Congrats Rach!!!!

Congrats to my sister Rachel for finishing the New York City Half Marathon
on Sunday July 27th...

Final Finishing time----2 Hours and 6 Minutes....
Here she is with her medal!!!!

Chauncey Chauncey Chauncey

Last night Denise and I took advantage of the near-perfect weather(after a week of horrible weather) and headed to Chauncey Creek Lobster Pier, our favorite lobster place in Kittery Point, Maine, which is just over the border from Portsmouth.



Chaucey Creek Lobster Pier is a great outdoor spot right on the water. The main attraction of course are the fantastic fresh Maine lobsters that are plucked right out of the tank for you..


Besides the lobsters, which are the maine (haha) attraction, the other great thing about Chauncey Creek is that they allow you to bring your own food and drinks in with you... Many people take full advantage of this bringing their own tablecloths, candles, dishes etc... We have never gone this far but we usually bring a cooler with some drinks and some appetizers.

Last night was no exception, we brought Sea Dog Blueberry Ale and fresh blueberries (a great combination)


We also brought fresh farmers market tomatoes, basil, and balsamic vinegar to start off with...


Following the beer and tomatoes, we moved on the lobsters, corn on the cob and onion rings...


Which of course were delicious...

All in all it was a great night!!!

Home of the Titans!!!

Better late than never..
Nashua North High School is where I will be teaching starting late next month...
I will be teaching 10th grade social studies.

The school is new (completed in 2005) and is very nice...It's also very big.. There are over 2,500 students...


Should be a very interesting year....

Peanut Butter Spaghetti

When I was growing up, my mom did all the cooking in the house. Eating dinner together as a family was an important part of the day and my mom always seemed to have an endless amount of interesting and unique recipes, some of which she has passed on to me and are staples in our house now as well. When I was about 13 or 14 my mom found a recipe for spaghetti with peanut butter and being adventurous, she decided to try it out on us...it didn't go over well and never made it into my mom's repertoire of favorite dishes to make and became a joke amongst my friends as I was the one whose mom makes peanut butter spaghetti. Fast forward 20 or so years and I found myself whipping up peanut butter and spaghetti for lunch today. Asian food is probably my favorite cuisine and Andrew and I have made a few different recipes that call for an Asian peanut butter sauce on noodles. This is mostly inspired by the cold noodle dish we get from Tapei and Tokyo, a favorite dinner spot in Manchester. Anyway, it's rainy and I'm bored today and was looking around the kitchen for something to have for lunch. In the fridge we had baby spinach, carrots, limes, garlic, cilantro (the cilantro in the Aero garden is not ready yet) and in the pantry whole wheat spaghetti, soy sauce and of course...peanut butter. I had ripped out a recipe from a magazine that I thought had the same ingredients and sure enough, it was almost exactly what I needed...minus the chicken and no hot sauce. It turned out good and made lots of leftovers...mmmm peanut butter spaghetti...who knew my mom knew what she was doing all those years ago? First tomato sandwiches and now peanut butter spaghetti..thanks mom!

"Aunty Em, it's a twister!"

Last Friday night we decided to take advantage of some free local entertainment and went down to Veterans Park in Manchester for a production of "The Wizard of Oz" as performed by a group called the New Thalian Players. Each summer they do a new play but this is the first year we have taken advantage of it. We got there early to take in all the facinating "people watching" and make fun of the pre-show entertainment...as well as run into our smoking neighbor who proceeded to smoke during the entire show. The show was great and very similar to the movie but with a few extra songs and lines. Does anyone recall something in the original book or play called "The Jitterbug?"...it was a great addition. About half way through the play we were also treated to an impromptu "light show" courtesy of the storms passing through. Luckily, it never rained. There are 2 more performances this weekend, perhaps if we have nothing to do we will check it out again!

It's Official!!!!

Round 2...

2nd trip to the blueberry farm this past Friday. Unfortuatly we didn't have a lot of time as Andrew had to get to work and it was starting to get really, really hot. Not to mention that we didn't have a lot of cash and I forgot the checkbook (they don't take debit or credit cards) so only 5 lbs this time.

On the menu this week: blueberry pancakes for breakfast this morning, a different blueberry pasta salad and blueberry coffee cake...and hopefully enough for the blueberry beer!