Truckin Along....

Well there's not much to report here....It's been a while so I figured I'd just do a quick update.....

We are continuing with our childbirth classes which meet every wednesday night...Last week was supposed to be our tour of the Maternity Ward at the Elliot Hospital but that was cancelled because of the snowstorm....

Last Saturday I attended "Boot Camp for New Dads"....It was a three hour "Dads only" session...Somewhat hokey but also informative...The parting gift was a sporty new t-shirt that says "I survived Boot Camp for New Dads"....I'll wear it proudly...

We spent part of saturday and sunday at Target and Babies-R-Us checking out baby stuff...we picked out a travel system and furniture as well. We also registered for a ton of stuff for baby Donavan...

We took a little road trip last saturday...First we hit the Regal Cinemas and saw "Frost/Nixon" which I liked more than Denise did. Then we hit up the Tilton Outlets and did some shopping...We then headed up to Meredith to hit the Bootleggers shoe store so Denise could pick up a new pair of shoes and then headed over to the Yankee Smokehouse for some good bar-b-que. On the way back we stopped at Target in Concord and opened up our baby registry....

As far as the homefront is concerned...not much to report...Denise is trucking along at 31 weeks...(wow time flies)... I just finished up the first semester and recently started the second one. I have three new classes, which equals 85 new kids....It's been fun getting to know them....

Otherwise the snow continues to pile up...It's been a snowy winter(although not as bad as last winter)...The snow days at school are adding up and with two more months of winter who knows how many more we'll have (we are already at 5!!!!)

Random pictures from my iphone...

I love that my iphone takes pretty good pictures, better than a regular cell phone. I also love that I know how to download them onto my computer so now I don't have to wait for Andrew to do so with the regular camera! Here's some random shots from my iphone over the past few months:




My car buried after a recent snow storm...do we live in Alaska or something???

Andrew being nice to his 7 month pregnant wife and digging my car out.





The best soup in the world from the best Thai restaurant...Duk Boa in Brookline MA, yes I am a little obsessed.



Andrew eating the second best soup in the world, a big bowl of Pho from the Golden Bowl in Manchester. Hey, we like our Asian soups.



YoBerry...a Boston knockoff of the Pinkberry frozen yogurt craze. We were happy to find this as it's similar but not as good as Pinkberry. Their motto is "so good cuz it's so hood"...not sure what that means but it's pretty funny!




A couple of shots of one of the managers I work with at Target with his bird on Target's "National take your bird to work day". I made that up. Seriously, Curtis was bringing one of his 2 birds (MaGee) to get her nails clipped and brought her in for all of us to see and hear...she's a talker!
The second one was taken right after Curtis promised me she wouldn't poop in my office. At least it only got on his shirt.





My cats, Cozmo and Mimi and my parents dog, Willie...okay Andrew, you can stop sneezing now....

Off to the Movies!

It seems like we have been heading out to the movie theaters a lot lately. Maybe it's because we know in 3 months we won't have the opportunity to do so as often (3 months!!!) or maybe there are finally some good quality movies in the theaters, probably because award season is here (kicked off by The Golden Globes on Sunday night, yes...I watched the whole thing)or because half of the country (like here) is cold and snowy and the only thing to do is to go to the movies. Whatever the reason, we have been enjoying ourselves. Unfortunately, NH lacks a good independent movie theater so catching some of the more obscure movies is usually a challenge and involves us going to Boston for the day...which I don't really mind because we always go my favorite Thai restaurant for dinner after (Dok Bua in Brookline). A few weeks ago we saw Milk in Boston. Yes, Sean Penn will probably win an award for his performance and being a "bio-pic", was a fascinating story however....I was a little bored and disappointed that there wasn't more with Josh Brolin's character who shoots Milk and the Mayor of San Fransisco in the end(I'm not giving anything away...it's a true story!) and then only gets 5 years in prison because his lawyers got him off on "the Twinkie defense"...claiming that his over indulgence of Twinkies led him to kill..now that's a fascinating story!
We do have an independent theater not far from us in Concord that we have been to a few times. It's new and they are still working out the kinks...and usually runs 2 different movies but for 4 or 5 weeks at a time so not much variety. Our main complaint is that they don't really turn the lights in the theater! They dim them but they don't turn them off. The first time we were there, Andrew went to the lobby and said something..they said "that's just the way they do it"..seriously, you could read a book in there! Anyway...we went there a few weeks ago and saw Slumdog Millionaire, which we both loved and thought was one of the best movies of the year. Great story, good eye candy and fascinating characters.
This past weekend we had the opportunity to see The Reader in our local digital, stadium seating, 5 minutes from our house, theater. Seriously the comfort and quality do make a difference. The Reader was good...I liked it more than Andrew but defiantly a great performance from Kate Winslet and a good story...who doesn't like a good holocaust film???
Coming up for us...Andrew has talked me into seeing Gran Torino...I'm not a big Clint Eastwood fan but I'm hearing good things about it and it's playing at our local theater with comfy seats. I think Andrew has also talked me into seeing The Wrestler and I am looking forward to Revolution Road...Jack and Rose from Titanic back together again!!! Seriously, it does look really good.

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!