New Bern, NC

This past Thursday-Sunday, the Alvarez family (Ben's parents, siblings, and us) traveled to New Bern, NC, which is where Ben's grandparents used to live.  We stayed in a sweet bed & breakfast which I had never stayed in before.  It was so nice and filled with antiques.  The owners, Ed and Sooki, were super sweet and Sooki made great breakfast every morning!  New Bern is a lot like downtown Easton, if you've ever been there.  Lots of places to walk to and many historic buildings.  We even toured the Tryon Palace where the Governor used to live way back when!  While in New Bern, we did many things that the Alvarez's used to do when they came to visit.  This included dinner at Golden Corral, shopping at their HUGE Walmart, and walking around town.  This is New Bern's 300th anniversary and this weekend was the opening of the new historic center.  We even went to see fireworks that were supposedly black powder aerial fireworks like they had years ago...strangely the looked and sounded a lot like modern day fireworks!!  All in all we had a great time and got to spend a lot of time hanging out as a family.  Ben and I introduced them to the fun game of bananagrams and we played for hours! 

 This is Tryon palace...I wouldn't mind living here!

The other neat thing about New Bern is that it is the birthplace of Pepsi!!!  If you know me, you know how much I love Pepsi so I was very excited about this.  I even bought a charm and a shirt!  We went into the store that used to be a pharmacy which is where Pepsi was first invented!  So cool!  And I learned that Caleb Bradham, the inventor, got his pharmaceutical degree from UMD!! Go Terps!!

We have a graduate in the family!!

On Monday, October 18th, Riley graduated puppy class along with two other dogs!!!  We have no idea what happened to the other puppies but we wanted to share some cute pictures with you!  Since Riley and the other dogs are so smart, they graduated a week early!!  We got some pictures taken courtesy of our trainer then he led us all out into Petsmart.  While waiting in an aisle for our names to be called, the loudspeaker crackled on...we all gave each other puzzled looks.  Next thing we know, Pomp & Circumstance starts playing for everyone in the store to hear!  All of us humans were cracking up!  After the song played through, the trainer called everyone's attention to the graduating class of October 2010!  The dogs were called one by one to the front (Riley was the ever rambunctious Riley) and we prayed that she would walk like she learned something.  By now, everyone in the store, customer and employee, were at the front, clapping and cheering for the dogs.  I must say, Petsmart knows how to graduate in style!!

                                                                       Riley in her cap

                                 The graduating class of October 2010!  Riley, Daisy, and Gizmo

Just some more pictures of Riley

Just wanted to share some more pictures of Riley since I finally got my camera back!!

 Riley being a bad girl by getting in the fireplace!

 Road trip to the Eastern Shore!

 Oakley and Riley

 Oakley and Mali

All three lovebugs!!

Sick day = Productivity

So I am home with a terrible sore throat/slight fever/chills but I just went to our local grocery store to stock up on OJ, soup, throat lozenges, and some Starbucks Skim Caramel Chai Latte!!!  Absolutely my favorite drink from there...if you haven't before,  you should try it.

Anyways, I decided I should update while I am home.  Riley's mad at me because she's in her crate and she knows that I am home but not letting her out.  I just don't have the voice to discipline her puppy behaviors...it hurts to talk!  Hopefully she'll learn that whining does not equal being let out of the crate.  She's woken us up in the middle of the night the last few nights wanting to play.  The trainer told us to ignore her but it's hard to ignore her when she's in your room and she could very well wake the whole apartment building up!  So, maybe today will be a good lesson for her!

I don't have any new pictures to post because I left my camera at my parents house when we visited two weekends ago.  We went home to watch the last race of the season for my dad and to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.  I'd tell you how old she is but she'd kill me!  She doesn't look her age, that's for sure.  My dad's side of the family came over to my parents house to celebrate on Sunday.

 These are some pictures of our racecars.  The top one, #75, is my dad's car and the bottom one, #57, is my brother's car. 

We FINALLY got our bedroom furniture!!  We were told 2-4 weeks back in July which turned into 3 months!  It looks great though and it's so nice to finally get our clothes out of bags and boxes and into real drawers!  Though, lining the drawers was a totally different experience.  So far, I've spent probably 5 hours wrestling the stupid liner from measuring all of the drawers to cutting to the liner sticking to itself instead of the drawer....it's been a nightmare!  But I only have 4 to go from 19!

I think that's about everything that has happened since our last blog!