Hot Air Balloon Festival/Preakness
Scott and I spent the Preakness weekend helping with the Hot Air Balloon festival at our local country club. The Preakness was the second horse race following the Kentucky Derby held here in Baltimore. For the past few years, Scott and I have volunteered to assist with managing the balloons out on the golf course for the festival. We help unroll the balloons and then hold onto them while they are being blown up. Some take off and some stay behind to light up at night. We helped out on Thursday and Friday night before the race. Thursday I dropped SCott off as the balloons were taking off in the evening so I could go pick up my parents. I was able to get mom to the event, just in time to watch the balloons glow. On Friday night it was too windy to put up any balloons. Instead, Scott's boy scout troop participated in a salute to the Wounded Warriors with a flag ceremony. They were supposed to have balloon rides for the soldiers, but they had to wait until Saturday morning. So we got off easy this year.
On the day of the race, Tom and I headed off to Salisbury to help Allison start packing up her dorm room. We took her out to dinner and then headed back so she could get back to studying for finals. We enjoyed listening to the stormy horse race at Pimlico on the radio on the drive back. Looks like the Kentucky Derby winner, American Pharaoh won and will go on to the Belmont stakes in New York to attempt a Triple Crown.
Last Sunday, Tom and I spent the afternoon at my parents apt. Tom set up a small desk to put a tv on for Dad's apt. Comcast had hooked it up during the week. We also picked up a small cubicle dresser for mom and I helped her reorganize her undergarments in small bins as well as rehang clothes in the extra closet since she has some extra space. Afterwards we took my mom out to dinner. We had to run out though and pick up Scott who was at Orientation for his new job.
Finally, I was able to contact the manager at the Sports Club to get Scott on the schedule. I think they forgot about him. Everything is computerized now and he was not put into the system. So they went and put Scott on the work schedule before he attended orientation. Then they scheduled him for night shifts, but he is not old enough. So after some rearranging, he is back on track. But he won't actually be going in to work for a couple of weeks. The roller rink slows down during the summer, so this is a good time to get started with a new job.
Last week, Allison finished her finals and packed up the last of her stuff and headed home for the summer. Unfortunately, she spent her last few days at school sick with some type of respiratory illness with a fever. It made it difficult to study, take tests or pack up the rest of her dorm room. But she managed to do well and make it home. Now she is busy getting ready to go off to work for the summer as a counselor at Girl SCout camp.
Tom was also off for a quick work week in LA. Sorry he did not have time to stop in and visit Mike B. He has been so busy and has several more trips scheduled in the next few weeks.
We did steal him and the rest of the family over Memorial Day Weekend though for a quick trip down to Busch GArdens in Williamsburg. On Friday night, Tom and Scott first headed over to our local National Veterans Cemetery to place flags at each of the soldiers gravestones with the Boy Scout troop. They have been doing this event for many years now. We left very early on Saturday to arrive when Busch Gardens opened(and to try and beat the traffic). Cookie stayed back at our friends house so we dropped her off on Friday night. I also spent Friday visiting with my parents and working on some business matters with my mom plus running errands. On Saturday we spent the day at the amusement park. We enjoyed eating our way through the park as they opened up their Food and Wine Festival. EAch section of the park has small booths set up with food items from around the world. We even picked up a small painting from a local artist for Allison to add to her beach collection for Salisbury U. We had fun talking to the artist while they hunted down Allison's painting that got lost on its way to package pick up. Turns out the artist, Carol Lee, sold paintings to Jack Hanna, spokesperson for Busch Gardens and she was starting a line of tshirts with her prints. We were one of the first to see her new shirts. I told her to ask Busch Gardens to sell her paintings in Tampa. She said they were sending a rep. to look at them on Sunday and that she had never been there before. I think she should hire us as her sales rep! Since we hit all the rides and food booths early, we headed out to catch the Tomorrowland movie. The kids did not want to see it, but were pleasantly surprised. We figured it had to be good with George Clooney in it. On Sunday we hit the water park(early). The kids and I enjoyed all the big water rides in the morning, although it was a bit chilly. After lunch and another quick swim, we were headed back home-just when the water park was filling up.
I needed to get back home since I worked on Memorial Day. Tom and the kids stayed home and cleaned and cooked so we could have our neighbors over for dinner that night. We were catching up with all the goings ons. School is coming to an end, although our county had to extend until the 19th of June to make up our snow and ice days. Scott is wrapping up the end of his Freshman year. He has signed up to volunteer to run a Robotics Summer camp with his High SChool Robotics team. He actually laid out the entire camp for his group since he has participated in several Lego classes himself. He also enjoyed an end of the year party with his High School video club and was inducted in as the new President of the club starting next year! And we finally hooked up with a Boy Scout merit badge counselor so he can finish his Personal Fitness badge(we had trouble connecting with the last counselor). It takes 3 months to complete the requirements, so this has been agony!
In other school news, our neighbor's daughter graduated from Towson University in Psychology. She is headed to grad school.
Congratulations goes out to our niece, Sarah Bozyk who graduated from LSU with a degree in Environmental Engineering. Way to go Sarah!
And Happy Birthday to Stacey Seitz who celebrated on the 17th of May! Congrats also on her big running event that she participated in to raise money for her hospital in Indy.
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