Tuesday April 1st 2008

Despite the date on the blog site, this post was added on Wednesday 2nd April at around 9.15pm. The computer is on UK time, which is currently 2.15am!

On Tuesday 1st April we left our hotel and headed towards Harpers Ferry - there had been an accident on the freeway so we stopped at a Starbucks for a doughnut and a coffee and watched for the traffic to start moving a little more freely. It was just before 11am when we arrived at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and what a fantastic place that is (Thank you so much JUD!).


It is such an interesting place with so much history there and so pretty too. We spent about an hour and half there (we could have spent much more but had a long way to drive) and then set off for the Blue Ridge Mountains. The weather, which had started off horrible got better as the day progressed and it was a beautiful day by the time we got to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway.





We drove the 85 miles through the parkway to our hotel. We stopped numerous times to take photos of the views and to take little walks and got to our hotel - The Peaks of Otter - at about 6.30pm. We went to the restaurant for dinner, which like our room, overlooked the lakes and the mountains. Unfortunately the lake had been drained but that didn't really detract from the view.

USA

I guess now is the time to update my blog!

We arrived in Newark on Saturday afternoon, after leaving home early in the morning, UK time. We got to Birmingham airport at around 5am and caught the plane to Amsterdam. We left Amsterdam at 9.30 am UK time and the journey was good! I watched Batman and Robin and half of Cars on the in flight entertainment. I fell asleep and didn't give myself enough time to watch it all, sadly.

We spent our first night at Hilton Newark Airport hotel - it was really nice there and dinner and breakfast were excellent too. On Sunday, after breakfast, we went and picked up our car and drove south along the New Jersey Turnpike towards Washington DC. It was a journey of about 240 miles and would have taken a little over 4 hours except we stopped on the way for a coffee and a cake! We drove past Baltimore (good morning Baltimore!) and then on to where we were staying just outside DC. After checking in, we caught the metro into DC and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the sights - The White House, Lincoln's memorial etc.

Monday 31st April, we went to IHOP for breakfast and then went back into DC to the Smithsonian museum - we looked around the Air and Space museum which was fantastic. You could spend days in that museum alone. We went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner and then wandered around the mall near the metro station. Then it was back to our hotel to pack ready for tomorrow - we will be off to Harper's Ferry!

So long!

I cannot believe it is so long since I posted on here!

Today Lizzie has gone to London to get her Visa for her summer job in America. Kat went with her and after spending the rest of the day wandering around they are going to go and see Avenue Q. Lizzie has wanted to see this for ages, but it just doesn't appeal to me at all. People walking around the stage carrying Sesame Street type puppets doesn't seem very entertaining but I am sure she will tell me I am wrong when she gets home.

Only 3 weeks left until Frank and I fly off to the States. We have our car booked and our first night in New York and now we just need to plan the other 19 days! I am so looking forward to it!

Films

Frank and I went to see 'Sweeney Todd' a couple of weeks ago at the recommendation of Katie and Lizzie who had seen it in Chicago, before it even opened over here. That is one good film. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter work so well together and it was interesting to see people such as Alan Rickman singing. I must say that I have enjoyed all the Johnny Depp films I have seen and he does a very good job of being English. I enjoyed 'Hell' too!

Yesterday Lizzie and I went to see 'Over Her Dead Body' and I haven't laughed so much in ages. What a brilliant film. Eva Longoria Parker is really funny in the role. Apparently she was originally auditioned for the role of Ashley but she is much better suited as Kate. So funny!

New Year

So much time seems to have passed since my last post! I don't seem to have any inclination to write on here and I don't really have anything much of interest to say!

Frank, Lizzie and I went to Wales for Christmas - we hired a little cottage and spent most of the week playing board games together. It is amazing how much fun you can have when there is no computer distracting us all. Lizzie then flew out to New York to meet up with Katie and her friends. They celebrated New Year's Eve in Times Square and so Katie got to turn 21 in a fabulous location. Katie and Lizzie went to see Rent on Broadway and both enjoyed it. Lizzie is now half way through her holiday in America!

Our New Year was spent quietly here at home. We had one guest and we had a lot of laughs playing on the Wii. It was good to catch up with a friend from the past and has spurred me into contacting lots of people that we have lost touch with over the years.

Last Saturday I went to Birmingham to meet up with some old school friends as one of them lives in Israel and only gets across once a year or so. It was good to catch up with them all but was weird to find that out of 7 of us, I was the only one still married!

College is now well under way and we have lots of new students. Mainly Vietnamese it would seem but as usual, they are all lovely. Only 5 more weeks till half term and only 13 more teaching weeks until the AS exams start! How scary is that?

All work and no play!

This weekend I decided to try to break the back of reports and do what UCAS references I could. ALL DAY Saturday and most of Sunday was spent doing just that. I managed to write 5 references and complete 2 sets of reports. How come that is all I managed to do?

Monday and Tuesday are the final groups tests so after I have marked them, I can complete their reports. I am determined to finish them before the weekend so that I don't have to spend another whole weekend working on them. The references of course are another matter. We have about 25 references still to write and they will be done before we break up for Christmas come what may. At least we have more people writing them this year which takes some of the pressure of Sheila and me!

Thursday is again my scrapbooking evening. I still have to find time to finish the challenge but I WILL do it!

And there are only 3 weeks work left until we break up for Christmas! How good is that.

Scrapbooking crop

Thurdsay was another evening crop at Coleman's warehouse. I tried to put the extra pages in the scrapbook I am using for our Croatian holiday but the extender posts don't fit the posts in the book. This is really annoying as they were sold specifically for that album. That wasted quite a while as I then had to put it all back the way it was before I could start any scrapbooking.

I took the Chinese Whispers page home this week so now I have to use this as inspiration for a page of my own (not copy it, just let it inspire me). This is the page on the left! I will take my page into the next crop in two weeks time and this will then be taken home by someone for them to use as inspiration.

As I am busy with UCAS forms, references, tests and reports at the moment I cannot imagine me having much time to do any scrapbooking over the next two weeks, except this Chinese Whispers page! Only 4 more weeks until my Christmas holiday begins!