" 'The Thanksgiving Trip' "

Berkey named this photo (and this entry) "The Thanksgiving Trip"

Ah, Thanksgiving. What a good trip. Spent Thursday at the Raftery's in Chesapeake. Here's BJ, Raf, and Will, acting similarly, despite the difference in ages:

Like father/brother, like son/nephew.

Left for Lancaster around 5PM, arriving around 11PM to a huge guitar hero fest. Maddy immediately made herself comfortable:

This dog sure does love herself a fire!

We spent all of Friday in our pajamas, playing video games and eating our faces off. Elizabeth came over for a little. I didn't take any pictures at that time, so let's review the players with pictures supplanted from times past:

Liz- guitar hero extraordinaire. She also bowls like a champ... in the virtual world. Know that the cup contains non-alcoholic Barbie punch.

Liz 2- holding the loofah harvest. She specializes in Beatles tunes that do not require a pinky.

Greg- This picture was taken 2 years ago, yet neither the living room nor Greg's position have changed since then. Imagine a clock on the wall and Greg in long pants and you get the picture.

We will not feature Kevin here since all loyal blog followers know him well. Case in point: Shanna, at Stubby's later that night, knew Kevin's life story despite never having met him. I love Shanna and I love finding her at Stubby's! We also saw:

Levi

This stranger who looks vaguely like me, but can't be. Who's that girl, Kev?

This attractive fella, photogenic as ever. Good ol' Berkey.

Kevin, trying on his former Halloween costume.

The result of Berkey suggesting "a serious one". This was unplanned.

The result of Berkey's girlfriend Michelle suggesting Raftery take "a serious one".

Weird lopsided eyeball strikes again.

On Saturday, we got up "early" and had stuffed french toast before going to see Bev in Orwigsburg. We stopped at "the auction" to check on Christmas and have lunch at my aunt and uncle's stand. I was too afraid to take pictures there, but I found this one online. This place is GREAT!

Never seen so many copies of "Speed" on VHS either...

Had a big party at my mom's place on Saturday night. We had a little competition to see who could get more friends there and, surprisingly, I won! Again, no live pictures, but here were my guests:

Tim, who teared up the crowd with rampant use of the "f" word and a story about getting a dachsund thrown at himself while on the line of duty.

His lovely wife, Sara, who is not a pirate in real life.

Seth, who is a construction worker (and an idiot) in real life.

His lovely wife, Kerrie (shown on the right).

Mindy was with them as well, but I don't have any pictures of her. We spent the night eating, discussing maps of Gay Town, playing Wii (those panda bears are tough when head-butted), and having a generally good time.

We drove home on Sunday and immediately got out the Christmas decorations. It was difficult to take pictures of them in the dark, but here are our best attempts:

Our stockings

The snow-covered TV

Our Charlie Brown tree, in blurry.

The cats' stockings on the railing.

We're feeling the Christmas spirit here at the Horbal/Raftery household. All that's left is to invite Heard over for some seasonal cheer...

Wonderful Weekend

Another eventful weekend for Raftery and Horbal...

I spent the first part of the day on a field trip at the Chrysler Museum, helping out my friend and fellow GRT, Dorn. Kevin and I did some shopping, then spent some time being authentic Virgnians by attending a "pig pickin'" at our friends Dawn and Tim's house. Check out this pig:

Gross. But delicious.It was also fun to spend some time with Kev's nieces and nephews. Here's Brayden:

And Camryn (featuring Karen):

And Will:

Today was Miss Brynn's birthday party. Check out the birthday girl:

These were the cupcakes that Karen and Janet made... adorable!

Check out those gorgeous Psimas' children (particularly Hugh, on the right):

And some final shots of Will:

Ended the excitement at "B Dubbs" (that took me 7 minutes to figure out) celebrating Ricky's birthday with some fellow City of Virginia Beach employees and am now chillin' with Maddy and her new bed. All in all, another great weekend. PA trip in T minus 4 days.

Kip is Classy

Pictures of my brother's new apartment. He renovated it himself.

Isn't he talented? And isn't his cat Maui adorable?

Post-Storm Beach Trip

From this picture, would you guess that I had two days off from school this week due to hurricane-like conditions?

 Me neither! How about this one:

Much more believable. It was a like a snowstorm at the ocean front today. I'm sure the powers that be were regretting getting an early start on the beach Christmas decorations:

The tree was pretty much falling down. Surprisingly, most of the lights were pretty okay still. The waves were pretty awesome and the air was warm so there were tons of surfers:

And tons of old and/or fat people metal detecting:

And tumble weeds along the shore:

We even saw some boats that were completely buried in the sand:

(At least it wasn't a barge) How about this cute picture of Maddy, the boat, and Tater?

I'm trying to convince him to make this one his profile pic. Here's a less cute one with me and Maddy:

I promise I'm not choking her, like it looks like. Can you tell who took this picture? Hint... bottom right hand corner. Another "family" picture:

That dog loves her Tater. I think it's mutual. This was at about mile 3.5. On our way back, we let Maddy walk without her leash because there weren't many people around and she was already tired. SHE WAS SO GOOD! It was like a new dog entered her body and decided to listen, sit when told, and walk right along with us the whole time. We even played fetch to try to entice her to enter the water:

She loved it.

We went to JP's birthday party afterward (the cousin, not the cat), then to Keagan's for dinner, and when we came home Maddy was in her crate even though we let her stay out. She put herself to bed around 6PM. It's a tough old life for a dog, walking 7 miles after 4 days of cabin fever.

Storm Part II

We lost power for about 20 hours overnight, so here's how I spent my evening last night:

I hovered around these candles, attempting to read a magazine for several hours because I was not at all tired after 2 days of doing nothing.

Luckily Raf is home now (one broken engine later), after a busy, soggy night. I cleaned and paid bills while he slept and now we're just lazing around.

Maddy, meanwhile, is busy enjoying the fire, along with her puppy. How ridiculous is this picture?

Storm of the Century (or 2009)

Had off yesterday for Veteran's Day so Raf and I headed to the ocean front to check out the conditions of the big nor'easter, the residual effects of Hurricane Ida. We knew it was raining hard and windy, but we were shocked by the power of the storm! The wind was blowing us like crazy:

By the time we got back in the car (after about 5 minutes), our pockets, ears, eyebrows, hair, EVERYTHING was filled with sand. We tried to snap some pictures of the ocean swell and blowing sand, but couldn't face north to see the picture we were taking. Here are our best attempts:

 

 

School was actually canceled today due to flooding and wind. There's talk of a possible delay/cancellation for tomorrow as well. Crazy! Needless to say, Maddy and I stayed in today. Her thoughts:

 

Here's what Kev probably looks like at work today: