Summer 09 (Second Half)

It's true that my blogging has been very sparse lately. I know I need to change that. I want to keep the goings on of my life up to date, because that way, I don't have to call people and tell them what I've been up to. I just type for 20 minutes or so, and then no calls are necessary, except to my mom, who wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to turn on a PC, let alone be able to navigate her way to find my obscurely-titled blog--if she even knows what a blog is.
So since Mel and I have done a few things over this summer since my last post, I think I'll share. Then, I plan on updating more frequently and get back to sharing my "Humble Opinions" (I've got a wicked rant on crazy children's names waiting in the wings).
Last post, discussed the 4th of July, my birthday, and such...
Since then, we went to Niagara Falls:


We took a last minute trip with Adam and Megan to go to the Palmyra Pageant (a landmark moment for any Mormon's life). Since it's so close to the Falls, we took a day trip there.

Waiting for the Pageant to start

We also went to see the mid-night opening of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. Good times were had by all. We waited for about four hours for the movie to start. So there was trivia and board games and refillable popcorn to pass the time.

Then, Sara and Tony Got married. So, a belated congratulations is in order. And, an apology for not uploading pics sooner.

My car hit a kinda fun land mark, 77,777 miles. We watched Senator Kennedy's funeral procession (and you can too).

Then, in September, we went to Utah for a whole slew of reasons: My high-school reunion, Peach Days, and the fact that we could only make it out there one time this year. None of which alone are reason enough to fly across the country (maybe the last of the three), but when they all converged on one weekend, we decided to go.


The reunion was fun and less awkward than I thought it would be. Except for a few moments which I'll have to talk about in a later post.

We were, obviously, the best-dressed table.
Mel and I did our traditional "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" stop, visiting Ruth's Diner, which was absolutely delicious. Anyone in Utah must go there.
After Ruth's, we got caught in the worst rain storm I've ever seen in Utah, so we went an looked at the newly-renovated state capitol building.
And finally, last weekend, we went to Florida with Melanie's parents for a long weekend. It was a lot of fun. On Sunday morning, I got up early enough to catch the sunrise.
Later, we went on to Lion County Safari before leaving, and we saw a whole heap of cool animals right by the car. It was pretty fun, and only a little bit of cheesiness for the children.


So, that's a quick recap of my summer. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

The Duke

The other day, I overheard interesting bits of a phone conversation between Melanie and her grandma, Ms. Lunelle Annabel Westphal (I love her name in its entirety).
Melanie called home to talk with her mother on her birthday last week. It turned out that her grandma had gone to visit from Florida for about a week. Now, Grandma is a real old-time southern bell from somewhere like South Carolina or Georgia. I've never met her, but have heard a few stories.
So, while talking to Mel, my mother-in-law asked Melanie if she wanted to speak to Grandma, and handed the phone of.
They shared all of the pleasantries that you would normally share with a grandparent with whom you haven't spoken in a while. And, since she wasn't able to make it up to the wedding, she apologized for not making it here, and then got onto the topic of the wedding and the pictures.
Here's where it gets good...she said, "He's a beautiful man...and a Westerner!! He could be a John Wayne type."
That made my day.

I Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I think Melanie's awesome. Best wife ever!! The fact that she spearheaded the week-long celebration of my birthday is just one more reason. That being said, I'll let you in on what the festivities included.
My birthday was on a Tuesday, so that meant that the celebrating began on the preceding Saturday. That day, we went with a select group of friends, to go tubing on the Shenandoah.
We went to a place called Butts Tubes, located right by Harper's Ferry, on the VA side. Mel and I went, of course.
Then there was Kasey and Lex (photos courtesy of Lex BTW).

Then there was Adam and his then-new flame Megan. (They kinda shied away from us)

Sara was unfortunately sans significant other, as Tony was off for training. Turns out he got back that morning, and she dropped us like a hot potato once she caught word that he was back, not joining us for dinner.

This is me, looking hot on a rock. At this point, Melanie had floated past me, and I was wondering where she was, judging by the fact that I was smiling, I might have found her by this point on a rock further downstream. The tubing was a lot of fun. The river was calm, but had some fun whooptie-dos. All-in-all, we had a great time.

