Jon and I continue to live it up on during our summer/winter of leisure. We headed to the US for our second “life of leisure” jaunt, getting back to the summer side of the equator as quickly as possible after a brief stop in Melbourne to repack. Many thanks to Tiffany, Andy, Sofia, and Riggins for hosting us and our stuff.

One big reason for heading back to the US this summer, other than it being summer of course, was to celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday with her. My sister, Alison, pulled together options among the best restaurants in DC and my mom chose the Voltaggio Brother’s Steakhouse in the MGM. We maintained our connection to Australia by dining on Wagyu from down under. Before our fabulous dinner, Jon, mom and I took advantage of the restaurant’s casino location and gambled away some money.

*a quick sorry to Lyon for never being in photos, but I blame him for always taking all the best pictures, leaving no motivation for anyone else to take pics 😉

We got in lots of additional family time, spending a week in Ocean City, MD with perfect beach weather the whole week.

I honed my mini golf and go karting skills and would have beat Jon in the former if he didn’t cheat (oh, sure, now you tell me we aren’t counting penalty strokes for hitting the ball off the course).

Jon and I continued working on our leisure sport prowess by taking our nephew Adam top golfing, bowling and more mini golfing. For me ‘prowess’ means I am about even with Adam in skill level so I will likely have to resign myself to losing soon.

Top Golf antics

Alison, Lyon and Adam introduced us to the wild and crazy world of competitive swimming. We attended our first swim meet way too early on Saturday  morning and were astonished to see so many people with elaborate setups – tents, chairs, blankets, coolers, etc. – all to watch the meet. Adam’s hard work all season paid off with him helping his team to a divisional victory. Unfortunately I was too entertained watching all the races to take any pictures.

We were excited to take in some baseball, one of our favorite parts of the North American summer, but the Washington Nationals did not cooperate. They were away for most of our time in town and while we managed to go to Nationals Stadium twice, we only saw one game and it was a loss. Boohoo.

My mom, Jon and I drove up to Binghamton, NY to see Auntie Lorrie. We didn’t waste any time before heading to an early bird dinner at a local Italian restaurant. It was delicious! The next day we had a BBQ and partook of another local delicacy, spiedies.  Eating is a great part of any trip to Bingo. I highly recommend a pit stop for pizza or spiedies if you’re in the area. Also, if you need any gossip on the neighborhood, stop by Auntie Lorrie’s.

Jon flew out to California to visit his mom. They kept busy, going to the Oakland Zoo and driving up to Lake Tahoe to see Jon’s brother Jeff. I couldn’t fathom the idea of flying again when Jon was booking the trip so I stayed in MD, but hopefully I can make it on the next CA visit.

Lucky for Jon and I, we got to go on not just one, but two fantastic boat outings. Of course the outings themselves couldn’t have been more different. One was with Colin and Brittany on their fabulous boat, ‘Blue Crush’. We tied up with a few other boats near Georgetown and enjoyed the entertainment of the local boat party crowd. The other was with the Heronimi – Becky, Rich, Haley, Seth, Tyler and Eva – a nice family outing on Deep Creek lake including some wholesome tubing fun. Becky almost managed to flip Jon off the tube.

Also lucky for us, our friends are still excited when we visit. Kate and Tom hosted a funtastic BBQ with Jen, Becca and Ron, where we got to meet some of the kiddos born since we’ve been in Australia. The Cubellos – Amanda, Kris, Zach, Tyler, and Lizzy – came over for a raucous pool party at my mom’s house.  Holly, Chris and Maeve Braly made the drive from I-town (Irvington) to Annandale, VA for a night of silliness at the Heronimi’s with Eric Popowich joining us to make things a bit less silly. Jen hosted a lovely evening with the ‘book’ club ladies – Katie and Becca with the cutie newborn Julian along.

With impeccable timing, Mike flew up from Clemson for a bit. We hit up some old haunts in Arlington together. Delhi Club still serves delicious Indian food and Taj Mahals and Fireworks, Galaxy Club and Wilson’s on Whitlows still serve up delicious beer.  Amir filled Jon in on the latest gossip and Jessica and I dined at our favorite Tyson’s Corner hot spot, Earls, which works surprisingly well for her coming from Leesburg, VA and me from Bowie, MD. A couple of times, Jon got up even earlier than his normal ridiculously early hour to golf with the Erik, Drew and Chris.

Becky and I decided to celebrate (mourn?) turning 40 this year by pretending we’re not too old to go to a Coldplay concert on a Sunday night and have a fabulous Tuesday night out at one of DC’s top restaurants, Pineapple and Pearls. The numerous course meal featured many beautiful dishes which we dutifully took pictures of, but I won’t bore you with too many.

 

Coldplay selfie and light show

If anyone has other pictures to share I would be super grateful. Jon and I had an amazing time catching up with as many people as possible and given our advancing age it helps to have pictures to remember everything 🙂