George Washington’s Birthplace and Colonial Beach, VA

Recently I’ve been dreaming of going to the beach. I did some research on the closest beaches to me so I could do a day trip one Saturday. 

I found that Colonial Beach, VA was probably the closest beach to me. I picked a Saturday with decent weather and invited a couple of my brothers to join me. 

We also found that George Washington’s birthplace was near Colonial Beach so we decided to go there too. 

We met up at George Washington’s Birthplace National Monument. It was a really nice day this day! It was sunny and in the 60s with a little breeze. 

It was fun trying to get a picture of all of us. ;)

The Washington family had owned this property since around the 1650s. They owned 10,000 acres at one point. Now it’s about 500 acres. 

George Washington was born somewhere on this property. They built a memorial house where they thought the house might have been located where Washington was born but now they have new evidence showing a potential different location. 

George only lived on this land until he was three years old but seven generations of the Washington family lived on these grounds at various times. It was fun to wander around the grounds, enjoy the scenery and learn some of the history of the place!

L and J being silly! 

The grounds of George Washington’s Birthplace were beautiful! 

This sign made me smile. :)

The grounds overlook Pope’s Creek which connects to the Potomac River. So beautiful and such a nice day!

Siblings!

A is adorable!

Certain children didn’t like getting their picture taken. 😂

Silly kiddos! 

Still on the grounds of George Washington’s Birthplace. 

After we finished walking around George Washington’s birthplace, we needed food. We bought pizza, dessert, and soda and then brought it all to the beach. 

It was a really nice day on Saturday!

I brought sandals with me to change into at the beach. 

Colonial Beach is along the banks of the Potomac River. It was a calm and rocky beach and I liked it!

L and J played catch for a little while. 

It was a nice relaxing time at the beach. We ate food, chatted, looked out at the water, put our feet in the water (it was cold) and walked around a bit. 

I am so glad I was able to go on this adventure with two of my brothers and niece and nephews on Saturday. It was a fun day with lovely weather!

Restaurants with Friends

I don't eat out super often, but when I do I tend to eat at the same few places. I'm okay with that most of the time, but I do like to try new (to me) restaurants occasionally too. 

I thought it would be fun to invite a few friends to join me in trying new restaurants.

So a few friends and I get together every few months and eat at a restaurant that one of us hears about that has good reviews. Last year we went to three new to me (and to most of the people in the group) restaurants. This year we’ve been to one so far.

Lazy Dog (February 2024)

Pazzo Pomodoro (May 2024)

Bar Taco (August 2024)

Carnegie Diner and Cafe (March 2025)

I enjoyed my food from all of the above places and would return to any of them for another meal! 

In the picture above we're at Lazy Dog.

Sometimes not everyone can join us so we just go with whoever is available that day. In the picture above we're at BarTaco. They had good tacos and delicious churros!

My friends are awesome and I am glad they're willing to try new restaurants with me. 

Ukraine

I’ve been debating in my head whether or not I should post this blogpost. But I’ve decided to just post it.

I’ve tried to not get political on my blog but I have some things I need to say.

The other day the current president of the U.S. claimed that it was Ukraine’s fault that Russia invaded Ukraine. Are you effin’ serious? Russia invaded Ukraine because the Russian president wanted to invade Ukraine. It was an unprovoked attack and Russia is still there attacking Ukraine for no reason.

Ever since he whowillnotbenamed became president for his second term, I have been more anxious and angry than normal. I feel like every day there’s something new and terrible that has been said or done by the president or one of his cronies and they’re not leading the country down a good path.

I try not to dwell on it too much each day but it’s hard not to some days. With all of this being said though, I do have some hope that things will get better. I don’t know how or when but someday. If I didn’t have at least a little bit of hope, it would be really really depressing.

Here’s one link and another link to my previous blogposts I wrote about some of the people from my mission in Ukraine. 

Tarzan Soundtrack

Recently I was reminded of the Tarzan soundtrack (1999 animated movie version). I haven’t heard the music from that movie in years but I remember I used to love that CD! I would listen to it on repeat. Since I was reminded of the music, I’ve been listening to it again and again and I remember why I loved it. It has great music!

Honestly the music is making me teary eyed. I think it’s a combination of nostalgia and the music is just awesome but I love it!

If you need a change of music for an hour or so, I highly recommend listening to this soundtrack, all of it, even the instrumental songs. It’s awesome!

Anxious

I’ve been feeling anxious recently. Although I try not to talk about political things on my blog, I will mention some things today that are really stressing me out that may or may not have to do with politics.

I have a job as a contractor for a government agency. Since the change of administration a couple of weeks ago, there are certain things that our department can no longer do until it gets approved by a presidential appointee. 

