Once upon a time, some friends of mine came to visit me... (Part One)
Thus begins the story of the British Invasion, told in pictures. This is really not very dialup friendly at ALL. I was going to make thumbnails for all the photos, like clez did, but it's late and that's a lot of effort....hopefully this won't be too much of a strain for anyone.
Once upon a time, my friends Claire and Sarah came from the country of England, to visit me in my little suburban Pennsylvania paradise. I was forced to take pictures of them using a crappy disposable camera.
Sarah is on the left, and Claire is on the right.
We had a fine time during their first week here. My cat Maddy sure enjoyed the attention.
So did Sheela, one of my mother's dogs.
The girls got to pull their very first April Fool's Day prank, when they helped me wrap everything in my boss's office in newspaper. It was his wife's idea, and he loved it.
The next day, we threw a surprise party at my neighbor's house to celebrate Pastor Gary's 25th anniversary of ordination. He called Claire and Sarah "my favorite British girls."
And then the day after that, we went to the delicious town of Hershey, where we went through Chocolate World and visited ZooAmerica. We also got really fun, albeit exceptionally temporary, jobs putting Hershey's Kisses into plastic boxes. They did let us keep the paper hats, though.
The weather was lovely and they enjoyed sitting in the sun.
During the second week of their visit, we were invaded by some more friends, Leigh and her brother Jonathan. They packed up Leigh's car, the Phantom, and drove all the way from Tennessee just to join in the fun. Also, they brought a digital camera, which means that the image quality of this picspam just increased dramatically.
My grandmother had recently passed away, and as a memorial to her, we did one of her favorite things. We blew up a marshmallow Peep in the microwave. She did it every Easter, and this year, we did it for her.
Before:
After:
Maddy enjoyed even more attention.
Leigh brought along her squishy blue pillow, which we dubbed Bloo, after the little troublemaker from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. (Suspiiiiiciooooooous!) The morning after they arrived, Bloo decided to eat Jonathan's head.
Although I did take pictures of the girls sleeping in the living room, I decided not to embarrass them by showing those pictures to the world. Instead, we'll skip on to later that day, when we all went to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the world's oldest nature preserve dedicated to raptors. The three girls came in my car, and Jonathan rode with my husband Kevin. Sarah, on the way, glanced out of the rear window and remarked casually, "I don't want to alarm anyone...but I think we're being followed."
It was rainy and cloudy when we left, but by the time we reached Hawk Mountain, the weather was beautiful. And because the weather had been so bad, we had the whole mountain to ourselves, so we could take our time and enjoy it. Jonathan, who is six feet tall, posed with the giant eagle statue to show just how large it is.
We headed, first, for the South Lookout, which is only three hundred yards from the parking lot. Until that day, it was the farthest I had ever gone along the mountain trail.
It's a pretty awesome view. The white bits are known as the River of Rocks, a souvenir from the last Ice Age.
But this was not enough for our intrepid League! No, we pressed onward, stopping at all of the little overlooks on the way to the great North Lookout. Here, Claire wanders in solitude among the rocks.
There were a number of spots on the trail that we girls -- all being writers and generally crazy types -- thought would make splendid settings for an ambush. One, in fact, reminded Claire of an ambush scene she had actually written.
I...really have no idea what Jonathan is doing here.
We decided to go and have a look at the Sunset Overlook, which faces due west and is supposed to be a magnificent place from which to view the setting sun. According to our trail map, all we had to do was follow the red marks.
....you have GOT to be kidding me.
(To be continued.)
Once upon a time, my friends Claire and Sarah came from the country of England, to visit me in my little suburban Pennsylvania paradise. I was forced to take pictures of them using a crappy disposable camera.
Sarah is on the left, and Claire is on the right.
We had a fine time during their first week here. My cat Maddy sure enjoyed the attention.
So did Sheela, one of my mother's dogs.
The girls got to pull their very first April Fool's Day prank, when they helped me wrap everything in my boss's office in newspaper. It was his wife's idea, and he loved it.
The next day, we threw a surprise party at my neighbor's house to celebrate Pastor Gary's 25th anniversary of ordination. He called Claire and Sarah "my favorite British girls."
And then the day after that, we went to the delicious town of Hershey, where we went through Chocolate World and visited ZooAmerica. We also got really fun, albeit exceptionally temporary, jobs putting Hershey's Kisses into plastic boxes. They did let us keep the paper hats, though.
The weather was lovely and they enjoyed sitting in the sun.
During the second week of their visit, we were invaded by some more friends, Leigh and her brother Jonathan. They packed up Leigh's car, the Phantom, and drove all the way from Tennessee just to join in the fun. Also, they brought a digital camera, which means that the image quality of this picspam just increased dramatically.
My grandmother had recently passed away, and as a memorial to her, we did one of her favorite things. We blew up a marshmallow Peep in the microwave. She did it every Easter, and this year, we did it for her.
Before:
After:
Maddy enjoyed even more attention.
Leigh brought along her squishy blue pillow, which we dubbed Bloo, after the little troublemaker from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. (Suspiiiiiciooooooous!) The morning after they arrived, Bloo decided to eat Jonathan's head.
Although I did take pictures of the girls sleeping in the living room, I decided not to embarrass them by showing those pictures to the world. Instead, we'll skip on to later that day, when we all went to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the world's oldest nature preserve dedicated to raptors. The three girls came in my car, and Jonathan rode with my husband Kevin. Sarah, on the way, glanced out of the rear window and remarked casually, "I don't want to alarm anyone...but I think we're being followed."
It was rainy and cloudy when we left, but by the time we reached Hawk Mountain, the weather was beautiful. And because the weather had been so bad, we had the whole mountain to ourselves, so we could take our time and enjoy it. Jonathan, who is six feet tall, posed with the giant eagle statue to show just how large it is.
We headed, first, for the South Lookout, which is only three hundred yards from the parking lot. Until that day, it was the farthest I had ever gone along the mountain trail.
It's a pretty awesome view. The white bits are known as the River of Rocks, a souvenir from the last Ice Age.
But this was not enough for our intrepid League! No, we pressed onward, stopping at all of the little overlooks on the way to the great North Lookout. Here, Claire wanders in solitude among the rocks.
There were a number of spots on the trail that we girls -- all being writers and generally crazy types -- thought would make splendid settings for an ambush. One, in fact, reminded Claire of an ambush scene she had actually written.
I...really have no idea what Jonathan is doing here.
We decided to go and have a look at the Sunset Overlook, which faces due west and is supposed to be a magnificent place from which to view the setting sun. According to our trail map, all we had to do was follow the red marks.
....you have GOT to be kidding me.
(To be continued.)