Uncle Hugs

I have been to a handful of baby showers over the years, but had the pleasure of attending my first sprinkle on Saturday morning. A sprinkle is given to celebrate a mother-to-be who has already given birth to her first child. In this case, it was for my friend's 2nd child and we met at the Buttery for brunch on Saturday morning. There's a room downstairs that was perfect for our larger party, and the staff was super friendly. I'm not a huge brunch person, but the food was fantastic, the prices were definitely reasonable and I'm still dreaming of my cinnamon scone. Like the Terminator, I'll be baahk.

Saturday afternoon, Nick and I drove down to Rhode Island to see my dad for Father's Day. This happened to be my dad's 30th Father's Day!

Dad, before kids lookin' sharp!

Dad, after kids... You'll notice the toll we took on his hair color, but otherwise still looking sharp!

This Father's Day was also Nick's first Father's to Be Day. My parents gave him a cute book called Daddy Hugs. My brother mentioned that he'd like a similar book, but somehow, "Uncle Hugs" sounds like it would end with a police investigation and not a sleeping baby.

Librarian on the Run- Now With a Bun

in the oven!

Nick and I are due October 21 with our first- a baby girl!

We are slowly learning how freakin' expensive daycare is and new and exciting word combinations like "sleep sacks" "breast pump"and "stroller systems." These words on their own are harmless, but put together are scary and complex. So far, the only item I've purchased has been this:

The dreaded pink hat

All babies look like little boys unless you throw them in something pink or a dress. For the first year or so, a pink hat will have to do. I better not not hear any complaints- capice?!

Oink Oink, We'll Be Pigs!

On Saturday evening, Nick, Joe (his dad) and I returned from a wonderful 10-day trip to Europe. The main purpose of the trip was to visit Joe's paternal & maternal relatives in Croatia; however, we tried to see and do as much as 10 days would allow. We had such a fantastic trip, and I especially want to thank my svekar (father-in-law) for acting as our fearless vodič (guide)and translator!

Wednesday, August 5th

Waiting to board our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt in Logan

Thursday, August 6th

Exhausted after flying all night here Nick is filling up somewhere in Germany. Following this, we ate our 1st authentic German meal at Burger King.

Friday, August 7th

Salzburg

Saturday, August 8th

Dinner with Joe's cousin Nada. Nada was so much fun and became our travel companion for the next several days.

Sunday, August 9th

Zagreb

Monday, August 10th

Dubrovnik

Tueday, August 11th

Plitvička Jezera

Plitvička Jezera

Wednesday, August 12th

Pašman



Zadar


Thursday, August 13th

Three generations of Priselacs! Visiting with Joe's uncle Yanko near Zagreb- I can see the resemblance!

Friday, August 14th

Driving to Munich

To visit Annette & Christian, who prepared us an authentic German feast!

Jacob & Martha helped :)

Joe & Nick loved this car in our hotel's parking garage in Munich

Saturday, August 15

I think even Nick is sad to drop of our Citroen Picasso at the Frankfurt Airport

What a great trip! Now, back to reality...

Long Weekend Wrap Up

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Nick and I headed down to Rhode Island Thursday evening and met up with my family and our friends at Pizza Place in Westerly. The pizza here is fantastic, but I think the best menu item is the Gorgonzola salad. On Friday morning, my mom, Carolyn, and I headed off to Heart of Avondale for an early morning yoga class, because we're on top of it like that. Then, after a quick lunch, we played 9 holes at a par 3 course. The winner of that outing was definitely Carolyn who played the "oh, I don't really play golf" card and then proceeded to kick our butts. :)

Saturday morning, Nick and I got up at 6:45 in order to make an 8:30 tee time at Beaver River in Richmond, RI. This course is well-maintained, economical & wins for cutest logo ever. July 4th is not only Independence Day, but also my dad's birthday! Nick, David & I got him a pair of shooting glasses from Cabela's.

Dad doing his best Bono impression

Here are some other scenes from the 4th

The Flying Horse Carousel in Watch Hill

I enjoy reading, Boston sports & long walks here

Nick & I checked out the local real estate- a little small for our taste

This cake was delicious & patriotic

While driving home from dinner Saturday night, we pulled over on the side of the road to watch the amazing fireworks display put on by the (use your fancy voice) Misquamicut Club. Despite the fact that we weren't inside the grounds hobnobbing with Muffy & Bunny, I doubt their view of the display was any better.