We can barely do any of our tasks we need to right now. The thing is is I have no idea how long it will take to get the approval. Will it take another week, a few weeks, a couple of months? As of right now they are still paying us but how long will that last? If it doesn’t get approved soon, will they put us on unpaid leave until it gets approved or will they just fire us all? These are just a few of the concerns I have going through my head right now. 

I have been working on updating my resume and will start looking for a new job. Unfortunately that’s what the current administration would like us to do, become so worried about the status of our jobs that we start looking for other jobs and quitting on our own. Then they don’t have to fire us like he whowillnotbenamed would love to do to most of the government workers. You may not want to ask me how I feel about this unless you want to hear a few cuss words. 

I know things are a bit different for me as a contractor (as opposed to a regular government worker who I think have it harder) but it does still affect me and the other contractors. I really do not want to lose my job again. (I got laid off a few years ago when our project didn’t get a new grant to fund our work.) But we will see what happens in the next little while. Maybe our work will be approved next week and we’ll be able to work like normal again. We will see.

And I just want to say I don’t write all of this to start an argument about politics. I write this because this is my reality right now and I’m writing it for my own records.

And so my blogpost will have picture in it, here’s a cute picture of my brother’s cat, Ash.

Searching for a Song

I often have songs going through my head. If someone says a particular word and there’s a song I know that has that word, you can bet I’m singing that song in my head (or out loud depending on the situation I am in at the time.) :)

When I am at home I will just randomly start singing or humming songs out loud. I am pretty sure I can be really annoying sometimes. But that’s beside the point. 🤷😂

I tell you all of this to say that the other day I started humming a song where I couldn’t remember any lyrics, but I clearly knew the tune. And I was singing some sounds along with the tune, Eeeee oooo eeee aaaaa eeee aa aa. I only knew a small portion of the song, but I felt like it was a distinct song. 

I hummed the song to Siri and he didn’t know. I sent a voice memo with me humming the tune to some family members and they didn’t know. I tried googling the sounds that I thought might be part of the song and that didn’t help. I tried listening to random old songs that I thought might be it and none of those were right.

I tried for a day or two to figure it out but then gave up. I just decided to accept that I was not going to know what song it was. But then one day my brother, Tim, played a song that he had found and it was the song I had been humming!!!! I was so excited!

Tim said that he remembered an old music video he had watched and what was going on in the music video but did not remember the name of the song from the video. He googled “early viral video of guy lip syncing at his desk”. He found the song by googling that.

I definitely had heard the song before because it sounded familiar but it had probably been years since I’d heard it. I have now listened to the song multiple times and I actually kind of like it! :) It’s called Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone. O-Zone is a Moldovan band and the song was released in 2003.

After finding out the name of the song I googled to see if there were any movies or tv shows that had the song in it that I might have seen recently. There were a few movies that had the song but none that I had seen. 

I did find another song that had a small portion of the O-Zone song in their song, Live Your Life by T.I. (Ft Rhianna). It was the portion of the song that I had been humming. 

It’s possible I either heard the O-Zone version or the T.I. Version of the song recently and I just didn’t realize it but whichever one it was I’m glad that Tim was able to figure out what song it was! Although I had given up searching for the song, it would have bothered me not knowing. 

And here’s a random picture of me in my narwhal outfit for this blogpost so that it’s not just all words. 😂

Ruby Chocolate

When I went on my trip last year, one of the cities I visited was Antwerp, Belgium. While there I went to Chocolate Nation, a Belgian chocolate museum. I felt like that was a place I must visit while in Antwerp since one of the things Belgium is famous for is their chocolate. :)

I loved visiting the museum!

One of the things they had on the tour were chocolate tasting stations. They had the stations set up from the lightest chocolate to the darkest chocolate. There were some chocolates that I had never heard of before. ;) There were two in particular that I really loved and I might have gone back for seconds with both of them, Ruby and Gold chocolate. 

What it says on the Ruby sign in the picture above is:

The recently discovered ruby chocolate is a naturally pink chocolate with intense fruitiness and fresh, acidic notes.

I don’t have a good picture of the Gold chocolate sign but that one says:

Intense yet well balanced caramel chocolate, with rich notes of toffee, butter, cream and a surprising dash of salt.

I tell you all of this to say that I may or may not have asked for some Ruby or Gold chocolate bars for Christmas. And I received a 5 lbs bag of Ruby chocolate and I was really excited!

This is what the ruby callets look like. Honestly I really like just eating a handful of them at a time, but I decided it would also be good to try baking with them. 

The first thing I baked with them were brownies. They were decent but I accidentally overcooked them and the Ruby chocolate flavor didn’t stand out to me. They were definitely still edible though. 

The second item I baked were Ruby Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. These were delicious!

The recipe called for melting some ruby chocolate and mixing it in the dough. They don’t look like they should (according to the pictures where I got the recipe) but they sure did taste good. :)

I also want to try making Ruby chocolate chip cookies but that will have to wait for another day. :)