smith mt lake

Because my life is ever so hard, I had a week long vacation at Smith Mt. Lake after my week long vacation in Nags Head. Seriously, I'm waiting for the lightening to strike me down cause it really shouldnt be this good.

Side note: much of my days in Nags Head were spent running around the porch with my laptop trying to get a signal so I could work, talking on the cell phone with clients while my drunk friends were loud drunk dancing in the living room. It was super easy to manage.

Please enjoy the pics from the lake. We had an awesome time boating, swimming, jet skiing, fishing, eating, drinking and generally and consistenly laughing. (That is of course until the last day while packing up my nephews locked my brothers keys in the car. We had locked the lake house up with its keys also inside. So we were bascially refugees with no food or water in the hot drive way for 3 hours waiting for retardo AAA guy who apparently was driving from 2 states away to help. Fun and funny way to end the trip. not.)


Boat ride!


Dad and Tony on noodles


We wont even mention that I caught more fish than Steve, the avid fisherman with a freaking pond in his won back yard. Oh wait, did I just mention that I caught more fish? Yes I did. Ha.


Tony and G-Ma in the water


so.cute.


Tony is an awesome helper


Dancing to Frank Sinatra on the dock at night= awesome



Cameron doing what he does best


Watch out Steve, you're next!


As per usual, I was of course the kitchen slave. Tea on a plate anyone?


ummmmm...

3rd time's the...Drunk

So a week ago I traveled (without Tracy, if you can believe it) to New York for the 3rd year in a row at Brooklyn Brewery's Pigfest (all you can eat, all you can drink). Although thunderstorms were predicted for the entire day, and Lisa, Ann, Laura and I were all coming off of a wine tour of Long Island the day before, we somehow got our asses out to Brooklyn right at the start.

We lucked out, the rain stopped almost immediately, and we got started on our day. While Lisa and I stockpiled beer, Laura began practicing her flip cup skills:


Earlier than normal, a flip cup table to end all flip cup tables started up near to us, so we of course jumped in and dominated- I believe there were approximately 30 people per side, so you sometimes couldn't even tell when each round had started:



Jacob, of course, made the mistake of playing for the opposite team, and received the full brunt of my scathing shit-talk:

We somehow made it back to Manhattan in one piece after a very cozy cab ride (do I recall correctly, and did our driver ask me to sit on his lap?), and I had to say another farewell on Monday to Manhattan.

Now I'm in Delaware (Hi, I'm in Delaware) for training at my new job, just got back from a weekend in Nags Head, but I'll let Tracy tell you about that since she was the one to take all the pictures (and if she posts any of me in my bathing suit, I'll delete them in .5 seconds). My date for the weekend was a 4-year old with a love of danger (and kicking, but you take the good with the bad).

This unemployment thing is really hard

So unlike Tracy, I decided to go and get myself a real job, so my early retirement is soon to come to an end. But they've granted me 2 more weeks, so until June 2nd I continue to be a gypsy. Drink up!

Last week, on a slight scholarship from my sister (I bartered for partial sponsorship in exchange for some babysitting), I went to St Maarten in the Caribbean with her (Teresa), her husband Craig and their adorable 15-month baby Zoe.

So St Maarten, if you can imagine, is friggin GORGEOUS:





We spent most of our week being entertained by Zoe, whose favorite pasttimes were eating sand, discovering new noises she could make, and staying really, really, really pale:




I lucked out, and again got to compete in the Best Birthday Ever contest, and celebrated my 27th on May 7th. The night before, Craig took over babysitting to let Teresa and I out on a sunset Booze Cruise (which didn't provide near the alcohol of the Booze Cruise Tracy and I took in Thailand, so Teresa and I went straight from the boat to the bar on the water to find ourselves some fruity frozen beverages):



The day of my birthday, we chose to relax on the beach enjoying our new best friend, Cruzan Black Cherry rum (if anyone can find where this exists in Richmond, please tell me...it honestly mixes well with everything), eating a seafood feast (Tracy, I know how jealous that makes you- I had seafood stuffed with seafood, Craig had seafood with a side of seafood, and Teresa had a seafood sandwich...yummy), drinking more black cherry rum, eating pancakes and ribs for dinner, playing cards and, inevitably, this results in making tiger faces for the camera:




One of our favorite activities in St. Maarten, however, is not something you typically do for fun, especially not with a whole crowd of people. We watched planes land. Now, these pictures will almost seem doctored, because it seems SO unsafe, but somehow it fits within the legal guidelines of a landing strip. And while putting a public beach at the end of this strip that is barely long enough to land a plane may be "legal", I'm not quite sure it was the wisest choice. Makes for some interesting photos, though.

