Top Ten (or 12) List for 2008 (or the things that impacted our lives)

Everyone seems to do a top ten list on their blogs...
We jumped on that bandwagon so here goes
in no particular order:

1) 5-25-08 our wedding day. We got married on trunk bay on the beautiful virgin island of St. John with our families present. We spent 12 sun-soaked days living it up island style.

2) 8-05-08. The day Denise took not ONE but TWO pregnancy tests. Both were postitive but she just needed to be sure....Hence baby Donavan became a part of our lives and will present him/herself to the world sometime around April 12th, 2009.

3) The acquistion of our 42-inch Pioneer Elite Plasma HDTV from The Tahl's as an engagement gift. TV watching has never been quite so good as it is on this TV.

4) Denise's new I-Phone. She received this as a birthday gift sometime in November and hasn't quite taken her hands off of it since then. But truth be told...It is really quite awesome.

5) Our discovery of Pinkberry. Now every trip to New York involves at least one stop to take care of our addiction. We recently discovered one in Flushing which is much closer to Great Neck. Unfortunately we learned that Pinkberry doesn't travel well so we only get to enjoy it on our NY Visits.

6) The birth of our blog on with this simple post on March 11, 2008. It all started as a joke and here we are still blogging away. Who thought we could write so much about our boring lives.

7) Our addiction to Facebook. Yes it's sad and true but the truth is...We are both truly addicted. Face it, you all are too.

8) My new job as a 10th grade social studies teacher at Nashua High School North. It certainly has been an exciting, exhausting, challenging, yet fun year so far.

9) Plenty of great movies including Wall-E, Once, The Visitor and Slumdog Millionaire.

10) Our discovery of Zach Deputy. He opened for The Ryan Montbleau Band when we saw them in March. We instantly fell in love. Hopefully he'll be playing more shows around here soon.

11) Frank Pepe's Pizza. The Manchester, CT outpost of this New Haven landmark has become a favorite lunch/dinner stop of ours on our drives to/from New York. It is right off the highway and has some of the best pizza we've ever tasted. The four hour drive doesn't seem so bad anymore.

12) Finally, our 44th President. Yes, we are both thrilled that Barack Obama won. We certainly feel that we did our part to help him win here in the Granite State. . We really enjoyed making phone calls and canvassing the neighborhoods of Manchester.

2009 certainly will be an exciting and eventful year for us. We'll be sure to keep you all posted on everything that happens.

Happy New Year!!!!

A few hours early but who knows if we (or at least I) will be awake when it officially turns to 2009...we are spending a quiet night at home to celebrate the new year as opposed to traveling in the snow to ring in the new year with live music and a few hundred other people like we have done the past 3 years. One of our favorite bands, The Assembly of Dust, has always put on a great show in Boston or like last year, Keene. However this year they are playing in North Hampton MA...a bit too far and especially in this weather so we nixed the idea of going. We also decided that we are probably getting to old to be out until 2 or 3 in the morning...and we figure we should start getting used to staying in and hunkering down! Only 4 more months before our lives change forever! And we are getting very excited about it! So Chinese food for dinner, Andrew making carrot cake cupcakes (I think he shredded part of his finger with the carrots) and a bottle of champagne (I might have a little glass...), we are all set to enjoy a quiet New Year...Happy New Year to everyone and here's to a great 2009!!!

Christmas with the Fosters

First off...we'd like to wish everyone who reads our blog a merry christmas, happy hanukkah, or whatever it is you celebrate this time of year....

Denise and I just got back from Ballston Spa, NY where we spent Christmas with her parents... We had a great time...relaxing, eating, sleeping, opening presents, and doing not much at all.


We arrived on wednesday evening after an awful drive through rain, fog, and more rain. Joyce cooked us a delicious dinner (Rachael Ray's Christmas pasta, salad, and garlic bread). We then played a rousing game of trivial pursuit and retired to bed.

Christmas day started with breakfast and then consisted of opening gifts, eating candy (including Joyce's famous chocolate fudge wreath) see picture:


The afternoon was spent playing with our new toys (including Joyce's new I-pod), sleeping, watching "A Christmas Story", and eating more junk........ There were a few catnaps that took place as well...

