Heather and Greg

Is there any better way to spend the day then in a rocker by the Christmas tree with two darling dogs? I didn't think so... I hope your holiday was as wonderful as ours!

In late October we went to the beach with the dogs. Part of the reason was for Heather to run in a 10 mile race OC was putting on. The other part was to have a nice get away for the dogs. Since Otto got sick we want to make sure his quality of life is perfect before it's his time to go. It was a lovely time.
Heather is waiting for the race to start and wondering what's taking Greg so long to take the picture.


Coming up the home stretch! Heather made a new buddy during the run, as usual.

Staying in Salisbury was an excellent chance to visit things like Avebury and Stonehenge, so of course, we did! If you haven't heard of Avebury, look it up. It's older then Stonehenge--built about 5000 years ago, and much, much larger. A village actually sits in the center of it.


These stones seem to indicate a pathway going into Avebury. We actually came into town the wrong way and stumbled upon them, how lucky!!




Me with one of the giant rocks. None of the rocks have been worked with tools so they had amazing character.





A view of part of the circle. The entire circle has a diameter of 1100 feet. Many of the stones were torn down by various Christian churches, I believe they thought the circle had something to do with witchcraft, which is totally poppycock. If you go there you'll see it has a wonderful soft feeling about it.




Silbury Hill. It's a pyramid! Yep, a pyramid, and older then the Mayan ones, created around 2660BC. How wild is that?



Back to Salisbury for a bit. Salisbury is a medieval city and was originally a walled city. Parts of the wall remain though they seem to cut through town now, instead of going around it. I love the mix of old and new like this.



Salisbury Cathedra!! How gorgeous is this? One of the four copies of the Magna Carta is also held here. I wasn't able to get a photo of it, due to obvious reasons, but trust me, it was there.


And, of course, Stonehenge! What trip to southern England is complete without a visit there? I saw it years ago when I was 15 but you couldn't get too close. You still can't walk up to the stones, but you can get a lot closer.

Big Ben in the middle, Parliament to the right, and the London eye to the left. Insert quote from National Lampoon's European Vacation here. You can see the London Eye from almost anywhere in London, it's quite beautiful. So was Parliament, but more pictures of the building didn't make my cut for the blog.



Its a law of tourism that you have to get a picture in a red phone booth. A law I am all too happy to obey.



Buckingham Palace. The flag raised means the queen is in. Sadly, she did not invite us in for tea.



The palace guards. What a dull job these poor guys have!! Luckily they let them walk every so often. It's in formation and it's very military like, but I'm sure they appreciate the chance to wake up their legs and get blood flowing again. Can you imagine if they actually did have to act and stop someone? They'd be too stiff to do anything. Truth be told they are there for image only, there were other men with assault rifles and gigantic biceps doing the real guarding.



HARROD'S!!!!! Of course no trip to London is complete without a trip to Harrod's. Funny enough I went only to the Origin's counter, past the purses I can't afford, to the food department where we spent most of our time. I know you are surprised!









After London I went south to Salisbury. This is the hotel we stayed at--it was built 800 years ago for the mason workers for the cathedral. The vine around the courtyard is as old as the building! I think the bed's might have been as well, it was like sleeping on bags of concrete.



High tea!!!! They had the most delicious cranberry, raspberry and elderflower tea. Yum.

On Saturday Heather had the opportunity to take a class in making jewelry with Precious Metal Clay (or PMC for short). She used silver PMC and although it's still 99.9% pure it is in a form that is moldable like play-dough. It is the perfect grown-up art project.



This is a shot of the pendant in process. It's been molded rolled, cut out with an exacto knife, punched with straws and dried in a food dehydrator for a few minutes. Now it sits awaiting a sanding, as well as the gem mounting. The circle on the right is the jump ring and it will be just fired along with the pendant in the kiln for 20 minutes.





Here is the finished pendant. I haven't put the jump ring on it yet, but its been polished and given a petina to make the silver look less shiny and more aged. The detail also shows up better.




Heather models her new earrings in this picture. They were rolled onto a pattern, cut out using two circular cookie cutters. The process was the same as the pendant minus a few steps. No gem mounting, and no petina treatment were used.






A close up of one of the earrings. The other earring was done so the pattern flows horizontal instead of vertical for a different effect.

Our local community college hosted a Fall Festival event this weekend and Enlightek was one of the featured booths. There were all sorts of businesses from accountants to volunteer organizations looking for volunteers. We were the only computer support company there, thankfully. The event also had entertainment like the moon bounce seen in the corner of the first picture, a guy on stilts, clowns, and a local kids dance troupe who did a latin dance of some sort for like an hour (those kids must've been tired!). See below for a few pictures of the day.

Greg at his firt booth ever. Doesn't he look like the proud business owner :).

He had a raffle to encourage people to see his booth, and to donate some money to charity. Of course nobody chose to entry the raffle twice so we didn't collect a single dollar.

A close up of the table and Greg. We were giving away all sorts of little freebies. I loved the computer stress balls! So did a lot of people who came by getting handfuls for their grandkids/friends etc. They aren't free to us people!!!

The good wife supporting her hubby and helping man the booth.

The kids dancing around the parking lot. I swear they were dancing for an hour.

Labor Day weekend was spent pretty relaxed this year. Greg worked, I did housework and cooking, but we did find time for a bit of fun.


On Saturday I went up to B-more for Tina's birthday pool party. It was a gorgeous day, but alas, I didn't go swimming. I love this picture because Sebastian is in the background making rounds, ha!



We had a bbq at our house with a small group of family and friends. Here my niece Ella is trying on my Grandpa's cowboy hat. It typically sits on the saddle in the picture behind her. Grandpa wore that hat almost every day, but had a separate hat (Stetson) for fancy occasions.














Yep, that's right, I'm a kid magnet! Just before this shot both kids were in my lap. Ella decided she didn't want to share, but still stayed close by, so funny.



Eva, Lindsay and the pups who LOVE Eva. I mean they think she's just the bees knees. Otto would lick her till the cows come home if we let him.

Wild ponies roam the beaches of Assateague Island. You have to be careful not to leave food out or they'll step all over your blankets and steal it. Not to mention they aren't exactly potty trained...

An eastern shore farms stand--I love it! We bought a few things here to take home.

A pony in the marshes of Assateague. It's hard to see from here, but the birds were literally sitting on it's back.

We watched this one graze as we waited to enter the park area of Assateague. I can't wait to go back!