Lucy's Destruction

Ladies and Gentlemen...she has done it again. And in record-breaking time!! Death and destruction to another stuffed friend.

If you know Lucy, you know that she loves her toys.


She has a huge basket in the living room piled high with all kinds of toys from Snoopy dolls to Loofa Dogs (all named Floyd) to her most favorite floppy disk frisbee.


Lucy is probably the most spoiled dog out there because every time we go to PetSmart or Petco or even Walgreens, we come home with something for her. I know...we are creating a monster, but she is our baby!! :) Our most recent trip to PetSmart for diet food (she is a pound overweight!), we picked up a silly little pink dog at the check-out. It was only $2 ~ you can't go wrong!!! Well, the poor stuffed dog barely made it a full day. This is what I found when I came up from my office for some water:


The poor thing was completely mauled and had to be sent to it's trash can grave. The best is Lucy's expression of "What Did I Do?". It's a good thing she is so cute...and that there are plenty more $2 toys out there to keep her happy!

Paint the Fence...err...Deck

It's too bad that Mr. Miyagi wasn't the one in charge of our deck painting experience. Things probably would have gone a lot smoother...but alas, I have good news to report. Mow Cow actually showed up the morning and this time they brought both the paint AND the rollers - HOORAY!


I have to say, I felt kind of bad for the 2 guys that were tasked with this project. It is about 95 degrees today with a heat index of over 100 so the conditions to be outside all day were not ideal. It took a good 7 hours to get 1 coat of paint on the entire deck and I have to say, they did a good job.


Because the previous owners chose to use an opaque stain on the deck, we were very limited with the paint colors we could choose. We have rather used a semi-transparent stain, but we would have had to sand the entire deck to get every speck of old stain off which was a close to impossible task. So we chose to go with a Cedar opaque stain color and I have to say that it ain't half bad.


We have to wait 24 hours for it to dry and then will probably have to do some touch up work, but after that we will FINALLY have a completed back yard that we can enjoy this summer. It kind of feels like when Danielson kicks Johnny's butt at the big tournament and wins the big trophy. Thinks of us as Danielson and Mow Cow as Johnny!

Tuesday Afternoon Venting

Our lovely, beautiful, homey deck has gone from this...


...and this...
to this again:



Boo.

The ongoing saga with Mow Cow continues. The final project on the list is for them to stain the deck. We were told that they would call us the night before the crew arrives in order for us to clear everything off the deck so they could get started first thing in the morning.

Not so much.

At around 10 am this morning 2 guys in blue shirts were poking around our back yard. Not just around the exterior of the fence...but actually inside the property. Hello! Ever hear of ringing the door bell to let us know you are here?!

Well, it was Mow Cow and they were here to stain the deck. Did we receive a call? No. Were we ready for these guys to get started? Absolutely not. Very typical of this company (whom we do NOT recommend anyone use EVER!) but still totally annoying. I was in the middle of my work day and Ed was about to head out the door in his fresh, clean clothes when we had to stop the presses and get everything off the deck.

Just as we finish moving everything indoors, one of the guys breaks the news to us that they don't have all the correct supplies to do the job. Apparently, they didn't have any rollers. Seriously?!! What kind of paint crew doesn't have any rollers?!! They had planned on spraying the deck, but when they saw that we lived in a town house and that our neighbors were so close, they thought better of it (thank God!). So now the inside of our house looks like this...


...and this...


...and the deck stands bare with no stain. They are supposed to come back tomorrow to do the job. Hopefully they won't forget the paint.

Being Kolb

This weekend we took a break from Being Mangiaracina and took a shot at Being Kolb. Adriana and John came down for a visit and we had a GREAT time (hopefully they agree!). This was their first time visiting our new place...visiting DC in fact and we had all kinds of plans to keep us busy.

