New Couch :)

Okay so this post might qualify this as the most boring blog ever but I just have to share that we finally have a new couch (well new to us....)!!! As Kris said now it looks like we live here on purpose. Our old couch, which has certainly served well for many years, was a hand-me-down from Kris's Grandmother's friend....need I say more?? This couch seems so huge and comfy to us, we are loving it! Maybe we'll get more use out of the projector and ridiculously nice sound system Kris has managed to assemble. Needless to say we are inaugurating the couch watching our good old standby, sports! Here We Go Celtics!!!! (and Pens, but the NHL playoffs aren't on National TV yet...)

Easter Egg Hunt!!!

Jake enjoying his Easter Egg Hunt

Brooke very seriously taking stock of her eggs

Thus far I haven't talked too much about my job except to say that I'm a nanny to an amazing 3 and 5 year old. Truly short of playing professionally I can't imagine a job I would love more than playing with kids all day! At one point I did start reading the Nanny Diaries because everyone said I would love it and think it was hysterical but I actually only made it about 50 pages in before I had to stop because I was so offended. For those who haven't read it is about a girl working as a nanny for a very rich NYC family and it goes through all the stereotypes that are out there about nannies and the families they work for which in my experience have been as far from reality as possible. I have been so blessed to work for many wonderful families that have greatly impacted my life and my current family is no exception. This past Friday Jake had an easter egg hunt at his school (as his mom pointed out they can have an easter party but not a christmas party and I pointed out that really is backwards because everyone has a birthday, not everyone died and was raised 3 days later....) and Brooke (his little sister) got to join in the fun. It was so cute to watch the kids scrambling for the eggs and we were so proud of Jake when he continually gave away some of his eggs to friends that were having a hard time finding some! Next week is Spring Break coming up so I'm trying to plan lots of fun stuff to do with the kids so hopefully there will be more posts soon about all the fun!

Brooke at a park before the party

Sweeney Todd!!

Steph and I after the show and dinner

So this past weekend on Sunday Kris and I got to go up to Lancaster, PA to see the Fulton Theater's production of Sweeney Todd. As an added bonus our good friend Steph was the concertmaster of the pit (awesome job Steph!!!!!!). I saw another production of theirs in the fall and I can honestly say I'm always amazed at the quality. I know they hire most of the actors from N.Y. etc.. but still, it's Lancaster, PA, an area more people associate with the Amish more then with high quality theater productions. This production was no exception and was absolutely top notch.

For those of you that don't know the musical Sweeney Todd (or don't remember the movie that came out a few years ago...) it is a very dark tale yet an absolutely amazing show. Unfortunately Sunday was closing night or else I'd tell anyone in the area to go up and see it! I've been privileged enough to play the show on two other occasions and the music (written by Steven Sondheim) is incredible, although having one of the best viola parts for pit music doesn't hurt at all either. ;)

After the show some of the pit members were grabbing dinner at a local restuarant and we tagged along. The food was great, although the service was horrendous! Our poor waitress wasn't quite with it and Kris still never got his caramel latte he ordered 3 times... (I wish I was making that up!)

It was a wonderful afternoon and if any of you ever have the chance to see the theater productions at the Fulton Theater I *highly* recommend it!!!

Good Customer Service!!

As a daughter of a small business owner I am extremely careful about where I spend my money. As a rule I tend to dislike big chains, since they are what put my dad's store out of business but obviously in today's consumer market it is impossible to avoid those kinds of stores. That being said I try very hard to only support the chains that seem to embrace a customer-oriented approach. Luckily I was recently given wonderful customer service at  a store I frequent regularly and I felt they deserved some kudos!

To understand where I was coming from with this problem let's back up a little to right after my birthday (so end of February) when I decided to take some of my birthday money from Mom and Dad Grant and buy myself a kindle. After doing some research I discovered that the price online is the same as in the stores and since I tend to be impatient I decided to head to Target and buy my kindle! At the time I opted out of the 2 year extended warranty because normally those are a waste of money....Fastforward to last weekend when Meg and I went to D.C..  I never got a case for my kindle (mostly because I was saving that as an easter idea in case the bunny needed some options) so I just tucked my kindle into my suitcase and went on my merry way. Everything was fine until I got home and went to unpack on Tuesday and discovered a crack in the kindle screen. It wasn't unusable but it was certainly aggrivating to try to read. Needless to say I spent Tuesday night berating myself for being a bull in a china shop with valuable things. I had long ago thrown away the original box and receipt leaving me with what I felt like were no options.