Christmas dinner greatly resembled a thanksgiving feast (turkey with all the trimmings)...After dinner Denise and I took a walk and then drove around unsuccessfully to look at christmas lights. When we returned Joyce, Denise and I played a rousing game of Seinfeld Scene it.

We got up today and had breakfast and hit the road. We had a quick trip back and then Denise had to go to work...

All in all it was a great relaxing XMAS.....

Yet another ultrasound picture....

Well, because baby Donovan (just a nickname, not any name we really picked out) is so stubborn and wouldn't move the right way for the doctor when I went for an ultrsound last month, I had to go back again today so they could got all the imaging shots they need for the 2nd trimester screening. And wouldn't you know it, he/she was being just as stubborn today as well! I may have to go back a third time as today the baby moved in the exact opposite direction the tech needed it to move! Stubborn and doesn't listen...hmmm...could this be a precursor of what is to come? Or does the baby just take after it's parents? Anyway, the upside is that I always get to go home with some new pictures...Here's baby Donovan sucking his/her thumb!

"224,000 without power in NH but...."

224,000 was the number on Saturday due to the "ICE STORM OF 2008". I don't know what the number is today but I am hoping for all those people out there in the dark that it is a lot lower! We were so lucky never to have lost power and had no idea how bad it really was, even in our own backyard. The storm started Thursday night and we were both home safe and sound watching the ice form on the power lines. Friday morning, we woke up at 5am to check it all out and Andrew found out he had no school. I, of course, still had to go to work so I headed out a bit early in case the roads were bad. It was raining but about 40 degrees, so no chance of ice on the roads. I made it to work fine and noticed that about a block away from us, the neighborhood was completely dark. Target had power and ended up being a busy day since thousands of people had no power, and no school and no work...so the holiday shopping season saw a benefit from the storm! Saturday night, Andrew and I went out to dinner and then hit the town for his favorite holiday activity...driving around looking at Christmas lights. I don't know what it is about the lights, but the more obnoxious the decorations, the more he laughs and laughs. Our goal is to find the most obnoxious in Manchester and we think we may have done so...The ironic thing is this is all going on while 224,000 people still have no power in NH!!!! Could there be a connection? If these houses turned off just half of their lights, would it be easier for the power to be restored in the rest of the state? I know, probably not but it makes you wonder...Anyway while driving around about 3 blocks away from us, we noticed there were not a lot of decorations...then we realized these blocks had no power, still after 48 hours. We had no idea and because we never lost power, had no idea that houses so close to use were effected for so long. I'm not sure if they have power back on now but we certainly felt lucky! Here's to hoping that all power throughout NH and New England is restored soon!
***These are all pictures from the same house in Manchester. Also the same house in the background of our new blog picture***




***Also seen around Manchester: A blow up snowman the size of a house****

***I couldn't believe this when I saw it but it's the leg lamp from The Christmas Story! "Fra-gil-e...must be Italian!"

Ninety-Nine

No...not bottles of beer on the wall....

Wednesday (Dec 10th) was my grandfather Jack's 99th birthday....
One more to go...
I am pretty sure he's not reading this but
anway..
Happy Birthday Gramps.... Here's to 99 more!!!!

Blogging Slacker

So it's been a while since I last blogged...I'm an official blogging slacker. We had a nice thanksgiving in NY. It was great seeing family and friends (although in a whirlwindish kind of way) Denise headed back to NH on friday morning to do the Black (green) friday thing at Target. I stayed in NY and sat through a bad movie (Quantam of Solace) and then went to the annual post-thanksgiving bash at the Tahl Mahal. The drive back to NH on that sunday was awful. Rain, traffic, more rain, more traffic and then up here in the granite state ice and snow. It took well over 6 hours to do a normally 4 hour drive. Now we are back to the grind. Denise is busy with the usual holiday stuff and at school I'm contending with progress reports and the pre vacation student zaniness. Otherwise Denise at 24 weeks and baby Donavan is doing just fine....

Some of the events of the past few weeks will be elaborated upon soon..
Until then..be assured I won't be a slacker anymore....