The little pookies and I were busy watching these dark clouds rolling in on our holiday weekend while Dad did all of the driving. At one point we started wondering if a funnel was coming down because of the peculiar cloud formations. I could not resist pulling out my Nikon and managed to get a pretty dramatic shot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (I-278) while traveling on the parkway (with a lot of help from the hubby). Taking pictures at high speed is always interesting because you never know what you're going to get. When you are on a 133.5 mile trek into PA and have a thing for eye candy (and are anything like me) you will try for the shot. Mike thought it would be a tough one to get but was willing to do some fancy driving so I could take a crack at eliminating cars from my view finder. I'm glad we did go for it. The first four were a bust, but the fifth one certainly made my day. :-)
All of that took place while we were on our way en-route to another AR adventure. This trip the little minions were off to visit Susan Mangigian, a wonderful friend with an excellent blog that I happen to love reading, who is also the founder of the Active Rain Group Realtors & Friends Who Read.
The road trip was fun and we only got lost once... unless, of course, you also want to count the fact that we actually drove past her home a couple of times, prompting Susan to come out into the rain and get us after watching us circling around trying to read mail boxes (LOL). We were too busy being distracted by lots of eye candy while commenting on neighborhood homes, which basically translates into not paying a lick of attention because we were in awe of our surroundings. It's moments like this that make me truly love Active Rain because if not for AR we never would have met, become friends, then had a field day mingling our families together.
I want you guys to know that a very lovely family lives in this beautiful home and I am so happy we've converted our on-line friendship into a brick and mortar relationship. Noah dived into the toys and movies, kicking his shoes off and getting real comfy. Stephen rolled in the wet grass and later stripped down to his underwear and circled the pool on the hunt for a leaf or two to toss into the water and follow paths with patterns. We stuffed ourselves with Italian food (BTW, she's a very good cook) and had a great time laughing about life in general while the weather continued to be fickle. The cool thing is none of us cared whether it rained or not. We were outside just as much as inside and made good use of every single pause in the drizzle. Her Mom is a lot of fun and kept Michael and I cracking up and I can see where Susan inherited some of her humor from. Hanging with the two of them was priceless and her hubby is absolutely adorable. Max is a fabulous kid and I am soooo gonna have to learn how to play Halo or he's going to wipe me out on our next visit. We promised to play video games together, which is another favorite past time in my household, so it is very cool to be introduced to something new to play.
We did have a couple of moments that made me go hmm... Noah surprised me about being nervous around the puppy. Considering the fact that he gets lots of face time with our neighbors' pit bulls and rottweilers, you'd think an adorable puppy wouldn't have him climbing into Mike's lap going, "nooooo," but he did. I'm gonna have to get him out around smaller dogs more often. Stephen, in true minion fashion, wasn't phased a bit, chased the dog around the yard and at one point had the nerve to tip the dog into the pool (sigh). I have really got to work on that boy's social skills...
Susan selected and planted a wonderful flower garden which screens the pool and really gives one something wonderful to look at from so many vantage points within their home and off the deck. There's color everywhere and my whole family fell in love with the place and its occupants. After great debate, we stayed in PA for another day at a lovely hotel near the Mangigians so we could check out the QVC Studio, King of Prussia Mall, Lancaster, Valley Forge National Park and Longwood Gardens. (So much to blog about, so little time...)
Here is some eye candy from the Mangigian backyard. Enjoy!
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