We reluctantly packed our bags and headed home around 9 last night. What a wonderful weekend!

Blinged Out in WNY

This past weekend, Nick and I left Boston around 5 Friday morning and shuffled off to Buffalo. Thanks to the combined early starting time & Sudafed I popped prior to leaving the house, I slept soundly for the first 3.5 hours of the trip. I never take over the counter medicine, and I think it made me a bit dopier than usual. A dream I had right before I woke up suddenly involved Nick and I traveling to Buffalo, but we were attached to the back of our car on water skis and skiing down a highway covered in thick mud. Anywhoo...

As soon as we arrived, we drove downtown to his dad's office so we could go to lunch and then head out for a sail around Lake Erie.

Captain Joe

1st Mate, Nick

Later that evening we headed out to Jim's Steakout, so Nick could get one of his beloved Chicken Finger Subs. (That's Buffalo chicken sub, to you and me; however, "Buffalo chicken" is apparently redundant in Buffalo as it's assumed that's how most chicken will arrive.) It's a good thing that there are no Jim's locations in the Boston area, because most of its menu items significantly (and tastily) contribute to heart disease.

On Saturday, Nick & I joined his mom for a round of golf at her club, Springville C.C. My mother-in-law is the best golfer I have ever played with. I'm not sucking up; it's simply the truth. She's been the club champion for about a bazillion years and was even invited to try out for the Senior LGPA. It's fun to play with her, because it's simply fun to watch her play. Amazing.

After golf, we headed over to East Aurora, NY to BBQ with Nick's sister, her husband, our 2 newphews and also her in-laws that happened to be visiting from CA.

My dad saw this photo & said it's proof we are still in a recession :-)

Jackson is a very neat corn on the cob eater!

Here's Nick fooling around with our 2 cute nephews! They love their Uncle!

After a late breakfast/early lunch on Sunday we hit the road once again. Below is a photo of the best rest stop vending machine I have ever seen. Behold, the Bling King!

I got a sweet $ sign chain, because I am so money

All in all, a great weekend!

The Family that Runs Together, Stays Together

Over Memorial Day weekend, Nick, Brad and I ran Boston's Run to Remember. When we woke up Sunday morning around 6, the sky was dark and stormy. Exactly one hour later while we were leaving the house, the sun came out and we were treated to a beautiful sunny day! I'm proud to report that all 3 of us improved from last year!

(All photos below are from Brightroom.com. Click here to search for your own race photos.)

Despite having spent the past 3 days partying in Vegas, Nick finished in an impressive 2:08:11. (Last year he ran in 2:16:32.)

Spent the race thinking of ways to spend the couple hundred he won in Vegas

Brad consistently kicks our butts and finished in 1:55:55, which was almost a 5 minute improvement from last year's 2:00:40 time.

I can only speculate what caught his interest in this photo- let's just say it was the finish line

My goal was to run the race under 2 hours, and I was (barely!) able to do just that. I finished in 1:59:22, which was an improvement from last year's 2:07:56 finish.

Mugging for the camera on the bridge during mile 10 or so

I would especially like to congratulate my sister-in-law, Jodi, who just started running on a whim this past January. She ran the Buffalo Half Marathon this same day and kicked butt by finishing in 1:59:30 and 59/199 for her age group!

Eyes on the prize!

Congratulations everyone on a great race!

Falsely Accused

When I was in 6th grade, my parents confronted me about my "addiction." They thought I was sniffing White Out. My friends and I would decorate our 3 ring binders with crumbly white designs shaped like flowers or phrases like "What's [arrow pointed up]?" In 6th grade, I also started wearing contacts instead of the glasses I had had to wear since I was about 3. Due to my astigmatism, I cannot wear soft lenses and the gas perms I have instead tend to leave my eyes red. My parents saw their 12 year girl with red eyes all giddy about correction fluid and came to the conclusion that I was sniffing White Out, and my container was confiscated.

To be honest with you, I'm not even sure I knew at that point that sniffing the stuff to get a high was even an option. My parents, to this day, still think I was doing it. There's only so many times I can deny it; however, I stopped trying to convince them years ago. After all, it gives me a small badass edge to my otherwise honor-roll-making-detention-free school years.

Since then, the accusations have gone from ingesting illegal substances to petty theft.

A few years ago, I was home in Connecticut for the weekend and my mom calls me on Monday saying she couldn't find her hairbrush and suggested that I took it with me back to Boston. I didn't have the brush, but for weeks afterwards the missing brush would pop back up into conversation.

