Oh What A Weekend!

This is going to be a very picture-centric blog entry, so you won't have to worry about my usual attempts at humor or trying to figure out what I'm saying due to my lack of a grasp on the written English language.

The weekend started off with the misses and I making our way down to Boston for a couple of days of baby visiting. First off, we hit Beth Israel Hospital where we got to meet the newest member of our extended family. Little Thomas William...I can't decide if I'm going to go with Tom or Tommy yet, we'll see..
Ignore the beer gut and focus on the tiny little person I'm holding. Just a perfect little baby, sorta like the ones in the movies...
As you can see, the wife is a lot better at holding babies than me. She's opting to go with the one arm method here. The wife asked me not to go too overboard with the gifts, so I tried not too. I only bought like 6-7 things...

That night, we headed over to our friend Jimmy and Stacy's to hang out for the evening. It was a really great time; their baby Emma is about ten months old now and about 10 minutes away from running around the house. She seems like she has zero interest in crawling at this point, she just wants to get up and sprint. Its funny though, as young as she is, she's still almost as tall as my wee-folk wife...

I think she spent the entire time walking around the coffee table, trying to get her hands on all the food there...
As you can see, the "piling everything in the middle of the table" method is being used here. It was really a great night; lots of great food and just a lot of fun catching up with friends who we don't get to see as much now that we've moved...

Jimmy is also just about done building the deck off the back of his house (when I say he's building it, I don't mean that he's paying some, no, he's actually building it). Normally you'd see pictures of my house projects, but this was so darn impressive I had to show some pictures. The house is on a hill, so the first floor is really the second floor on the back of the house. The deck runs pretty much the length of the house and has a couple of stair cases down. One to the driveway and the other to the back yard..

He used that synthetic wood that everyone is using now and it looks amazing...

Really an amazing job, which works out well for me. The more he can do, the less I have to pay some stranger to do for me when I can get him to help me out.

Saturday we went over to Phil and Sue's for a bbq. They just moved into their new house a couple of weeks ago, but it looks amazing. Again, all the friends were there, so we got to spend a lot of time with everyone catching up...

The master chef at work...
It's amazing how our lives have changed. Five years ago we all would have been hanging out, multiple beers in our hands laughing away. Well the laughing is still there, but the beers have been (somewhat) replaced by babies. When you're younger it never really dawns on you (or at least me) that we'll have to grow up sooner or later. I gotta say though, so far so good...except maybe someday that'll be one of our kids we're chasing around the lawn..
This is Julia, the baby who loves to smile. Or in this case, make funny noises will I egg her on. Lori and Rob need to keep an eye on her, cuz just like Emma, she's about ten minutes away from running around the house...
This is Maya... she's only eighteen months old, but wow is she smart. Picks up and repeats every word she hears, which is great, but people like me need to be careful and watch our language (thankfully nothing bad slipped out). And again, she's only a wee one, yet she's as tall as my lovely wife...

It was just a great weekend all around really. Sometimes it's tough up here, with all our friends down there, but when we can all get together like we did this weekend, its just perfection.

Sunday, before we hit the road home, we stopped by my newly engaged brother's house to visit with him and his lovely bride to be. I feel like I haven't seen either of them in forever, so it was great taking a couple of hours to catch up and listen to the ladies go on and on about wedding stuff. I can't wait for their wedding next summer.. it's going to be so much fun...

One last thing. The wife and I need non wedding pictures of the two of us, does anyone out there have any? We need pictures for our adoption profile, and pretty much every picture we have of us is from a wedding, so we're looking for something a little different. Thanks for the help!

WHOOOO HOOOOO!!!!

So the big day finally arrived! No, not anything I did, but my cousin had her baby! Nine pounds two ounces, at 12:42pm today little Thomas William was born!!! Apparently his birth is making me go crazy with exclamation points!!! So this means that I'm now officially a god father, how cool is that? If I'm this excited now, imagine how excited I'll be when our new baby finally arrives. (btw, how funny would it be if, since we're adopting, we actually had a stork bring us the baby. that would allow me to tell the truth in 5 years when our future kid askes me where babies come from..)

Now I finally get to go buy some presents too. The sex of that baby wasn't known, so we couldn't buy anything until now. Tomorrow I'm hitting the stores and spoiling him.... well not really him since he'll only be like two days old when we meet, so more like his parents who then will have one less thing to buy (or fifteen less things, like I said, this child will be spoiled). And don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures posted this weekend..

Ok, so this is totally off the subject from above, but it really caught my attention so I figured I'd pass it along... I'm in the car coming home for lunch, listening to one of my country stations and the following ad comes on, "If you don't believe in the god in "under god" in the pledge of allegiance then you're listening to the wrong radio station. " Umm ok.. how is this a good idea for an ad? Wouldn't you want as many people as possible listening to your station? More people, equals more listeners, equals more ad revenue. Apparently not here though, apparently all those heathens out there need not listen. Get your country music elsewhere sinners!

