Will and Meredith's Wedding

This past weekend I had the honor of serving as a groomsman for my good friend William Knasel. William and I met in grad school and have been good friends ever since. He was there at my wedding and I was very happy to be there for him for his. It was one of the most beautiful August days I have ever experienced in Washington, DC. It was clear, not humid, and somewhat confortable in terms of temperature...a far cry from the typical hot, humid, muggy, DC norms. I'm still not sure how they managed to pull that one off.

The wedding was wonderful and the reception was a lot of fun. Meredith, the bride, looked lovely. The two of them looked so happy together and I have no doubt that they will be happy together for a long, long time. The wedding itself was in DC, and the reception was across the river in Virginia. The reception site offered the most amazing views of DC. It was truly breathtaking. Here are some photos of the happy couple:



Megan and I truly enjoyed ourselves at the reception. We got to sit and talk with Will's friends from college and their wives. They were all truly nice people and we enjoyed getting to know them very much.

Megan wore a beautiful new dress for the occasion and looked absolutely stunning! (Athough I didn't look too shabby either - if I do say so myself!)



All in all it was a great time. I couldn't be happier for my friend William and his new wife Meredith. We wish them the best in their new life together and are thrilled to have been a part of their special day and we look forward to being a part of their life together.

August...is Fair time!

This past weekend we had a very special visitor - Megan's sister Melanie! The three of us went to the Montgomery County Fair in Maryland on Saturday. It was our 3rd straight trip to the fair (we just can't get enough) and Melanie's first trip to this fair.

Some of the highlights included watching the little 4-H girls parade their cows around in costumes (teaching us about the benefits of milk), the pig races!, the 4-H fashion show, and of course the fried dough! We also enjoyed seeing all the animals:

Melanie and Michael also braved the vaunted "Freak Out" midway ride. It was essentially a giant claw that spun around in circles and swung up and down really fast. Within 5 seconds of the ride starting, Michael realized it had been a long time since he had been on any type of ride -let alone one that is dis-assembled, moved, and re-assembled every week or so. But once he stopped thinking of all the possible ways the ride could fall apart sending him plunging to an uncertain (and certainly unpleasant) fate, he had a great time.

If you click on the middle picture you can see Michael hanging on for dear life. We capped off our day at the fair with a few rounds of bingo (no winners) and an unsuccesful attempt to win a new fish - maybe next year!

Michael's Hometown - Montgomery, NY

A few weeks back, on our way back from Vermont, we made a quick stop in the village of Montgomery, New York, so Megan could see where I spent eight years of my early life growing up. I lived there from the time I was three until I was eleven years old. I hadn't been back in many, many years but the town still looked just the same. As quaint and charming as always.

Highlights of our little nostalgia tour included stops at the park where I played little league baseball for the Montgomery Angels (We were not very good!), our old church - St. Mary's, and also my elementary school.

And of course the highlight (for me at least) was getting to see the old house. It looked great. The new owner(s) have certainly kept it up nicely and even added many nice upgrades.

Seeing the house and driving through the neighborhood brought back all kinds of memories. I was especially struck by how much smaller the neighborhood seemed. I remembered the blocks being much longer and the whole development as being much bigger. Perhaps it was because I was a lot smaller back then. But other than that, very little had changed...and that made me very happy! On our way out of town, we stopped for hot dogs and ice cream at one of the Maslowski's favorite places - Richard's Ice Cream. It quickly became one of Megan's favorite places as well...

Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

My friend William, his brother David, and I made the six hour journey to Canton, Ohio this past weekend for the pro football hall of fame induction ceremony. The class of 2008 included Andre Tippet, Emmitt Thomas, Fred Dean, Gary Zimmerman, Darrell Green, and Art Monk.


As expected, the crowd was overwhelmingly Redskin fans. (Like 95% at least). It was my first time being at an induction ceremony and even though I wasn't necessarily a huge fan of anyone being inducted (although I always did like Darrell Green - just because he was so fast), I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day. And the excitement of all the Redskins fans was very contagious. Plus it was awesome to be there as the crowd gave a very long standing ovation to Art Monk when he finally took the podium to give his speech after waiting 8 long years to get inducted. (There he is pictured at right; soaking in the moment.) The chants of "Art, Art, Art!" and "It's about time!" brought me chills. Both He and Darrell Green gave the two best speeches in my opinion. I especially enjoyed Darrell's speech as it was the most personal of the day and very well delivered and heartfelt.

All in all it was a great trip with great friends. I can almost guarantee I'll be going back for another ceremony in the future (Perhaps next year for Bruce Smith?) Our trip was capped off by a stop a Woody's Root Beer Shack in Canton for an excellent lunch before we headed back to DC. If ever in Canton, I highly recommend stopping there for lunch! Here are some more pictures from the weekend:






Top: The Stage(left) ; The red sea of Redskin fans (left)
Bottom: Darrell Green and his new bust (left); Jim Kelly being announced prior to the ceremony (right)

Our 1st Anniversary - VERMONT!

We celebrated our first wonderous year of marriage with a trip to Vermont. We drove up to Burlington via New Haven, Connecticut where we stayed Friday night at the Omni (for free, compliments of a late night fire alarm malfunction when Megan was there last year for work.) They knew it was our anniversary weekend, so they had a chocolate cake waiting for us in the room when we arrived!

We drove up to Vermont on Saturday, stopping along the way at the Ben & Jerry's factory!!! and the quaint town of Stowe. We then drove the scenic highway known as "the notch" and stopped to take a few photos along the way....

We both really liked Burlington a lot. While it rained the whole first day we were there, we still managed to find lots of fun things to do. These included a trip to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory - a super fun tour we enjoyed despite being the only adults on the tour without small children - and a sunset cruise on beautiful Lake Champlain (only it was still raining and very foggy so we really couldn't see too much!) The sunset cruise was quite romantic even in the rain - we were 1 of only 2 couples on the deck that seats oh about 100! We also enjoyed a delicious picnic basket of Vermont cheeses, crackers, shrimp, wine and cookies!!!

The next day brought much more delightful weather and we shifted our focus to more outdoorsy activities. This included walking along the Church Street Marketplace and enjoying all the people out and about. Megan especially loved all the wildflowers everywhere we went (they blanket all of Vermont):

We also spent some time at the Vermont Wildflower Farm, followed by some swimming in Lake Champlain. The setting and weather were perfect as you could actually see the surrounding mountains today (unlike the night before)

That night we had a nice dinner to celebrate our actual anniversary and then walked down to see the sunset over Lake Champlain. It was the perfect ending to our long weekend in Vermont.

The Shenandoah Valley

We spent the last weekend in June with our friends Jason and Carrie. They came to visit after finishing up their jobs in NYC and we were ready for a nice 3-day weekend ourselves. We stayed in a nice little cabin outside of Front Royal, VA, and had an absolutely WONDERFUL time with these great friends:

While there we went to Shenandoah National Park for a little hiking and some driving along Skyline Drive. We had such an enjoyable and relaxing time!!! So blessed to have such wonderful friends:

A July 4th Wedding in New Jersey

We went to the wedding of Megan's friend Becca on the 4th of July, up in Park Ridge, NJ. She got married to Dan Weaver - They make a lovely couple! The ceremony was beautiful, the food was fantastic, everything about the wedding was wonderful. We also really liked the red, white, and blue themed candy table! We had such a good time!

Some more photos from the event: