HOTlanta - 2011 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo

Did you know that my husband, Mark is a super nerd? You probably did know that but in case you didn't, he is. Besides being insanely smart, he is very talented when it comes to games. So much so, that he has been on the Comcast Jeopardy team for the past three years. Comcast Jeopardy, you ask? It's like it sounds only with questions about cable, electricity, physics...other crap that my mind tends to glaze over. It's a big deal at Comcast. It's a way to get technicians excited about their job and to weed out the gifted and talented. The extremely gifted and talented get to go to Charleston and play in the final competition. The Richmond team has been to finals two out of the three years my husband was on the team. They were jeopardy champions in 2008. It's like the Superbowl...for nerds.

Every year each team that gets to the finals, picks a MVP to go to the SCTE Conference  as a way of showing appreciation for being awesome. Mark was voted MVP for 2010 and thus we received an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for the conference.

This year, one of the vendors rented the Atlanta Aquarium for dinner and drinks. If you ever have a chance to go to the Atlanta Aquarium, go. It's the best aquarium I have ever ever ever seen.

This room involved a moving walkway under an arch that allowed giant fish to swim over you. It was an incredible experience.

Just as you thought you were just going to see fish, this giant whale shark swims above you and all you can do is gasp.

90 lb grouper anyone? Insert plenty of drunken fishing jokes here....

They had three or four touch pools where you could feel just about anything.

Anyone get the "Finding Nemo" reference below?

The expo was definitely for the tech minded. I swayed from being incredibly bored to overstimulated. There were plenty of freebies to be had and this photo just made me giggle. Do they have RodoRepel for the pumpkins on my front porch?

Thank you Mark, for being the awesome nerd/husband that you are. It has taken us so far. The trip was fantastic.

Carter Mountain Apple Picking - 2011

Every year the Roeders and the Starkeys go to Carter Mountain in Charlottesville, VA to eat donuts  pick apples. There are other attractions like apple donuts, hay rides, apples donuts, pumpkin picking, apple donuts, wine tasting, apple donuts, etc. You get the picture.

Carter Mountain is exercise. Good fun, cool air exercise but it's a work out. Every year we go we seem to add another member of the family that wants to walk instead of just ride in the stroller. So this year it literally took an hour to get up the mountain. If we were adults by ourselves we would have booked it to the top of the mountain and worked our way down in a timely manner. Instead, we have children wondering off into the orchards. Babies rolling downhill. Children complaining of being tired (George). It's like a G rated Benny Hill cartoon. It's almost like the good people at Carter Mountain know what kind of ordeal it is for families (or lazy people) and have apples that have been picked at the bottom of the hill. Every year I am only half kidding when I say "Why don't we just get these apples?" Not that I am too lazy to go up the mountain, not at all. The view is incredible.

But because I know I am going to look like this when we get to the bottom. 

BTW, Mark still had a back issue so he was doing all the awesome picture taking while I was doing the heavy lifting.

Every year, one of us decides the process of going up the mountain is going to effing slow so they pull a "hazel" (private joke) and just book it up the mountain and wait for the rest of us. This year it was Greg. Can't say that I blame him. 

Now, I may sound like I am complaining but I don't intend that. It really was a ton of fun. It always is. It's so beautiful up there. We get pictures of the babies every year and watch them grow on that mountain. It's like a rite of passage for parents. And if you don't go, you don't get pictures like this.

It truly is a beautiful experience every year. We are so happy to have wonderful friends to share it with.