After some coaxing by Meg on Wednesday I headed to Target to see if there was anything I could do. I never expected  what happened next. I figured that to accomplish anything I'd have to put up quite an argument and I was prepared with facts about the return policies of other stores that sold kindles. To my great surprise I walked in, explained the problem, and was immediately given a new kindle as an exchange. No questions asked (other than if I had the card I originally charged it on since that was how they tracked it without a receipt). At this point I did opt for the extended warranty ($17 for 2 years) and walked out of the store an extremely satisfied customer.

So kudos to Target for truly putting the customer first!

Courtney

Cherry Blossoms and Twin Time!!!

My Favorite Shot of the Blossoms and the Washington Monument

 

 

Twin!!!

So this past weekend I got to have a lot of special time with one of my favorite people, my best friend, Meg, ie my twin! She came down to Baltimore on Thursday and on Friday we headed to D.C. to see the Cherry Blossom Festival and run in the Cherry Blossom 10 miler race on Sunday! Thanks to Priceline we stayed at a pretty nice hotel for not too much money which made all our travels within the city much easier. Friday night I had rehearsal in D.C. so our real adventures started on Saturday.

Saturday morning we did our packet pick up for the race just in time because as we were leaving the National Building Museum around 10:30am the line was beginning to wrap around the building (mind you we waited in almost no line!).

Next we headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and head down to the mall area. We intitaially planned to see the Cherry Blossoms first then hit a few Smithsonians however Mother Nature had other plans.... As soon as we got off the Metro we got caught in a downpour which caused us to switch up our original order so we started with the Museum of American History. We saw all the highlights, the Star Spangled Banner, First Wives Dress Collection, Pop Culture and the Instruments. At that point with the sun shining brightly we decided it was a great time to hit the festival....wrong again! We took about 4 pictures before we got trapped in a hail storm. Luckily they had tents set up for the race the next day so we ducked into one of those to wait out the storm. Finally after that storm passed we got to see the trees and trust me it was worth the wait. I put up a few of my favorites from that afternoon. We really could have spent all day looking at the trees but as it was cold, wet and windy we decided to head to the Natural History Museum because what is a girl's trip without a visit to the Hope Diamond! After checking out the gem collection and the orchid collection we headed off in search of one of our favorite dinner places....TGI Fridays. Fridays has *finally* brought back the oreo madness for dessert (that was our signature dish in High School) so we got to rest our weary feet and enjoy some good food. Then it was back to the hotel to turn in before the race on Sunday.

Sunday morning dawned cold but dry at least. Our wave of the race didn't start until 7:55am but bag drop off had to be completed by 7:15am so it was a little chilly standing in the corral for 45 min before we started. This time however we actually started with everyone instead of 10 min after (a few years ago we got stuck in the port a potty line!). We made it all 10 miles and this was probably our strongest finish of all the "twin" races we've done. I was very thankful for the slower-than-normal pace for me because I definitely was not as well trained as I would have liked to be thanks to all the concussion and neck stuff.  If you want to see any of our race pictures they are at:
http://www.marathonfoto.com/index.cfm?action=site.login&RaceOID=18572011W1&LastName=GRANT&BibNumber=13244&spMAILINGID=36163858&spUserID=Nzc5ODU0OTUyOAS2&spJOBID=98360811&spREPORTID=OTgzNjA4MTES1

After the race we got cleaned up and headed off to the concert I had to play in Sunday afternoon. Kris was *supposed* to come to the concert however since Jill (our GPS) decided not to recognize any D.C. addresses on Sunday it took him an extra few hours to find us...but we finally made it back to Baltimore.  Sunday night I introduced Meg to Jeff Dunham (one of Kris and I's favorite comedian) and made sure she saw his Prius sketch. (If you haven't seen it here is the youtube link...it's absolutly hysterical since he owns the exact same car down to the "sparkly powder blue" color that we do!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQcSOP2AzXU


Sadly Twin had to leave on Monday morning to return back to reality but overall we had another memorable weekend that of course flew by way too fast!


~Courtney