Mount Vernon

During our visit to Virginia, Ken and I did a tour of Mount Vernon with Ken's Dad. We missed the crowds by going on a cold-rainy weekday. It was "Christmas at Mount Vernon", which meant that they opened the rarely-seen third floor of the Mansion. The Mansion and the grounds were amazing; I took a lot of pictures and picked out a few that I thought turned out the best. Enjoy!

Ken and Dennis at the Ford Orientation Center.

The Mansion.

Washington's Tomb.

Remains of Washington on the right and his wife Martha on the left.

The Wharf on the Potomac River.

Pioneer Farmer Site.

Ken with Aladdin the camel.
George Washington had a camel on the grounds during Christmas 1787.

We watched historical chocolate-making demonstrations.
YUM - I love chocolate!

The Sykes' Virginia Christmas Tree

Dennis, Chris, and I picked-up and trimmed a Christmas Tree before Ken arrived in Virginia. To delay the decorating of the tree, I explained to Chris that Ken had shipped a package that would arrive on Wednesday (12-17-2008), which involved decorating of the tree. [To clue some people in... Ken's family was unaware that he was flying in on Wednesday.] On Wednesday evening the "FedEx" man arrived... Ken's arrival shocked both his Mom and Dad and it was a great surprise. That night we finished decorating the Christmas Tree, ate homemade fudge, listened to Christmas music, and played games.

Bull Run Festival of Lights

Dennis, Chris, and I went to see the lights at Bull Run Regional Park. The light display is almost two and a half miles long! I tried taking some photographs; however, they do not do the displays justice. It took us an hour to drive to the park (which, was well worth it) and only twelve minutes to drive back home (oh, the joys of no traffic).

Washington, D.C.

The following are a few photographs that I've taken during this trip back East.

Chinatown's "Friendship Archway".
The archway is located a block away from the Verizon Center, where I watched my first-live NHL game.

Boston Bruins at Washington Capitals.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The White House.

The National Christmas Tree (located on the Ellipse, just south of the White House).

Cake - Cards - Crafts - Cooking

The Mrs. Sykes' had a fun weekend together full of:

• Cooking-up yummy spaghetti on my two-burner-hotel stove;
• Making holiday crafts from Crayola Model Magic modeling material;
• Playing some old and new card games;
  
• Eating chocolate cake; and
• Watching movies!
  

Makin' turkeys...

Finished pumpkins...

Molded roses...

Gold & pink-glitter cake from Fancy Cakes by Leslie.

With December bearing down upon us I figured it was time to get the decorative pumpkins off of the porch. What better way to do this than take them out to the desert and fill them full of bullet holes. I met up at high noon with Bryan, Rich, Bryon, Larry, Scott and Ray out on the flats just past Five Mile Pass on the side of the road to Faust. We brought pistols, .22 rifles, and shotguns. As people were rolling in we did some target shooting with the pistols and rifles. Larry was a big fan of sharp shooting with the .22.

Once most of the guys had arrived the shotguns came out. Bryon brought his mechanical thrower, and Rich brought two hand throwers. We spent most of the time playing Annie Oakley. This is where you get in a line and the first guy calls the pull, if he misses his shot the next guy in line shoots at the clay, if the second guy misses the third guy takes the shoot, and so on. If you miss your shoot and the guy after you makes it, then you are out. You keep this up until it is down to the last man standing. It was great fun!

It became apparent that Bryon was the guy to beat, he won the most rounds of Annie Oakley. We went through four cases of pigeons and I think everyone who left by the end of the afternoon had a sore shoulder. Oh by the way we did end up putting a few holes in some pumpkins too...


It was a great way to spend a December afternoon, with temperatures in the 50's it was hard to believe that this is supposed to be winter. Thanks to everyone who came out for some fun!

Great View - MD

It's hit or miss when it comes to hotel room views on work travel. The majority of the time I have a view of an adjacent building's roof or wall; however, this time I have a view of the street-life and nearby buildings. It's actually a great view during the night.

Maryland

It's day number two in Maryland and all is going well. I am here for a two week training course for work and then a week of fun with my In-Laws.

Yesterday I flew into BWI (Baltimore/Washington International Airport) and then I had a great evening with Chris and Dennis. We ate an amazing dinner at The Irish Inn at Glen Echo. We laughed over finding the restaurant under the "American" food-search option in the GPS and the fact that I told them I would eat just about anything, except for grits, which was recommended by our waiter. Dennis had their White Bean Stew, Chris had their Pork Chop, and I had their Lollipop Lamb Chops - Y-U-M-! The restaurant's atmosphere was inviting and the decor was charming. One particular painting had a great saying; tonight, I did an internet search and found out that it is an Irish Blessing. I'm not one for spiritual quotes, but I've taken a liking to this one:

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Tonight my co-worker, Brent, and I ate at Jaleo, an authentic Spanish tapas restaurant in Bethesda. We spent a little bit of per diem and these are a few of the tapas we ate:

Codorniz con salsa de romero y alioli con miel
[Grilled quail with rosemary sauce and honey alioli];

Pollo al ajillo con salsa verde
[Grilled marinated chicken served with a parsley purée and garlic sauce];

Tortilla de patatas
[Spanish omelet with potatoes and onions]; and

Manzanas con hinojo y queso Manchego
[Sliced apples and fennel with Manchego cheese, walnuts and sherry dressing].

