Game of Thrones sugar cookies

This past weekend was the big Game of Thrones premiere. I went to a Game of Thrones party and brought sugar cookies. Dave surprised me with these cookie cutters a week or two ago. Here's just out of the oven...

And here's after icing them...

Oops, I ate one before I took this pic.

I think they turned out embarrassingly bad, but people were nice enough to compliment them. At least they were tasty. 

Dreamers' Circus

We went to see Dreamers' Circus at the Williams Center for the Arts in Easton this week. Nikolaj Busk plays the accordian and piano, Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen plays the violin, and Ale Carr plays the cittern. Sorensen is also in the Danish String Quartet, and since Dave and I are fans, we thought we'd give Dreamers' Circus a try.

Finding our seats before the performance

WOW. I can't express how fantastic they are. They play Scandinavian folk/traditional music. I don't know how to describe it. The performance was captivating. This is their first tour of the U.S., and I hope they come back!

Virginia road trip

Last September Dave and I took a road trip around Virginia. I usually pick where we go on vacation because Dave never really expresses an opinion on where he wants to go. This time, Dave wanted to go to Colonial Williamsburg, so we made a trip around that. Here are some highlights...

First we drove along the George Washington Memorial Parkway. You can see DC as you drive along the Potomac. We stopped at a park for a walk, but the weather was bad so that was cut short. The weather was rainy a lot during this trip. I got some national park passport stamps, and then we headed to the first big stop, Mount Vernon.

GW's house

You can see how rainy it was in the photo of George Washington's house. We toured the house, walked the grounds, saw his grave, and checked out the museum. It was neat.

Washington's grave

I'm a big fan of George Washington, so I really enjoyed seeing his home. Next stop, Colonial Williamsburg. It was okay. Here's the problem...It wasn't crowded. Usually that is fantastic, because we hate crowds. But when you walk into all the little shops, the reenactors want to talk to you and tell you about what they do. So how do you leave when there isn't a crowd and you can't sneak out??? We ended up just going in a couple of places. I did see an original Gutenburg printing press, so that was cool. My dad is a retired printer, and I had a tiny model of one when I was a kid. The highlight here was the Thomas Jefferson reenactor. He was great.

Jefferson reenactor giving a speech

Next stop, Yorktown! Yorktown, Jamestown, and Colonial Williamsburg are all within 20 minutes of each other. I very much enjoyed Yorktown.

me and my buddy, George

Yorktown is where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, effectively ending the American Revolution. We checked out the museum and then walked down to the water. I was trying to picture all the ships there. We saw some great blue herons down there, which made me happy.

After Yorktown was Jamestown, the first permanent British settlement in the Americas. We went there because it was close, but it was meh. Nice to see, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Oh, and needless to say, there were passport stamps at Yorktown and Jamestown. Yes!

Here's where the trip changed direction. Originally, we were going to go from here to visit my cousin who lives in South Carolina. However, a major hurricane had just hit there, and that part of the trip was cancelled. In fact, as we were driving along 95 in Virginia, there were repeated signs saying that 95 was closed in North Carolina and to find an alternate route. Crazy.

Instead, we headed west. The first new stop was Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrended to Grant, ending the Civil War. Another passport stamp! Woo!

surrender time

From there we went to the mountains. First we drove along some of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was beautiful.

I love the layered look of the mountains. Then we drove through Shenandoah National Park along Skyline Drive. The weather was pretty bad at this point, so it was mostly hard to see the mountains there. But I did get more passport stamps...We were going to stay the night in a town just north of Skyline Drive, and as we were exiting the highway, we saw a national park sign. What? A bonus park? Yes!

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove was a civil war battle site. It's a new park and there wasn't much to it, but they did have the coolest thing in the visitor center- a fiber optic reenactment of the battle.

The story of the battle was told on the screen, and the lights on the table lit up to show the movements of the two armies. It really helped give a sense of what was going on. That was the last new stop of the road trip. The next day we got back on track and headed to Chincoteague and Assateague to see the wild ponies. This is split between two states, and you don't see many ponies in Chincoteague, the Virginia side. They're all fenced in far away. But the wildlife refuge was full of birds!

great egret fishing

I caught a photo of this one fishing. There were egrets and herons all over the place. We drove up to Maryland to see their ponies, and they were everywhere! It was raining and windy. We couldn't even walk on the beach. But the ponies were all over the park.

You can see they're all wet from the rain.