(sign reads: "Danger: Jet blast of departing and arriving aircraft can cause severe physical harm resulting in extreme bodily harm and/or death" with a lovely graphic of a man falling backwards behind a plane- again, who put the public beach at the end of the runway, with restaurants on either side of the flight path?)



And if you still think they're doctored, check out the video I caught:


And just in case standing next to a flight path to watch a plane land wasn't stupid enough, Craig and I decided to get right underneath one landing, I guess, for one of those "just to say I did it" moments? Whatever, seemed like a good idea at the time, even if it means I destroyed yet another camera (oops, sorry Craig!):


So that's what the underbelly of a plane looks like- I know you were wondering.

-Posted by Katie

gps and west virginia can suck it

After travelling the world, driving through remote areas of of New Zealand, riding on elephants in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, maneuvering around cows on tiny roads with rock walls inevitably too close for comfort in Ireland, I did not think it too much of a big deal to drive to west VA to visit a friend.

jaysus christ was i wrong. Let me just preface this story with the statement: I swear to god I confirmed my choice of direction with two very knowledgeable dudes who know GPS units and are considerably not retarded.

My kind brother let me borrow his fancy Audi to make the trip, thinking that the GPS would in fact help me navigate rather than send me to a potential bloody death reminiscent of Deliverance.

I have absolutely no qualms with saying that WV completely sucks and should be wiped off the face of the earth. If I were to make sweeping generalizations, which I do, I would say that 99.67% of WV inhabitants are scary red-necked bubbas with absolutely no idea what really goes on in any other part of the world apart from hunting, driving massive trucks and being generally ignorant and mostly racist.

Oh, and they also don't like to post road signs, making for a very interesting driving experience when you include a non functioning GPS and complete darkness.

I chose the 'most direct route' as opposed to the 'main route' offered by my brothers lovely GPS which I recently renamed satans baby killer. The main route just looked sooooo unbelievably far out of the way and like I said, two others agreed.

So off I went on what was supposed to be a 4.5 hour trip. Six and a half hours later after cringing, crying, swearing, hitting satans baby killer over and over I 'arrived" at my destination. But wait, whats this? um no I haven't, in fact I'm in the middle of nowhere STILL, even though satan insists I have arrived!



I see a tiny very skeevy bar called Mavericks and have no choice but to go in and ask for directions. (Oh yeah also at this point after pressing a million buttons on satans screen I accidentally changed the language setting to french so at this point I really have no fucking idea whats going on).

I had to go through a parking lot of pick up trucks and three security doors to enter the bar, thinking I was about to enter a porn barn of strippers and bubbas I was certainly freaked out. The fact that the song from Deliverance rang over and over in my head didn't help either.

Turns out it was a casino bar with a bunch of one armed bandits, so big whew there. The bartender knew exactly where I was going and told me I was about 15 miles away. Thank god.

I pull up at my hotel and the place is packed! It was some massive convention center with a hotel attached. Upon parking I notice a man with a lay around his neck staggering and careening towards my car looking like a character from Shawn of the Dead and grabbing his crotch. Seriously WHERE am I?

While checking in I tell the receptionists my never ending story of my battle with backwoods WV and they all laugh, when I mention the zombie crotch grabber in the parking lot, they inform me that he was just ejected from a wedding for peeing off a balcony. Run to room immediately. drink wine. hide under covers.

The next day after seeing my friend, on the way home Pierre the baby killer kept telling me to get off on every single exit in french and go back to my destination which he apparently really really wanted to be a weird casino bar in the middle of the woods in WV. Also I couldn't figure out how to reset or turn it off, the ENTIRE way home.

hawesome.

virginia is for lovers, richmond is for murderers

Well that's what one bumper sticker says, but I will have to go ahead and disagree.

Richmond could not be anymore fun.

