Horses and Hounds

It's nice to be back to normal after a hectic (but very fun) holidays.  I've been helping out with the horses the past few days. Here I am letting Bali in for dinner. She hates having her picture taken, but she likes her oats enough that she just put up with it till I opened the gate.

Suzanne and I walked the dogs in the morning three days this week. I was super excited because we finally found the "northwest passage." It is a way out of the woods by the cemetery so we don't have to retrace our steps on the way back home. I've been looking for it for months now. Hopefully, we'll be able to use it even in the spring and summer when the vegetation fills in again.

I took a video of Harper and Coda running in the woods. I've been keeping Coda on leash most of the time, as she has a bad habit of chasing a random deer when I least expect it. It is fun watching the dogs run. Harper, for one is like the Energizer bunny. It seems unlikely that she'll ever slow down.

Goodbye Family, Goodbye Christmas!

Crystal, Brittany, John and Abby all left for Salt Lake City this morning. I told Ed I'd drive to the airport with him, but sadly, there was no room for me after we packed all the bags in the car! So, I kissed them goodbye and went back to bed, (It was 5:30 a.m., after all!)

Ed and I cleaned up Christmas today. As wonderful as it is having the house all decorated for the holidays, it is always equally wonderful to put everything away in the basement. The house looks so clean and crisp now!

Coda was also glad to have things back to normal. After we cleared away the boxes and trees, she returned to her perch on the back of the couch, watching for errant deer in our backyard. She, like us, likes to have order in her world!

Last Night

We split up yesterday. Ed went to work, Abby was in DC, Brittany and John went to Harper's Ferry, Crystal and I went shopping (returning) and Amanda stayed home. We had planned on going out to dinner, but we just wanted to be home together, so we ordered pizza and played Farkle and Set together. As you can see from this picture, team Abby/Amanda was victorious, fending off a last minute assault by Brittany.

What a great vacation we had! Now I need a few days of doing nothing to rest up from it!

Baltimore Tour

We started out our day in Baltimore yesterday with a visit to Ft. McHenry. It was cold outside, but we enjoyed the visitors center, despite the fact that the movie wasn't working and we had to watch it on a small TV.

We had lunch at the Lexington Market to get the full Baltimore experience. Note to self: Find a friend to share lunch with next time. It was way too much food!

We stopped by the Walters Art Museum for a few hours. The Dutch rooms are so beautiful.

John found his long lost twin among the Greek Statues. He pointed out that Greeks were all about physical perfection. Hmmm....

Later, we dropped Abby off at Penn Station so she could catch the train to DC. We got home in time for handbell choir, which Brittany and Amanda were able to attend with me as substitutes  We have one more day together. Maybe we'll do nothing at all!

A Little Bit of Everything

We started the day yesterday with my favorite thing, walking the fire road. Poor Coda hadn't been on a walk for two weeks!

We wanted to show Abby how beautiful it is out east. Since she is going to be looking for a job after graduation this summer, we're hoping she chooses to come to the DC area to work.

Amanda, Brittany and Crystal had one more song to record, so we left them home at work while I showed Abby and John beautiful downtown Sykesville. That took about 10 minutes.

We had plenty of time to stop by for a tour of Liberty Dam. Afterwards we came home and recorded Abby singing a Norwegian Christmas carol for our CD.

No visit to Maryland would be complete without stopping at Cold Saturday farm to see the horses and visit with Miss Carol. Abby, it turns out, is a pro with horses, having spent some time wrangling them during summers at Badger Creek.

We had just enough time left in the day to use our Groupon and visit the Symphony of Lights in Columbia. We enjoyed driving through the beautiful light displays and listening to Christmas music.


I took a video of the girls while they were recording What Child is This?  for next year's Christmas CD. I wonder if this will be our last CD. Crystal is starting her new job in Denver in a few weeks, and who knows what next year holds in store for us. In the meantime, watching this video over and over might keep me happy remembering the good times we had making music together as a family.

More Recording

We slept late and then got up to finish recording a few more songs. We were happy to be able to include Abby on Plant a Santa, which features Ed and Crystal on the vocals. Abby played the shaker like a pro!

It was nice to have Abby here to take some behind the scenes pictures of Whistling Prairie at work. We wore our matching sweatshirts.

Abby also took some publicity shots for next year's album. This was not the winner, but showed that we didn't all get the same vision at the same time! Photos, like music are sometimes hard to get in sync!

New Year's Eve

We were fortunate to have my niece Abby come all the way from Colorado just in time to celebrate the New Year with us! She was fortunate to get here in time to help us get ready for our game night extravaganza!

Abby brought some pretty good Foosball skills with her, propelling her right into the finals with Amanda.

In a strange twist of events, Amanda, despite being only able to walk on one leg, won Foosball, pool (defeating John) and also placed well in ping pong!

Amy came out victorious after playing Zack in an exciting Mario Cart finals.

Amy also did well in ping pong, finally succumbing to Ross's spin ball, coupled with years of experience.

Celeste defeated Cory in the every popular game of pure luck, Dead Man's Dice.

Suzanne and Ify had perfected the star toss by the end of the evening, with Suzanne withstanding the pressure of the finals to take it all!

And in the ultimate game of skill, determination and concentration, Ants in the Pants, John defeated Zack as the hushed crowd watched in awe.

As midnight rolled around we stopped to celebrate with the rest of the East Coast as the ball dropped in Times Square. By the time we went to bed after 2 a.m. we had two thoughts: "Can you Believe it's 2013?" and "I never want to stay up this late again!"