Stay tuned for more...

Black Friday Mayhem

*** Gross out alert ***

Friday morning I got up to brave the crowds of shoppers driven insane by the prospect of "Door-Busters." Ginger, not being motivated by any of the sales, decided to stay home and enjoy the comfort of the bed while I was running around in the cold. I got a bench top grinder for $20 and some allen wrenches and socks half off.

I got home and Ginger was still hibernating, so I thought I would wake her with the smells of a sizzling breakfast. I got everything out and then had a sneezing fit. I felt a tickle in my nose and recognized it as a nose bleed starting.

A little history for you here, I normally get two or three nose bleeds a year and they consist of a few drops that a wad of tissue paper takes care of.

So sensing the eminent bleeding I got a paper towel and plugged up my right nostril. The plug immediately soaked through, so I pinched of my right nostril with my fingers, this caused the blood to start coming out of my left nostril. At this point I headed into the bathroom to keep the dripping blood contained to the sink, pinching both nostrils closed. I stood leaning over the sink trying to keep any dripping blood contained I started to notice my right eye was feeling funny, I looked in the mirror and saw blood coming out of the corner of my eye. The hemorrhage had filled up my sinuses to the point where the blood was looking for an outlet and found one in my eye socket. I was starting to get worried at this point, so I tilted my head back so the blood could run down my throat instead of out of my eye picking the lesser of the two evils. About every other breath I would have to spit out a mouthful of blood.

I did this for a couple of minutes with no ebb in the flow when I decided that assistance might be required. I knew Ginger had her cell phone on her nightstand so I called her up with my phone and said "I need your help, I am in the bathroom downstairs." She came downstairs to find me in the bathroom looking like a victim of Ebola, with blood running out of my nose, mouth and eye. After a couple minutes of discussing and still no slowing in the flow of blood I asked her to drive me to the emergency room. At this point I have to comment on how quickly Ginger came around from being dead asleep to being ready to hit the road.

While she was getting her glasses and purse I grabbed a roll of paper towels and a Home Depot Homer Bucket to keep my mess contained in the car. As Ginger was rushing me to the ER the bleeding finally started to slow. By the time I got checked into the ER and saw a doctor it had pretty much stopped. The doctor looked around inside my nose and cauterized it with a silver nitrate stick. With everything under control we got released from the ER and headed home.

The picture below is what the bathroom sink looked like when we returned from the hospital an hour and a half later. If I recall correctly I covered the sink three times over with blood before I called Ginger for help. I managed to get blood on everything but the pure white hand towel much to Ginger's amazement.

Ginger also took a picture of the inside of the 5 gallon Home Depot bucket (it is orange so the blood doesn't show up that well) before it got cleaned out. Notice the nice juicy blood clot perched atop the wad of paper towels, this came out of my mouth after being dislodged from my sinuses.

The First Sykes Thanksgiving in Bluffdale

This weekend marks the first Thanksgiving in our new place, and my (Ken's) first contribution to our blog. To this point Ginger has been doing all of the work documenting our adventures and displaying them for the world here, time for me to pull my weight I guess.

Ginger is a huge fan of turkey and even though it was just the two of us this year we decided to do it up right and make the pilgrims proud. We got a 10 lb hen and I roasted it up in the oven, I tried two new recipes for mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. The other staples of stuffing, roll and cranberry sauce were present as well.

We both have a lot to be thankful for, and we are glad that we have such great friends and family to share it with. Thanks for being a part of our lives.

Deck the Halls

You know you're getting old when you get excited about decorating with garland. Ken and I found some great-looking garland and red-berry sprigs at the Tai Pan Trading Company yesterday. We're not big fans of Christmas, so the garland has definitely boosted our holiday-cheer. Yeah for G-A-R-L-A-N-D-!

Cabela's

Hooray for awesome friends and employee-discounts! It was shoppin' time, eatin' time, fish observin' time, and taxidermy admirin' time at Cabela's last night. The Densley's picked up some nice finds and at long last, I completed my search for a Russian-ish fur hat.

Strange squirrel.

Morgenn in the fur hat! Ken and I are known as Morgenn's "people" and we have the Pez and Care Bears-gummi bears to back it up.

Hard Rockin' Pug Rescue Benefit Concert

Last Wednesday we attended the Pug Rescue Benefit at the Bar Deluxe. Kandi did an amazing job; the raffle and auction items were over-the-top and the band she booked was one of our favorites. We hope that all ponies get good homes.