On Sunday, Melanie invited other friends to our place for cake and ice cream. She pulled through amazingly, buying a chocolate cake from Costco. It was delicious.
And these are the people who came. In our little apartment.
On my actual birthday, we went to dinner at the Sweetwater Tavern, which was really good. I got a steak and mashed potatoes. We also had a coupon sent to us from them for a free dessert with each entree purchase. While there, my lovely wife gave me my gifts in three envelopes. The first was a card...it wasn't the sappy lovey-dovey type--she knows I hate those. The second envelope had tickets to the Capitol Steps, which is a comedy troupe in DC that parodies songs and mocks politicians, a perfect choice for me.
The last envelope contained a print out from Amazon.com showing this (picture was taken during a Pantene commercial in case you're curious of who the lady is) :
On the paper was written "okay, let's talk about this." I've been pining for a big TV since I left my old apartment and it's Hi-Def goodness. She hadn't purchased it, but had done a lot of research on it. We did some further research, and found that the one she had found, was the best deal, had a great picture, and had great reviews. We bought it on sale at Sears, which made me wax sentimental from my days of employment there (haha, just kidding). Thus far, we've brought it home, but we need to upgrade our cable to get all the sweet channels, but we'll get to that soon enough.
Finally, on Saturday, we made it to the show by the Capitol Steps. It was a lot of fun. The music was very topical, the entertainers were very energetic, and hillarious. I enjoyed it very much.
Ultimately, this was probably the best B-day celebration that I've ever had. Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes from everyone. Especially, a big thanks to Mel who organized all of the birthday goodness. I'll definitely have a hard time trying to top this for her next January.

Happy Birthday America!! You don't look a day over 200

Hey everybody. How are you? It has been quite a while since I've put anything on this boring blog of mine. Don't be thinking that it means I haven't been doing anything. There are about three or so posts that need to be put up with events that have taken place in the past month since I last blogged. One very important one was our Northeastern Fourth of July Trip.
I've always wanted to go to Boston to see the fireworks on the Fourth, and was thinking about it this year, but Mel and I didn't really make firm plans for the holiday other than our Yankees game that we got tickets to, courtesy of Mel's dad. So we went, and had some sweet seats. Unfortunately, the Yankees decided that they would end their winning streak on the game we went to.
So, our plan was to spend the holiday with Mel's family since we didn't really have anywhere else to go. However, Kade mentioned that he was going to be in Boston with Dear Brenda, visiting his sister, Kami Jo. Knowing that we'd be in Connecticut already, I knew that I had to go to Boston to hang out with them and see the fireworks there.
Boston is by far my favorite city here in the States. I had only been once before, and it had been nearly four years since my last trip, but I still loved it.
We left on Saturday morning, and got to Kami's house at 9:00 am, just in time to get breakfast.We went to Mike's City Diner (as featured in the Food Network's "Diner's Drive-ins and Dives"). We had some delicious pancakes, and then got headed out for some adventuring.


First stop was to find the creapy baby head I had seen in pictures, and knew I needed to find them for my own pictures. We went to the Museum of Fine Art, and sure enough they were there

Next stop was to head out on our whale watching tour.

We got on our ship with Captain Debbie, and headed out. While leaving the outer harbor, we passes a bunch of islands and lighthouses.

Here's a view of the city as we were pulling out.
We cruised for about 1.5 hours and then got to the preserve area where they find the whales. And sure enough, there were whales a-plenty.


Then we came back and were really hungry. So we went to Legal Seafood where I was dissuaded from getting the Lobster Feast (it was $50 a person), which sounded delicious.
I settled on the Lobster Roll, which turned out to be rather tasty.
After dinner, we headed out to find the Old North Church, and Paul Revere's Home (I'll spare the pics).


This is Kade being angry or something.
We next decided to head towards Cambridge to get a spot for the fireworks. However, on our way there, we passed a happening Italian bakery in Little Italy. Since it was so hopping, we decided that we needed a treat for our firework watching.



