July to the ides of August

Astree Housewarming party: Went to a coworkers housewarming party.  It was a really nice place in the Hempfield area.  Not sure what the permissions are on the host’s pictures on Facebook but there you are.

Surra BBQ: Cat and I went to the annual Surra BBQ.  We didn’t stay long since Cat had to get up early the next day for work but it was a great time for the couple of hours that we were there. The weather turned out perfectly despite earlier showers in the area.

1st Gray Hair (I still don’t have any hair…): Cat found a gray hair! Kinda random at our age but was still a sight to see.  We’re getting old!

 

Beautiful Weekend

The weather was just fantastic this last weekend, so we couldn’t help but to get outside and enjoy it.

In the afternoon after church and lunch, we went hiking in Bellaire Woods Nature Preserve in Mount Joy Township.  It was our first time there.  It is a really interesting property.  It’s the only Lancaster County Conservancy property in western Lancaster County among their 24 sites.

Unfortunately, the bugs were eating Cat alive, so we didn’t walk the entire length of the trail but we spent about forty five minutes in the woods.  Living and working in busy towns, it was nice to go into the woods where there wasn’t anyone except the two of us and some nature.

After the sun set, we also got a fire going in the backyard to roast some marshmellows.  This was the first fire of the summer since we have had some awfully warm weather that has kept us inside till now.  Einstein, our one cat, watched us the entire time.  I think he’s a pyro!

AJ’s First Birthday

Lindsay’s baby boy turned 1 year old this year.  Craig and Lindsay had the birthday party at the Ephrata Library, which turned out great with all of the space that they have their and I bet it was nice that the party didn’t turn their house upside down!

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A Donahower Christmas

First, you’ll notice that this post is far displaced from Christmas.  It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed since the last time that I’ve updated the family blog.

Most of the Christmas this year was what you would expect for us: the three, the presents, having a big group of the family go to church together.  I must say that as much as I like to be eco friendly, I just don’t like the new bulbs on Christmas trees, so I reverted back to the old type of Christmas bulbs.  They have a softer look and are smaller, which looks better on trees.  The picture didn’t turn out so great but here it is anyhow:

You might know that I’m a tech geek and so I had been playing around with Foursquare, which is an app for my Android phone that Cat got me as a birthday present, nice!  This was actually one of the last times that I did check in.  I see why businesses would want to use Foursquare but without much of an incentive for me to take the time to check in, I gave it up.

The most interesting thing about Christmas might have been how we spent Christmas night!  We were at Cats mom’s house eating dinner and having a good time with her family when we realized that there was a storm a brewin’.  A big storm!  A storm that would prevent us from driving to Maine and cut our trip there in half.

So we jumped in the car, ran back to Elizabethtown to get the cats and the bags that we packed, and headed out to Maine Christmas night.  Cat was a real trooper on this trip.  Cat took over for me about 1 am and I fell fast asleep.   The next thing I know it’s 5 or 6 in the morning and she was still going!  I took back over but I didn’t think I was going to get near that much sleep or that she was going to drive quite as far as she did.

We made it up to her dad’s safe and sound and have a very nice visit with them as well.

Cat starts at HACC

Really excited for Cat as she starts her first classes at HACC in her pursuit to become a registered nurse.  She has two mandatory classes: gym and pscyhology.  It’s a downer that one of them is a night class.  I really miss Cat on Wednesday evenings.  Heads up that Cat has aced both of the classes!  Congrats once again!

Blood Drive

Cat has been meaning to sign us up for a blood drive.  Turns out that there was one held at our church, LCBC, which we were able to make.  I’ve never minded giving blood and was happy for some decent crackers, coupons and some chit chat with Cat and the nurses throughout.

We have gone twice now.  An interesting fact about blood donation is that you can save up to three people from giving blood.  This means that between Cat and I we have saved up to 12 lives thus far.  If we keep at it we can save up to 36 lives in one year.

This is a pretty cool thought so thanks to everyone who gives blood!

State Committee Meeting

I drug Cat out to the Democratic State Committee meeting.  This was a bitter sweet state committee meeting.  It was our reorganization committee meeting and TJ Rooney was stepping down as chair.  TJ has been a fantastic chair and his right hand woman, Mary Isenhour, is a great political talent.  I worked for her during the coordinated campaign in ’06 and have had a great appreciation for what she can do since.

Leading up to the meeting, it looked like there was going to be a three way race for chair that would have pitted East against the West against the T and progressive activists against Party stalwarts.  Fortunately, we came together and rallied around Jim Burn.  Since the meeting, Jim has attended the Lancaster County Democratic Committee’s corn roast.  He is the first chair to attend in a long time and it mended a lot of fences from people who were initially supporting other candidates.

Wine and Cheese party

Cat and I hosted a wine and cheese party.  We had a lot of fun at the party and organizing it.  The day of we received a few cancellations so we were a little scared by the numbers on the Facebook event page.  With that said, a ton of people who were maybes online or were invited otherwise came.  We had a great number of people here.  Heck, we had people who traveled a couple hours to get here.  Too many more and we could have overloaded the house.  Here are a few pics from the event:

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T-Shirt May 23

Boy, maybe this is tough to read.  But anyways, we went to church, hung out with fam for lunch, Cat did three tie die shirts while I neurotically worked on one, and Cat watched a Red Sox game while I surfed the interwebs.

Walk for the Harrisburg Humane Society

Cat and I along with some of Cat’s friends from work, Erin and Erin, walked a 5k and raised money for the Harrisburg Humane League.  En route we saw snapping turtles, water fowl, great scenery, and hundreds of dogs!

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