You have to be careful driving around because the ponies walk in the street. They didn't care that we were there. This is what I thought of when I pictured this place. Virginia's ponies were a disappointment, but this made up for that. That was the last stop on the road trip. Dave and I loved Chincoteague/Assateague, and we'll definitely go back sometime.

Doctor Who: The Three Doctors

I love this story! It has a crazy villain, and I've always been a fan of episodes with multiple Doctors. I like episodes that feature Gallifrey and the Time Lords, too. I like it so much that I blogged about it before here.

Omega, Three, and Two

So go read that post because while I watched it again, I'm not writing about it again. :)

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: Third
Companions: Jo Grant
Episode: #65, "The Three Doctors," four parts
Adversary: Omega

Classic Lines: the Brigadier, to the 2nd Doctor, unfazed after entering the TARDIS for the first time and seeing it's bigger on the inside: "So this is what you've been doing with UNIT funds and equipment all this time."

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: This story is the first time earlier Doctors appeared with the current Doctor. 
Next Up: "Carnival of Monsters"

Philly Flower Show 2019: Flower Power

My mom and I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show again this year. Unfortunately, we both agreed this was the worst one we have ever attended. The theme was vague, the exhibits weren't very good, and there were hardly any of the usual big exhibits. Here's the main entrance.

Those white walls you see are booths for the FTD World Cup. That was a huge problem. The competition space took up two thirds of the floor, where the big, beautiful exhibits usually are. That might be okay if the competitors were ready. But THEY WEREN'T. We were there for the member preview hours on the first day of the show, and the World Cup booths were half empty and people were still setting things up.

My mom and I were done with the show in less than an hour. We heard other people talking about how there was less to it this year than in the past, too. While my mom and I had a nice time walking around and going to Reading Terminal Market after, the flower show was incredibly disappointing this year. Next year's theme is Riviera Holiday, which sounds great, so I hope the show gets back to its usual standard.

London Fog cake

This is a cake I've been wanting to try for a long time. Earl Grey is my favorite tea, and this is chocolate cake with an Earl Grey buttercream! Also, caramel sauce.

I took this to my parents' house so we could all try it together. My dad is also a fan of Earl Grey tea. Here's the cake pre-caramel sauce. Those black specks are vanilla seeds.

I continue to fail horribly at icing cakes. A rotating cake stand may help...but I don't get enough practice, really. I'm thinking I should have put it in the fridge to firm up a bit before I used the icing comb to make the design around the outside.

This cake was very rich! My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, and I should have cut a smaller piece for myself. As much as I like caramel, the cake didn't need it.

The Earl Grey buttercream was AMAZING. I melted butter and boiled and steeped loose Earl Grey, as if making tea. Then I strained it and put it in the fridge, and the melted butter firmed back up into hard butter. The cake part was moist, but it didn't taste very chocolatey to me. My parents liked it, Dave didn't, and I can't decide. I kept the recipe, but I'm not sure if I'll make it again.

Doctor Who: The Time Monster

The Whoathon returns! This one is a classic with the Master, UNIT, and yet another explanation of how Atlantis was destroyed. But what would Doctor Who be without its continuity inconsistencies? I love the Master so much. As this one starts, he's incognito as Professor Thascales...which is Greek for Master. Hee!

the Brigadier, Jo Grant, Mike Yates, and the Doctor

The Doctor is suspicious that the Master is back and causing trouble. Of course he is. He's trying to gain control of Kronos, a time eater with a connection to Atlantis. Honestly, it's not really clear why, but I'm sure it's to take over the universe or something. The Master's plan isn't going well, so he summons Krasis, high priest of Kronos, from Atlantis.

Krasis and the Master

The Master takes the seal from Krasis' neck and summons Kronos, who is just as brilliant as you'd expect a Classic Who one-off creature to be.

Kronos and the Master

The plan still isn't going well. The Master finds out that he doesn't have the entire crystal that he needs to control Kronos. That's in Atlantis. Off to Atlantis they all go!

The Doctor and the Master each try to get Atlanteans on their side. The Master has some luck with the queen, while the Doctor has the king on his side.

How YOU doin'?

The Master takes over Atlantis and releases Kronos...

Atlantis is destroyed. Again.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: Third
Companions: Jo Grant
Episode: #64, "The Time Monster," six parts
Adversary: the Master

Classic Lines: the Brigadier, to the Doctor: "This isn't a picnic! One moment you're talking about the entire universe blowing up and the next you're going on about tea." 

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Jo Grant understands Greek. 
Next Up: "The Three Doctors"