We just had the most random thing happen... the doorbell rang, so we both looked up from the tv, and no one was at the door. Weird right? Well no, Mainers have a tendency of using the backdoor, so off we went to check there. I, of course, being the man of the house, let the wife answer it while I stood in the dining room listening in. Turns out, its some random lady. First she says to the wife, "who's car is that?". So the wife answers, "Um mine." To which the woman replies, "Is there another apartment in your house?". To which the wife replies, "no, this is our house, there are no apartments here." This thoroughly confused the woman who then asks what street she's on, thinking she's on Maple St., which is 2 streets over. Apparently she was going to a friends to drink some wine and have some Triskets (she had lots of both in her hands), and was lost. Methinks she dipped into the wine a little early, as our house is very distinctive (none of the houses on the streets around us looking anything like it) and our street clearly doesn't say MAPLE! And no, she didn't leave any wine for us...

A Day In MA

So I drove down to MA yesterday, had to work in Salem for the day today, then drove back up to Maine. Good times. I stayed at my parents house though while there, and I noticed something strange. Every minute or two, a large winged iron beast would fly over the house. I was told these are planes, but I never see them up here. It's weird, cuz I grew up in that house, never really noticing them. But since I've moved, every time I go to my parents house, I realize just how low and noisy they are...

I also thought I'd post some random pictures for you. The first one is of my lovely wife's tomato plants....
They're about five feet tall each. The tomato's are still green, so we still have to wait until they're ripe. On the left, you can see that post and string contraption. Those are the pea's, and those are very tasty. Apparently the wife is developing quite the green thumb..

Remember how we ripped apart the lawn? Well here's what it looks like now.. at least when it's not raining out...Not too shabby huh? There's a couple of small patches that didn't grow in, so I'll have to add some seeds there, but for the most part it looks pretty darn good.

The Weekend

Well, before we get started, I would just like to throw a HUGE congratulations out there to my brother M. He finally had the guts to propose to his fantastic girlfriend. Jessie, I hope you know what you're getting into! But congratulations guys, good luck planning the wedding..

Weekend was good, my parents game up to visit which is always fun. Friday night we just went to a local brew pub for dinner, then home to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I'm not a huge fan of the games, but I was outnumbered so I had no choice. The opening ceremonies were really impressive, the amount of synchronization was amazing, but they were too long for my liking. Now comes two plus weeks of events, most of which I have no real interest in.

Saturday we introduced my parents to the Wii. Surprisingly enough, they both picked it up pretty quickly, although I think my mom pulled a muscle bowling. Later that afternoon, dad and I went golfing with my uncle while mom and the wife went shopping. I played my best round of the summer, which was nice. And that night we went over to my other uncles house for a cook out. Whenever those Morrissey brothers get together, hilarity ensues. All the old stories come out and everyone always leaves sore from all the laughing.

Today, after my parents left, we hung out and discussed baby names. Soooo many to choose from. And you've gotta be careful what you choose, because a child's name can limit their future employment opportunities. For instance, if you name her daughter after a mineral (i.e. crystal), you might as well enroll her in dance classes now, because she's going to be a stripper. Certain names just invoke certain images don't they? Maybe it's because you went to high school with a girl named Becky, and she was easy, so you can't name your kid Becky now. Or maybe you had a hardass of a boss named Bob, so you can't name your kid Bob now either. We have a couple of pretty good ideas so far, but we're not going to tell anyone what they are. People can judge us after it's official and legal, but not a second before.

Speaking of kids, all of our required forms have been mailed out, so we're just waiting for the agencies used to do their part. Hopefully it won't take too too long. This whole process is all about waiting I guess. Waiting for the paperwork, waiting for the ok from the social worker, waiting to be picked by a birth mother, waiting for the baby to be born, waiting for the legal grace period to conclude, then finally coming home. I love talking about it though, because for the most part, everyone is very excited for us. Some have seemed a little confused as to why we're adopting, but like my grandmother said, (paraphrasing) if they don't support our choices, then we really don't need them in our life. (which is true in this situation, but if we were choosing to do crack, i think i'd still need them around haha)

And finally, remember a while ago I mentioned that I was going to be a godfather to my cousins baby? Well, she's due this week!!!! No idea what the sex is yet, as they want it to be a surprise, but that's ok, as long as it's healthy that's all that matters right! So good luck Lisa, and remember to breathe!

In Boston For The Day

Yep, just the day.. Nothing like driving 240 miles each way for 9 hours of work..

