ARGH! A pirates life for me

I have been meaning to share about a recent adventure we had.

A Pirate Adventure.

For real.

Little guy's friend's brother had a birthday party and said friend was allowed to bring a friend, that friend being my little guy. (follow so far?)

The party was held at Pirate Adventures in Annapolis. Despite viewing the website prior to our adventure, I really had no idea what we were in for.


Pirate Adventures is owned and run by the wife and husband team of Emily and Michael Tomasini - AKA: Captains Ruby and Crabby.


That's Cpt. Ruby to the left, bringing us in at the end of our adventure.




So the day of the party, we arrived at the building, quite non-descript - a big warehoue type building from outside appearances. We parked in the small but ample lot and made our way over to where we could see people already gathered. There is a small 'deck', outside the main entrance, which is covered with sand and provides some seating as well as a 'dressing area'. The children check in at the counter inside where they receive their nametag with a pirate name already mad eup for them then they head out to the deck to don some piratey clothes and receive face painting (or arm painting as was our case...little guy was not into having his face done up but he received a wicked cool skull and flames on his forearm).

The REALLY cool thing about the entire day is how the staff engaged the children the entire time. Once they were dressed and painted up, Captain Ruby gave the kids a quick lesson in all things "Pirate" - the lingo, the goals of pirates, etc. They learned to yell ARGH! And aye-aye and knew they were all about finding buried treasure....or sunken treasure. They knew that someone had stole the gold and they needed to find it. We could see the ship tied up at the dock, but they didn't just walk the kids over to the dock. Noooooooooooooooooo. They began, in character, right from the get-go. The all crouched down and shuffled as they snuckl through the parking lot, hiding behind cars and then making a quick dash to the next car until they reached the dock.


Wow, this isn't like any party I've ever been to!

Once on the boat, we set out while Captain Ruby and her assistant (sorry, name escapes me)wove a tale of adventure and stolen treasure and mermaids and such. At some point a small outboard motorboat appeared with a nasty pirate aboard (Pirate Pete maybe???) and the kids fired water cannons at him -- one pass, two passes, three and four until they knocked him off the boat and into the water he went. (for real...and that water did NOT look warm).

On we sailed while the kids hunted for a map on the ship, which once found gave them clues to the sunken treasure.


As we went along someone finally spotted a bouy and as we steered near Captian Ruby lowered a hook and retrieved the treasure!


The kids were beyond excited. (the ENTIRE time)


We also found a bottle of Petes Grog floating in the water (sealed up tight) which was enjoyed by all and tasted very much like orange soda.


Odd huh?


We took a little detour down into a little 'canal' area of restaraunts and big boats and the kids played a game of limbo on the ship while our Captain rang our bells (or was it a horn..? the grog left me a little woozy...yea, thats it) and the other boats blew theirs.

It was really really a fun time. I highly recommend Pirate Adventures.....and I get no kick-back, I'm just a really really happy pirate and a huge new fan of theirs. :)


I wish I had pics of the ship, but oh - you can see them at their website:

Pirate Adventures


If you are in the area, consider your own adventure. They also have a location in the Outer Banks, NC if that's closer to you, I suspect they do a fine job there too. But really - Emily and Michael - they have a great thing going, if you have kids, GO. They will have a GREAT time!

AHOY!
~Janice

All about the onions

I love vidalia onions.

But really I'm not too picky - I like just about all onions, thought not all of them raw. Since I like them so much, imagine my joy when at the Jewelry Artists Retreat last year, Lisa made, and I do mean MADE, as in, from scratch, ONION SOUP. Its like my eyes were opened for the very first time. Seriously. I mean the flavor of FRESH onion soup - its worth all the chopping.

Its simple really, onions, butter, salt, pepper, and stock (whatever kind you choose). (and a dash of sugar if you're living in the south)


What could be easier???? Saute' the onions then add the stock and let it cook.

Here you see my pot FULL of raw onions. The butter is simmering in the bottom. At this point, I stir a lot.

I like a high heat to soften up the onions and maybe brown them a little, I like the flavor that gives. Just be sure to STIR often!

Just look at that red hot burner!!!

Now I've added the stock.

And.......

Cover the pot up tight.

And NO peeking! (well, ok, peek - I know you want to!)

Besides, how will you know when it looks like this??

Serve the soup with a covering of thick bread and melted cheese. We used skim shredded mozarella and provolone. But you can use your favorite.

Asiago is DIVINE on this.

Enjoy!

Janice

TOT - Could be doing better!

OK, I am going to be totally honest.

We didn't really work on thinning out ANYthing this week.

Well, maybe I did.............I did mostly finish cleaning out my daughter's room and packing her misc. leftover things up. Now I just have to get the boxes and containers out of her room and into storage.

I would have liked to have done more - to have been focused and systematic this week in thinning out some things, but I am not going to kick myself for it or feel like a failure - we've had a busy week. So what? Such is life.

I'll put one foot in front of the other and just keep marching on.

The other thing we did was hang drywall in the garage. Down one wall. This to provide a place to install the new storage system of containers we've purchased. It is a system of hanging bags and bins of various sizes that we can keep little guy's toys and sports equipment in and other misc 'garage' items. I guess we took more steps than I thought to thin out the clutter, even if we didn't get RID of a lot of stuff. Thinning out the clutter and mess is certainly a worthwhile endeavor!

~Janice