Happy Hour(s)

Sunset over the Genesee River...

Hiking in the Adirondacks - Bald Mountain

Picnic on top of Bald Mountain.. wonderful day for a hike.  Even snow on top!

St. Patrick's Day

The day was insane! We started early, barcrawled down University to East and down East to Monroe and then down Monroe.  Long day in the beautiful sun... I think I hit up coffee shops four times that day.  But the crew loved being outside, enjoying drinking all day long, and it was a ton of fun.

Busy weekend!

Busy weekend, y'all! But it was a lot of fun...

FAIL.

Housewarming present FAIL.

March Trip to Washington, DC

I flew to Washington, DC for work!  I love this city so so much...  and when the company will fly you down and put you up in a nice hotel, hey, why not?  I extended my stay a few extra days by flying Friday night and coming back Wednesday.  I flew into Reagan, a great airport since its right on the metro.  Linda left her condo keys at the frontdesk for me, so getting in, metroing to her stop and getting settled in was easy.

 She decided to make me dinner... we hit up the local organic market for some salad supplies.  YES, I eat salad even on vacation.  I've been eating so much salad lately, but I've also been doing so very well with my exercise and eating.  So it's all good.  Linda actually MADE me this salad!  It's beautiful!  I didn't realize she was making my meal, so it was an awesome surprise...

As you might have guessed, each morning I woke up, I went for a run. When I stay with Linda, I always run to the White House and back!  I love seeing it mid-way through my run.  It's a great turn-around spot.  Running in D.C. is so refreshing.  Every time I do this, I start daydreaming of living here one day.  That day needs to come soon. I'm 30.  Not much time left to make a life for myself if I don't get moving.

For the weekend, I met up and stayed with Laura and Luke (and Sean)!  I arrived after noon on Saturday, and Laura, Sean and I went to Old Town to walk around and enjoy the sunny day.  Catching up, watching the kids play and just basking in the sun was wonderful.  It's great seeing your best friend after what feels like forever.

On Sunday, the four of us headed to Baltimore and actually visited the Baltimore Aquarium.  It was an awesome experience, especially experiencing it through Sean's eyes.  We even got to see the dolphin show.  Wonderful!

I thought it was awesome that in the SHARK TANK, they had volunteer divers feeding all the sharks and even their turtle.  Hilarious.

The dolphin show was astounding!  I was trying to take dozens of pictures, but the iPhone doesn't exactly work best for that.  Laura's husband Luke took amazing photos which I wish I could post!  They even jumped so high as to touch those globes at the top!  But the show ended, we enjoyed a few more exhibits, then made our way back to D.C.

I of course was working part of the time I was there!  I did some work Saturday, Sunday and even Monday!  But I had to leave Laura on Monday after visiting her classroom and enjoying some Indian Food for lunch, and met up with coworkers at my hotel.  They wanted to DRINK... so we hit up this bar on M Ave.  We stayed for what felt like 10 hours, drinking, eating and being merry.    We met up with even more coworkers for dinner at the Chessapeake Room, where our combined bill for 8 people was over $900.  Hmm.  But it was awesome, free and I got to drink plenty.  I crawled back to my hotel room, did some more work before passing out.

I was of course late for the taxis in the morning. And checking out.  And checking into the conference.  They're like "oh, cause you were drinking."  No, because I stayed up until 2am working.  But the conference was good, quick and ended by 2pm on Tuesday. For my next trick, I used my company expense account to get back to Linda's condo and headed to Ulah Bisto on U Street after an hour run.  I hit up happy hour, enjoyed some wings, and chatted up Greg, the bartended.

I did end up meeting up with Linda in Chinatown for dinner at Matchbox.  Quite the HUGE restaurant!  The food was OK, the steak was pretty bad, and we were seated in the back back back top floor.  It felt weird. But it was still cool, and seeing Linda again was great!  We headed back to her apartment, did more catching up, and then in the morning, I headed back to Rochester.  A quick six day trip to D.C., but well worth it to catch up with friends, do some work, spend a ton of money on drinks and good food, and have all of it covered by the job.