They were tasty.
It was cold so, I bought a sweatshirt, which was good because last time I was there I wanted one, but hadn't bought it. I didn't use it, cause my wife got a little chilly, but at least I now have a souvenir from this trip.
Then the fireworks were awesome!! The best fireworks I've ever seen.
See Look: (there were about 30 minutes of this)



And The Finale:
So there you have it, that was how I spent my Independence day. It's definitely my favorite holiday, and I think this may have been the best one. I would go to Boston in a heartbeat next year.

Boy My Life Sure Seems Boring

At least according to my blog...But I we have had a couple of adventures in the past few weeks.

Like this one:

Our Trip to Pittsburgh, PA

We went over Memorial Day weekend. It was a fun road trip with just the two of us to see a new city. And, it turned out to be a surprisingly nice place. I really liked it with all the bridges and the water and such.

Our first stop was to the Carnegie Science Center. Which, at first had me worried that we had paid too much for a kids museum, but it was awesome!!! They have all sorts of hands-on activities that give you an understanding of light, weather, sound, aviation and all sorts of other things.
Here I am building a structure to withstand an earthquake.

We got to go inside an actual submarine.

It was a lot of fun, and it made me feel like a kid again, which is a tough feat, considering how old I am getting.

The science center is located across the street from the home of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field.

Part of our reason for going was because Guy Fieri on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" is in Pittsburgh a lot. We like to watch the show, and have decided that we're gonna try to hit up some of these joints. So, in Pittsburgh we went to not one, but two restaurants that had been featured in the show.
First was to Big Jims, where I got an open-faced roast beef sandwich and fries. They put the fries on the sandwich and put the gravy on it. It was delicious.

The other was the Dor Stop Restaurant, located in a nice little neighborhood within the city. We went there for breakfast on Sunday morning. They have the most amazing pancakes ever. You should definitely check the place out.
Saturday night was probably the coolest part. We went to a redeveloped area on the water front called Center Station (something like that). It's been made into a nice shopping/dining area with all sorts of activities going on at night, including a cool fountain that does a show to the music. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died so I couldn't get pictures of that, or the "incline." The incline is a mining trolley that takes you up to the top of a hill in the city, right by the downtown, and you get an amazing view. Below is a picture I found (cause, as I said, my battery was dead). I wish it showed how cool it was--and we were there at night, so it was even better.
After breakfast on Sunday, we planned to go to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Falling Water, cause I've wanted to see that ever since I took an architecture class my freshman year in college. I called the place that morning, but there was no availability for tickets, so we decided to go to the zoo, and will go to the house some other time.
After being mis-led by the GPS to the opposite side of town we finally found the Zoo by calling to get a better address (based on the fact that the first selection on their call menu is "if you're having trouble with GPS, press one" I imagine that it's a pretty common mistake). It was a pretty cool zoo. They had all sorts of animals, and you could even see them there, which you can't hardly ever do here in DC's zoo. My favorites were the Polar Bear cause you could get so close to him.

And the Tiger Shark tunnel. (check out the guy's look in the reflection--I hadn't noticed it until just now).

All-in-all, I have to say that in my humble opinion, Pittsburgh is a pretty cool place.



Our Next adventure took us to Connecticut:

We went up there about two weeks ago for an open-house for Mel's family and friends who didn't make it to our wedding. It was nice to have good food, meet the extended in-laws and get a bit of loot to bring home with us.

We flew up, had the openhouse two hours later, then we got to take Mel's mother's birthday present from a year ago out for a spin.I think it suits us quite nicely.

I got to see more sights of Simsbury this time than I did at Christmas. For example, we drove past the haunted tavern, where Anabell Pettybone is roumerd to have been sighted by multiple guests after her violent murder at the hand of her husband.
And this:The largest tree in all of Connecticut (how they know? I don't know, but now you've seen it too) It is pretty big.

And I love going to cemeteries, especially when they're old. This one had graves from 1707. It was pretty cool. They have old-school writing on the head stones and some of them look like they're sliding down the hill cause the earth's moved over the past couple of centuries.
It was a quick trip, but it was a lot of fun.
So, there you have it. We do have good times since we've been married. If anyone has ideas for other fun adventures for newlyweds, I'll be happy to hear them.