I am almost forgot: Fall Fun

I know that a lot of you have kids, or in my case, you and your husband enjoy acting like kids, so I thought to mention this information. I went on a school field trip last autumn to a very nice farm, Cherry Crest Farms. They have a lot of seasonal activities, and it is well-run. Check it out:

http://www.cherrycrestfarm.com/index.asp

I just have to convince Alex to go now because I LOVE the fall!

Another belated, well, in this case VERY belated, update

I read and comment on other people's blogs more often than I update my own, as you can tell. My blog would not look so bad normally. During the year, I would normally have posts about our vacations. The last big trip that we took was over the 2007 Christmas holiday to France. That's right. We took our little family of two out of the world of Santa Claus and cookies and into the world of Pere Noel and pastries, which we ate during the day and in bed at night while watching T.V. at the hotel. It's a good thing we had no upcoming medical tests...

We are SO grateful that we decided to take that trip! This year our travels have been a little different for a couple of reasons:

1) Alex is in a new position that he loves and that has required a lot of time.

2) I have been riding that lovely wave called pregnancy which has pulled me into its sea of utter lack of motivation and energy.

Now I just dream of those chocolate almond croissants from a several century-old pastry shop. I will pay anyone who can make it happen handsomely.

I decided that I had better post at least 1 blog acknowledging that we are having a baby given that it's been the case since mmmmm April, and I am now 25 weeks. I can't promise tons of photos and details, but in case you are worried that I am not keeping track of this time in my life, don't. I have been keeping a written journal specific to pregnancy that a friend gave to me as a gift.

If I haven't told you yet, which if I did was probably only within the last week, we are having a baby girl!! I had a strong feeling from the start that we would have a daughter first. We are going to name her Samantha. Thank goodness deciding on a name was not that difficult. I needed something easy.

Naturally, I was looking at girl clothes online, specifically for something to keep a January baby warm, and I searched for bunting and this came up:

I COMPLETELY forgot that Halloween is approaching, and I had visions of how I would react to a baby dressed in this on an ordinary day.

Football and John Madden

I love NFL Football season!! It is my favorite spectator sport, and every February, Alex and I wonder what we will do with ourselves in its 7 month absence. With that first kick-off of the year, we are already eagerly anticipating the games announced by John Madden.

John Madden is hilarious. Why? Well, if you have watched him as an avid football fan often or just tuned in for a while as a part-time fan, you will notice that he for the most part simply points out the obvious. Example:

He actually said about the quarterback, "Here's a guy when he puts his contact lens in he can see better." Or about the quarterback looking at his arm with the written plays, "You gotta have good eye-sight to read the small print." And about the game of football in general he says, "The goal of football is to score more points than your opponent."

Madden does know the game of football, obviously, but his announcing is too funny. Frank Caliendo also seems to think so. He does a fabulous Madden impression

This video is worth watching- it's an actual interview between David Letterman and Frank Caliendo acting as John Madden.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBW7ysPcbT0




Frank Caliendo

















John Madden

Food for Thought: Please partake if you like Olympic Sports

I really enjoy watching the Olympics, especially the more popular spectator sports, including Gymnastics. I had to wonder this year, however, about the integrity of the gold-medal-winning Chinese Women's team. Granted, gymnasts often look younger than their age, but I have to say that even for gymnasts, their team looked a little young. While watching, Alex and I said, "Hey, look! One of them doesn't even have all adult teeth yet."

Apparently, we aren't the only ones who noticed their appearance. The rule is that you have to be sixteen. I am not sure that they are. The United States earned the Silver. I am fine with that because we made mistakes. At least, we can say that it's an honest silver. The Chinese must be really, really aggressive about winning if their government will assist in helping their athletes cheat.

You probably don't care as much as I do, but if you do, check out the following link. Be sure to click on the red link listed within this article to another article in the New York Times that provides evidence.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/selena_roberts/08/13/china.gymnasts/index.html?cnn=yes

Belated Update

As I have failed to post in just under 1 month (it's not actually August yet), it is fitting that I post a trip that I took in June. I seem to be running about 1 month behind schedule here.

Since moving to this area five years ago, I have been a bit hesitant to go to the most local beaches in New Jersey. I cannot bring myself to use the local saying, "I'm going down the shore this weekend." I just can't do it. It's either "to the beach" or "to the shore." I also can't call a pizza, when referring to the whole thing, a pie. Pies are sweet.

Anyhow, my other problem, for which Alex blames himself, is that I have been spoiled in terms of beaches since we have known each other.

I have seen sand of all colors:














Green sand on South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii











Red Sand on the cliffs of the Greek Isles





And black sand in several locations. This one happens to be from the top of an ancient city in Greece. No, it's not a parking lot right against the water. It's sand proving the volcanic origins of the island.









And of course, let's not forget the islands in the Caribbean:















Now, this becomes a problem, only when we can't take long, exotic trips for our yearly vacation. So this year with only a few days and the need to drive somewhere, we decided on Cape May, New Jersey. I actually really enjoyed myself. The water may not be as warm, or the background as crazy, but we had a great time in this nice Victorian Town.

For those of you with kids looking just to go for a day or for couples looking to get away, the beaches are quieter and more family-oriented than many others in the area. We stayed at a bed and breakfast right in town- for those without kids.

It was adorable!




















Our room was tucked away on the third floor of an old Victorian House, which had a beautiful wrap-around porch for breakfast and tea-time in the afternoon.

I would definitely go back! The town has nice shops and restaurants all within walking distance. The drive is only a couple of hours too.

If you are going to the shore, you may enjoy Cape May!

Trial Run

I am not sure exactly how I will do at blogging. I have some free-time, at least for right now with summer vacation and only working part-time summer school, to try and get this running. I can't promise anything fancy right away, but with time I may actually add a song and links. If ever there were a time for me to learn, it would be now; with work, we won't be taking 3 weeks of vacation this year as we did last year!

Instead, we will be local, mostly at the pool that we just joined. I am also undergoing project organize my house. We have torn apart all of the closets in our house and majorly condensed. I feel as if we have discovered lost treasure in the items that we had forgotten that we own. Some great examples include:

• credits for several rounds of paint to play paintball
• restaurant gift cards
• expensive calculators from college
• a headset for my phone (I was going to buy one in the near future.)
• gift bags and wrapping for most yearly occassions

Some things that I cannot believe that we were hanging onto:

• birthday cards from as early as 1989
• chargers for phones that have since broken and that we have already gotten rid of
• over twenty-five empty shoe boxes

Let's just say that there were so many other things that we cannot throw away all of the trash in one week. We have a set limit of the amount that we can put out, and I would estimate that it will be 3 weeks before the garage is empty of our closet cleanings.

Alex said that this was as much work as moving and that we should just buy a new house!