Baby shower gift with matching gift card

Family members and I recently went to Virginia for the weekend to attend a grandson and his wife’s baby shower.
I decided that it would be fun to return to doing something I used to love to do before I started my videotaping/photography business.
Sewing! Years ago, when my now grown children were little, I made their clothes and all their blankets. Since I was in between video
jobs, I went to the fabric store and found a cute design and went to work on re-creating my own special design “the Snuggle Bug Rug”.
It’s a baby blanket that is sewn on 2 1/2 sides. Babies are placed inside the snuggly blanket and then they can be nicely strapped
into their carriage. No more kicking the blanket off, or having it drag on the ground or getting dirty and stuck in the wheels.

“The Snuggle Bug Rug” can also be used in a baby carrier. Simply take each end of the blanket and place it into the legs of the
carrier and then slip the baby inside. Their legs are now toasty warm and fully covered. I admit, my pet peeve is seeing warmly
dressed adults but the babies legs and heads are fully exposed to the elements. I spotted a mother one snowy morning with a hat
and told her that her baby must have lost his hat because his head was getting wet from the snow. She said “what hat” and I
said “exactly, the baby has no hat but yet you do.” I’m a rebel that way but I digress.

I took a photo of the finished the blanket, and after a few tries got the text “Baby Shower” just right so when the paper was folded it
showed properly. then took a paper hole puncher, punched in one hole and tied a ribbon through the hole and tied it to the blanket.

Viola!

Baby shower gift

Apple Blossoms in the City of Boston

Apple blossoms in the spring.

My apple tree is showing it’s beautiful hot pink baby buds with vibrant green leaves. I plan to photograph the same branch for the next several weeks and see if I can squeeze in time to create a time lapse project. I live in the inner city so it’s always fun when people walk by and notice there are apples on the tree. I usually pick enough to leave a few in a basket on the stairs for anyone to enjoy.
🙂

Lionfish at the DC National Aquarium

My son and I had bus tickets we needed to use before they expired so we traveled from Boston, MA to Maryland for his April school vacation visiting my Dad and relatives. We much prefer traveling by car,  Amtrak or plane, however in this case,  having bus tickets was quite prophetic, as it turns out, due to the explosions that happened during the Boston Marathon on that fateful Monday, April 15, 2013.

We chose, Monday, April 15th to travel into DC to visit the National Aquarium. We had our smart cards ready and boarded the G14 bus heading to the Greenbelt Station.
Once there we add money to our cards to board the train into town getting off at The Federal Triangle stop. Unlike Boston which has a flat all day rate, DC has  peak and off-peak rates. Wow.

My son, being perpetually hungry needed to be fed so we figured it would be an easy matter to go the Food Court and grab a bite to eat. Not so fast. The Food Court is inside a federal building which meant placing our bags on the conveyor belt, me showing an ID and then going through the metal detector. Thankfully, they had a good selection of food for the non-meat eater including a Sushi eatery which also sold Tempura.

Once my motherly duty was done, we headed outside and across the street to the Aquarium.  My family and I love trying to visit the different Aquariums and no disrespect to DC but it is about the smallest facility we have visited so far. However, my son and I had a good time, he used my Nikon and I used my iPad. An added bonus was there were plenty of seats throughout the one level facility for someone like me who is using a crutch at the moment. The Aquarium also featured several unique and rare amphibians.

This photo is a Lionfish.  I found additional info via the National Geographic website:  http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/lionfish/

visiting the DC National Aquarium

Where were you when you heard about The Boston Marathon?

My teen son and I live in Boston, MA and have spent several April school vacations visiting my parents and relatives. Since my beloved Mom passed, we now visit my Dad in his new assisted living residence in Lanham, MD.

We chose Monday, April 15th to take the bus and train into DC to visit The National aquarium. This date was also Boston’s Patriot’s Day / Boston Marathon’s Day.

We took the train to The Federal Triangle Stop which also featured an underground Food Court. The major part of our vacations is feeding an always hungry 16yr old boy. After feeding him we a nice visit at the aquarium taking photos of Lion Fish, exotic frogs and watching them feed the hungry crocodiles.

We managed to make it to The Monument where I collapsed and sat down to rest my leg. My son took this picture of me. Afterward, I wanted to try and walk to The Mall and take our annual photos of my son with The Monument in the background. Once I got up, all hell broke loose. I started getting text messages of which I had no idea what they were talking about. Then my brother on the West Coast called to ask me about my eldest son as he works right off Boylston Street. Again, I had no idea what he was talking about.

Once he began explaining, I had to sit down again to take it all. As he was talking, my son called to tell me he was alright. He talked for about half an hour telling me how he was out during his lunch, taking in the sights while on the phone with his wife and was close to the finish line but it was so crowded that he decided to head back to work by walking down the alley by The Lenox hotel. A minute later he said he heard a loud boom and everything went quiet. he said no one where he was knew what it was, they thought it was perhaps part of the festivities but that was quickly dispelled when the second huge boom was heard.

At that point he was out of the alley and there was large plumes of smoke, people were yelling and heading in all directions. He said he quickly headed to work to tell his co-workers that two bombs had gone off on Boylston Street but the building was about to be on lock down. He had a hard time getting people to,listen until one of them pulled it up on the news.

By then, Logan airport was closed as was the MBTA and cellphones were apparently down for a short time. All I could do was listen to him talk as I was just stunned. I’m still in Maryland trying to wrap my brain around what I will be coming home to.

My Facebook page was filled with family reaching out to the Boston branch.

My eldest daughter works in at Faulkner hospital and she said the staff did a super job assisting all the injuries sent their way.

All I can say i will pray for the families that lost their loved ones,the injured, as well as everywhere that people live with this on a daily basis. We must continue to be watchful of all unattended packages and suspicious activities.

What we can do to help. http://www.boston.com/news/source/2013/04/boston_marathon.html

Visiting my Dad at The Residence

Last summer my brother did a fantastic job researching possible independant/assisted living places for our Dad. I live on the East coast, my brother on the West coast and our Dad lives down South. We combined giving Dad a fabulous 80th birthday party and finding him a new place to live, all in one week.

The 3 of us visited several places and for a variety of reasons we successful chose The Residence.

The moving company did a great job packing and unpacking most of Dad’s possessions and setting everything up the way I suggested based on the photo layout that was emailed to them.

As with most people, including me, Dad knows he still needs to decide what to part with but overall his two bedroom unit is very nice. Lots of light and plenty of room.

My youngest child (16) and I are spending school vacation week in Maryland visiting my Dad and the relatives.

Thankfully, for a nominal fee, my son and I were able to secure a two bedroom, two bathroom guest unit in the same building. Happy days!