There were a ton of skate egg cases, or mermaid's purses, all over the beach. But the coolest thing that we found were these purse crabs that looked just like molts but later we realized they were actually alive and just moving super slow. Lots of cool shells too.

After that we went over to the Outer Banks Education Center where Sarah works and saw a seal that had stranded that day, helped her with some of her feeding and water quality duties, and then took a hike along the boardwalk next to the center. We visited Sarah and Ben's house to see the Aerogarden and Maverick, and then went back to the center to watch the end of the sunset b/c it's just amazing from there. Had some more hot tub time that night.

Sunday was clean up time and just enjoying what time we had left on our mini-vacation. We stopped in Kill Devil Hills to see the movie He's Just Not That Into You which was really good. And then drove back. All in all a fun girl's weekend.