On the way home though, I came to the following conclusion: Massachusetts people do not know how to drive. With traffic in the middle lane going 65, you're required to go more than 65.5 in the left lane! Also, blinkers.. you have them down there right? Cuz no one ever seems to use them. In New Hampshire, I was lucky enough to get stuck behind Sadi, the cigarette smoke, Irish lesbian. How do I know this you ask? Well I'm assuming her name is Sadi because that's what her license plate was and I know she's an Irish lesbian because of the Ireland sticker and gay pride sticker on the back of her car. I also deduced that she's a smoker by watching her flick her cigarette out the window, which then bounced off my windshield. Nice. After 10 minutes, she finally moved to the right land and let me and the 15 cars behind me pass, how nice of her.

So my parents are coming up this weekend. Gotta pray for some nice weather so my father, my uncle and I can golf on Saturday. It's been raining pretty much non stop up here the last week or so. I'm determined though, at some point to get my parents to play Wii...I just feel like that would be highly amusing to me...

Hi, My Name's Jay And I'm Addicted to Wii

I can't stop playing. When I'm at work, it's all I think about. I wonder if there's some sort of group or something I can join to get help. But here's the thing, I don't think I want help. Sure, I'm sore (pathetic I know, how out of shape am I), and I sweat waaay too much while playing, but whatever, it's totally worth it! Wii is the wave of the future I tell you! Although I have to give props to the wife, she's quite the bowler and golfer, but isn't much for tennis...Unlike me who just rules at everything!!!

Moving right along.. is it wrong the the wife and I have started watching Home Improvement at lunch? Does it help or hurt that after all these years I still find it really funny? I'm a sad sad little man huh..

So I forgot to mention that we went and got finger printed the other day. We just had to go down to the police station and have the nice men in blue do it. The nice police officer joked that the wife's finger nails, acting as handles, made it a lot easier for him to guide her fingers from the ink to the paper. I made the joke that it was probably nice for him to be dealing with sober people for a change... Speaking of the finger prints, we sent them to the FBI to be processed except we (read: I) forgot to include the check. So the FBI just called and asked where the money was. Thankfully I got the nicest FBI agent ever and he nicely explained what to do and how to fix the problem quickly. Can't say I've ever had the FBI call the house before though...

Anyone else see this story on cnn.com? My guess is that its just a turtle without its shell...

Hey lobster fans, have you noticed the price lately? Up here, it's down to $6 a pound! (they're saying it's due to a great harvest and a weak economy, people just don't want to buy it as much so there's more of it) That's cheaper than a pound of turkey at the deli counter! Also, if you haven't noticed, the summer is almost over! C'mon people, we live in vacation land! Why does no one want to come visit us! The spring and fall aren't that fun up here, as it's usually cold and wet. Winter, we can snowmobile and all that. Summer, perfect weather, lots of outdoor stuff to do. Spring, its cold and rainy. For a couple of weeks in the fall its nice, but then once you hit early October its all down hill fast... so come up and visit while you can!

Me And My Wii..

So it's Sunday night, which means I'm going to write about our weekend and begin to dread getting up for work in the morning..

Friday night, we hit the movies. This week it was the wife's turn to pick, so we saw the new Mummy movie. Believe it or not, it actually wasn't that bad, it was actually pretty good. It's not exactly Oscar worthy or anything, but for a summer movie it was perfect. No thinking, just entertainment. If you're looking for a fun summer flick, this would be a good choice. After the movie we hit the 99 for a bite to eat and a couple of drinks.

Saturday, I ran over to my uncles house to borrow his lawnmower as mine is still not cooperating. After I finished mowing, we went back over to hang out for a bit, and our favorite 3 year old was there, Logan. Logan is the daughter of a friend of my aunt's and is perhaps the cutest little girl you've ever met. It worked out well, cuz after playing with her for an hour or so, I was ready for a nap...which I did when we got home.. the perfect afternoon.

Now here's where it gets good. After a wonderful chinese food dinner, we made a trek to Target. What did we get at Target you ask? Perhaps the worlds bestest invention, the Nintendo Wii. This thing is absolutely fantastic. It's a video game console, but you actually have to use your whole body, not just your thumbs to play. When you play tennis, you actually have to swing the racket. When you bowl, you actually have to swing your arm in the right motion and all that. Sooo much fun. So far, we have the game it came with (wii sports) along with another sports game (deca sports) and a game called Rayman (which if fantastic. you're basically this animal kidnapped by some crazy bunnies who make you do all sorts of tasks. so weird i know, but there's a certain thrill in throwing a cow 150 feet or shooting rabid crazy bunnies with a bathroom plunger gun)

Today was spent playing lots and lots of Wii, but we also watched Juno. Have you seen this movie? Good stuff. It's about a high school kid that gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption. Very dry humor, hilarious, but a really good movie, and pretty relevant to our life right now too.

I know it doesn't sound like a very exciting weekend, but it sure was. Wii is fantastic, but half the fun is watching the other person play. Trust me, you really have to give it a try when you come up. My Wii muscles are killing me right now, which I guess means I'm really out of shape huh.