Aside from everywhere being a high school reunion, parties, concerts, horse races, and fun at waugh-co with the lunatic family I have been working like crazy, albeit not legitimately.

I decided to forgo lying to all my friends who were helping me find a 'real job' in advertising so as to not burn any bridges. Everyone now knows I will be moving to NZ in October and have ceased my search for a realistic career path for the next 6 months. In the meantime I'm 18 years old again and coaching gymnastics, working for my mom and her friends in their gardens, moving furniture, helping my brother re-model his home, and freelancing for a friend in advertising. Because seriously, who really wants annoying things like health insurance getting in the way.

Enjoy some pics from Richmond, and to all you NYers let us know when you want to visit! We promise an action packed weekend of rednecks, beer and crazy fun lesbians.

Geffrey spastic dancing part 1:


Geoffrey spastic dancing part 2:


Lisa gettin it on:


Me and my best friend, beer.


Geoffrey and Kelly making ugly faces...hey! thay can't help it!


'mehh', this bush is hard:


Lydia humping bush...


My baby Cameron mack-daddy'in'it as per usual:


My Dad's B-day partay:


Brothers and nephews, gotta love em:

Ireland part Deux

Tracy and I are currently in the process of packing up her apartment, cleaning and staging the place so that she can try to get rid of it, so I thought that I would use this blog as an excuse to be lazy and take a break.

The rest of Ireland was a whole mishmosh of crazy drunk Irish people (and a few crazy drunk Americans, if you can believe that), and enough beautiful countryside to convince Tracy and I that we have to live in Ireland for a little while. The draught bulmers might have something to do with it, too. But more so the incredible views, I promise.

Of course, as always is the case with Ireland, the pictures won't do it justice, but we'll throw a few at you anyways.

First stop after the rock of Cashel was Glengarriff, a teeny tiny town in the Beara Peninsula, which, due to the fact that everything shuts down by 10PM, meant that we exposed the ladies to their first ever hostel and stayed in for a night of cards and wine (the night in which we discovered that Ann might be a little crazy, but of course the photo I have proves that I might be too):



Then we had a full two days in Killarney, where we went horseback riding and drove the Ring of Kerry, enjoying the views of Killarney National Park:



In Killarney we proved why Tracy and I typically didn't go out for dinner, when at a nice Indian restaurant we demonstrated our mating techniques:


On our way out of Killarney, we stopped at my favorite castle (you know, because everyone has to have a favorite castle in their lives), Ross Castle:


Then up to Lahinch, stopping for lunch in the town in which Ann's family live. She was concerned that she would be recognized and yelled at for not telling people she was coming, so I gave her a disguise:


We went to Lahinch with the original intention of learning to surf from our friend Eddie that we met in New Zealand, but after deciding that surfing in that weather might actually prove that we're mentally unstable, we bailed on that and instead spent the time getting to know some of the locals:


In the above is Eddie and Norman, who is NOT a leprochaun (as he told us many, many times). He did become quite fond of Ann, and insisted she send an email to herself on her blackberry from him:

----- Original Message -----
From: Ann
To: Ann
Sent: Fri Mar 28 23:10:12 2008
Subject: Norman Cleary

I think u r cute. Annie. It was very nice meeting you.


Thus resulting in the second funniest thing to appear on Ann's blackberry.

The next morning we got up to check out the dramatic Cliffs of Moher:


Then a drive through the gorgeous Burren, where we only had one traffic jam:


And stopped at Poulnabroune Dolmen, an ancient wedge tomb:


We had one night in Galway, and then had to say goodbye to Lisa, Laura and Lauren. Ann, Amy, Tracy and I jumped on a boat out to Inismor, the largest of the Aran Islands, and went back to losing our minds in order to view the waves crashing below Dun Angus:




We also stopped by Norman's house, but he wasn't home:


Just kidding, Norman! All Irish men are not leprochauns!

Then had the weirdest night out ever in Ennis, in which a girl almost convinced us to change our flight and stay in Ireland for another week. I think she might have had a few drinks in her.

Definitely want to thank Ann, Amy, Lisa, Laura and Lauren for flying in to meet us, it was an incredible week and so much fun having you all with us:








See you in Russia 2010 ladies!

In the meantime, I've finally figured out how to repay my credit card- becoming a burglar. How do you think I'd do?


-Posted by Katie