After a 12 am arrival on Friday night ~ and a quick trip to Burger King for a late night snack ~ we all crashed and woke up on Saturday to a gorgeous day. The plan was simple ~ hit the pool for some summer sun. I think one of big reasons we were able to lure Adriana down to DC from life in NY was the promise of some pool time. And thank God the weather cooperated! The sun was hot and the water was cool ~ a perfect combination. After a good 2 hours, we all looked a bit burnt, but we were all smiles.

Next up, some lunch at Glory Days and a quick trip to the outlets in Leesburg. John was a happy camper with his Coronas and Adriana was in her element with the shopping.


The night finished BIG with a late night dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. Ed and I had gone to this place a while back and had a great dinner, so we thought we'd take the Kolb's since they are big fans of crab legs. We were seated on the back porch at a picnic table and had the entire place to ourselves. It was a lovely night and the roar of the Fairfax County Parkway delivered some white noise resembling the ocean. Well...maybe not, but we pretended it did! :)


John was a little skeptical of the place ~ we are much more inland than they are used to (being from Long Island and all) and Joe's can be a bit kitschy with their decor, but I think he was pleasantly surprised. We each got our own Crab Daddy Feast filled with Snow, Dungeness and King crab legs and did not hesitate diving right in when the steam pots were delivered. Paired with many a cold beer (and a Twisted Cherry Limeade for Adriana), it was the best meal we have had in a long time. Seriously...YUM!


This fabulous meal put us into immediate food coma's upon returning to the house. Time for bed! After an awesome visit on the first day, one might think it would have been hard to top it.

WRONG!

Sunday's plan was chock full of fun and it all started with a trip into the city for our Segway Tour. Now, I've been a DC girl for quite a while. Sure, there was that blip when I moved back to NY (and met my husband, thus making me a Mangiaracina and making this blog possible!), but let's be honest ~ DC is my town. My family has lived here for 21 years and in those 21 years I have seen what this city has to offer. With that said, there are only so many times one can see the Washington Monument without feeling a yawn coming on. That is, until I saw it on a Segway.


We arrived at City Segway Tours at around 10:45 am and after filling out some forms and watching a brief "What Not To Do" video, it was time to hop on and figure out how these things worked. Our tour guide Mike gave us the low-down on the basic functionality and had us each give it a try. It's pretty strange and awkward when you first get on, but after a while, you get the hang of it.


After our practice runs, it was time to get going. We were each assigned a Segway and they each had their own names which I thought was adorable. I had FDR, John had Beantown, Adriana had Jimmy and Ed had Big Red.


The tour guide led us out onto the street and we headed to the National Mall where we saw sites like the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, and all of the Smithsonian museums. The Segways definitely drew a lot of attention, and why shouldn't they ~ they ROCK! We were all having a good time on them ~ especially John. So much so that I won't mention that he almost took a spill worthy of a weekend gag reel. What's even funnier is that the tour guide to ask if he was "hot dogging"! AWESOME!


Next, we headed down to the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials where we were given some time to walk around (and it was a good thing ~ our feet were starting to go numb!). We had just enough time to visit Honest Abe and find the name of John's Uncle Tommy on the Vietnam Wall. So touching to see that, by the way.



We hopped back on for the final leg of the tour which included Constitution Gardens, the Eisenhower Executive Office, the Blair House and the White House. We even got to see the slightly nutso woman that has been protesting in front of the White House since 1981.


It really was a lot of fun to see DC on the Segway and is something that I think we would definitely do again in the future. After our tour ended (sad), we headed to Chinatown and hit up Potbelly for some lunch. Since we don't have NY-style deli's down here, we thought Potbelly was the next best thing. :)


The remainder of the day was spent at the house where we had a BBQ with Mom and Dad Q and cousin Michael Quartuccio who came for a visit from Baltimore where he is a big shot Doctor (so proud!!). It was a lovely evening filled with cold drinks, good food and great company. And it was the first time we had visitors over to use the new patio furniture. I'd say that it was an A+ kind of night!


We had such a good time with Adriana and John and really can't wait for them to come back for another visit. Being Kolb was not too bad! :)