Fall Weekend Adventures

A rainy start to the weekend but it ended magnificently with sunshine galore and  it was filled with adventures!
On Friday evening we took Oma and Opa out for the evening. I took Oma to see Evita at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium and it was fantastic. Tom, a work acquaintance, couldn't use his 2 tickets so he offered them to me and I jumped at the chance. They were great orchestra seats and the show was terrific. While we were at the show, Myron took Opa to a pool hall and shot some pool and hoisted a few beers. A very nice evening for all.
Myron and I are intent on increasing our  vegetable intake and doing some indoor grilling in order to lose a few extra pounds. So on Saturday we ventured out to buy a good vegetable steamer and a cast iron stove top grille. Then we enjoyed our block party in the cul de sac promptly followed by a drive to Raleigh to attend a Halloween Tango Milonga! Phew...

But Sunday was another gorgeous day and I had read about the health benefits and flavor enhancement of infused oils and balsamic vinegars and we went to Chapel Hill to the Blue Sky Oil and Vinegar Store. It is a new store that specializes in exotic pairings fo flavors with first quality ExtraVirgin Olive Oil from the North and Southern hemisphere depending on when each presses!!! Amazing.

It was  taste delight and we purchased some specialty vinegars and oils to doctor up our vegetables and grilled fishes.

Here is picture of our purchases. It includes: garlic infused oil, lemon infused oil, toasted sesame oil, roasted almond oil, blueberry balsamic, vanilla balsamic and grapefruit balsamic.  There we so many to taste at the store that it was difficult to choose. Tonight we had a Kale Salad with the lemon oil and grapfruit balsamic. We cooked Cod with the garlic oil and blueberry balsamic... Explosive flavors with minimal calories and healthy antioxidants and loads of Vitamin E.

Love ya all
Anna and Myron

Anniversary Adventure Part 2

Click here to link to the pictures!

A while back I had mentioned that I would be interested in seeing how well I could shoot a gun and Myron's gift to me was an NRA Basic Pistol Shooting Course at the local firearms training center!

The 2 of us arrived at 9am on a beautiful Saturday morning and took the full day class which consisted of about 5 hours of classroom time and 2 hours of shooting practice. The course was very well designed by the NRA with safety being the first and foremost consideration. Exercising 2nd amendment rights of course was the second. The instructors were good, one was from NYC and the other was a self pronounced computer geek who worked in RTP and both loved teaching safe gun handling, shooting and the importance of exercising their rights. There were 16 in the class and of the 16 there were 4 women including me. The instructors spoke proudly of how more and more women were purchasing guns, learning how to use them and blowing the socks of macho men with their ability to shoot more accurately. It was very funny because I was darn anxious when I picked up the unloaded semi-automatic pistol to practice pulling back the slide, working the safety and learning how to aim and squeeze the thing. It was HEAVY and difficult to work!  The women in CSI and NCIS must be definitely using plastic guns in those shows! Anyway after learning how to safely and appropriately grip, handle and manipulate the unloaded gun we donned our glasses and ear protection and entered the range!!!

  
The first shooting stance was the benchrest .  This is where you sit and rest your wrists on a raised plastic armrest holding the gun aimed at the target which is 15 feet in front of you. The target was a paper plate. The goal of course is to get all your rounds into the paper plate clustered in the center.
I was in the first group up and Myron and the second group was waiting 10 feet back. We were to load only one live round for the first try because the instructors wanted to make sure we weren't going to kill anyone and wanted to monitor our safety.  I loaded the magazine, pulled back the slide,  popped it in, pushed the safety and was ready to fire. Don't I sound like a pro? :-)   When the instructors told us we could fire, I aimed carefully focusing my left dominant eye on the front sight lined up with the rear sight and the center of the plate on the sight, took a breath, let it out, held it and squeezed the trigger very slowly and evenly with the pad of my index finger and.... I HIT THE PLATE! We reloaded with I hit the plate again. And we reloaded with 5 rounds and I popped off the 5 and hit the plate every time getting them grouped!  I was doing just swell.
Myron got his turn next and did just as well with the benchrest stance!

Then I went up to do the 2 handed standing stance. I kept all the instructions in my head and remembered that to steady the grip on the pistol, you have to push out with the left hand and pull in with the right. This tension reduces movement on the pistol. I shot 15 rounds and they all were in a group on my plate and I had the best plate in the class!!! Woo hoo... watch out... Annie Oakley rides again.

Myron completed his 2 handed stance as well and got all his rounds in the plate as well. But the instructor warned him never to piss me off!!!

This was a terrific adventure and I will probably join the Ladies League at the range and join the NRA!
We are looking forward to testing different guns and purchasing one for target practice.

Thank you Myron for a perfect adventure!

Love

Anna and Myron

Zipline Anniversary Adventure

We celebrated our 3rd Anniversary this past week. We prefer to provide each other adventures as opposed to things because memories last a lifetime.

I gave Myron a Zipline adventure, with an overnight stay at a  B and B and a nice dinner in Fayetteville!

The weather was spectacular! Sunny, warm in the high 70's and fresh clean air provided us the perfect day for zipping through the canopies of 200 foot trees, crossing rope bridges and climbing spiral staircases high above the pine needle carpeted ground.  The drive was less than 90 minutes to get to the destination. www.zipquest.com is a relatively new ecological zipline in a forest with a waterfall in the Sandhills of North Carolina. Our guides reminded us of Jeff...fun, enthusiastic, athletic and humorous. After a short ground lesson we started off on our 8 zips, 3 suspension bridges and 2 spiral staircases through the dappled forest. Our group was an interesting group of people and we all had a terrific time.

The speeds on the zip were around 40 mph between 50 and 150 feet above the ground. I recommend it highly.

Our B and B was run by Gloria and she was a terrific hostess and a superb massage therapist. 

But the adventure doesn't end here. On our drive back we stopped at the NC State Fair, strolled and gawked and I ate some Fried Dough ( yummy).

Love 

Anna and Myron

Birds at our Feeder

We hung a squirrel-proof bird feeder off the back deck that Sean built and we get birds feeding all day.
Myron took some nice images of the North Carolina State Bird, the cardinal and a pileated woodpecker that is so large he makes the other birds wait their turns.

Lovin' North Carolina and the backyard!
Anna and Myron