This past weekend, Nick and I were back so I could attend a wedding shower and we could both help my brother celebrate his birthday. Well, yesterday my mom asks me if I took her razor out of her shower. I told her that I had my own razor and not hers, but she would respond with statements to indicate that she was already convinced that I was wickedly shaving my legs with her powder blue Venus Breeze in Boston. "Well, I would like to know where it went!"

My guess is that the White Out, brush & razor are all hanging out together somewhere.

P.S. I would like to add that it's a damn shame Adam Lambert didn't win last night! Mark my words, Kris Allen will be a flash in the pan.

Orlando Magic

My mom and I took a trip down to Orlando last Wednesday to play some golf and visit Disney World. The two of us visited about 10 years ago, so it was great to make a return trip with my mom! We managed to plan our flights from Boston and Hartford, so we'd arrive early Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon, we sat by the pool for a bit and took some bikes around some trails that ran throughout our hotel's property and that evening we headed off to the Magic Kingdom.

We were the only 2 people over 4 ft waiting to have our photo taken with Goofy

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to play some golf, and later in the afternoon we headed over to EPCOT. EPCOT is my favorite Disney theme park, and we ended up spending about 8 hours exploring Future World and World Showcase. There was no line for Spaceship Earth (really no lines in any of the parks), so we hopped on that ride first.

There have been a lot of changes to this ride since I was last on it; most notably, Walter Cronkite has been replaced by Dame Judi Dench as the narrator. I missed Walter Cronkite, but otherwise the ride was great. They take your picture at the beginning of the ride, only to insert your photos in a short cartoon that's played on the screen in your cart at the end of the ride.

The future looks like a scene from the Jetson's

Friday morning we headed over to Animal Kingdom. I had never been there before, and really enjoyed all the attractions. Aside from Expedition Everest, my favorite activity was the Kilimanjaro Safari tour.

We saw baby elephants

I thought this rhino was going to hop in the car with us...

That evening we went to dinner in Downtown Disney and browsed in the shops afterwards. LEGO's were my favorite toy growing up and there's a store dedicated to all things LEGO there.

A history of LEGO people since the beginning. This was really awesome & I wanted to play with all of them.

Over the next 2 days, we played golf a couple more times and made a return visit to EPCOT. On our final golf outing on Sunday, we learned that Tiger Woods shoots some commercials for Nike on a short par 3 that features an island green.

Hopefully Tiger didn't lose as many balls here as we did...

We had a great trip, and it was so much fun to spend time with my mom and get out of the city for a few days!

Let's See What's Behind Door No. 1

Despite the fact that it's supposed to in the low 90's today, I wanted a light jacket to bring into the office in case the AC was cranked up to arctic levels. So, I walk over to the hall closet...

Open the door...

and...

ARGH! Closet fail.

Once I dropped an entire bottle of olive oil on the floor. The immediate realization that it was going to be a major pain in the rear end to clean up was so depressing that I left the mess as it was for about an hour, just to regain my composure (although secretly hoping it would somehow take care of itself.) In this case, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Florida with my mom and I'm hoping that the coats, fleeces & parkas will have resumed their normal hanging positions by the time I have returned on Sunday.

A Fundraising Success!

This post is a little late; however, I wanted to have the final tally to report before posting on the April Fool's fundraiser. Thanks to everyone's donations, $429.54 will be donated to Mass Eye and Ear! That's fantastic, and I'm so thankful for everyone who came out to support MEEI and Team Eye and Ear!

I also wanted to thank Laura at Mantra for helping to organize the event. She and the Mantra staff really went out of their way to make sure the evening was a success, and I'll definitely recommend them in the future. I'd also like to thank Kathleen at Downtown Crossing Partnership for putting me in touch with Laura.

Oh, and congratulations to Penny for winning the Dustin Pedroia photo! Penny and my mom came up from Connecticut for the event and even worked at the check-in table. I'm glad that she was able to take the photo home with her!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's 56th birthday, and she and my dad came up for brunch and cake. My brother suggested Eastern Standard, which turned out to be a great suggestion. I especially enjoyed my Pom spritzer. After brunch, we came back to our place for cake and presents.

The fam

David, Nick & I got her an Ipod & an arm holder thingee for the gym.

Here's my dad patiently waiting for cake

Lighting the cake. Due to the cake's rectangular shape, I had to frost it on a cheese themed platter. It wasn't a cheese cake though.

First bite- Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you!