The tires described above may contain an unidentified (and therefore unauthorized) foreign material......

So the extent of our weekend was getting a lovely notice in the mail stating that our tires have been recalled. LOVELY! Mind you, it says that no highway driving should be done before having the tires inspected. Okay, we got the tires in March or something - do you want to know how much highway driving we've done since then? Good thing to come out of this - if they are indeed faulty, we get four new tires, absolutely free. And seeing is that we've probably done over 10,000 miles since getting the new tires, we're getting a hell of a deal. So that's what I get to do Monday morning before Old Yawk.

But seriously, that was the highlight of our weekend. I was looking forward to doing absolutely nothing, and that's exactly what we did. In fact, I was so lazy today, and so comfy in Erik's oversized Coast Guard sweats, that all I did was finish reading a book, watch "The Best of Pet Stars" on Animal Planet, and write in this blog.

But the weekend didn't totally consist of laziness and sweatpants. Friday we had our favorite meal of nachos and watched the movie "Kinsey." It was good and kept my interest, but it wasn't the best thing I've ever seen. However, it did contain a full frontal male nudity scene which never happens in movies, and the guy was actually cute AND young! Nothing like the nude scene in "The Piano" (if you want to be grossed out, watch that movie).

On Saturday, Erik worked until about 12:30 and I spent the morning catching up on laundry folding and working on a chair I bought at a flea market about a month ago. We then went to the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge. I wasn't sure if I was going to have a goodtime, but it was so much fun! Erik's boss is a full-time firefighter, in addition to owning his own landscaping company, so he and some of his colleagues were involved. Basically it was one big obstacle course challenge. Two different departments would do the obstacle course at the same time and whoever finished it first moved on to the next round. Unfortunately, Erik's boss' department was beaten by a department from Quebec.

That evening we hung out and were in bed by 11:30pm (yes, pathetic). We also had an overnight guest. Brad (of Kate and Brad) was up to see the Christian rock band Petra who are on their farewell tour. Apparently Maine was the closest venue from CT, even though it was literally in bumble Maine (out near Waterville/Colby College). He obviously didn't want to drive the 5+ hours back to CT from way up there, so he crashed at our place. We went to Becky's Diner this morning for breakfast and caught up. I haven't seen him since he and Kate got married last November.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye

So this weekend Erik and I said goodbye to Curtis as he's about to embark on the next stage of his life teaching english in Prague. Unfortunately, it involved a trip down to Connectishit, but I'd do anything for Curtis ;-) His mom had a small gathering for friends and family at her apartment in Bolton that she shares with her new husband, Steve. We hooked up with Uno in Boston early Saturday afternoon and carpooled down together. Despite tensions among some people, and the lack of air circulation in their apartment, we had a good time. We hadn't seen Curtis' sister in probably about 5 years, so it was really good to see her. She's definitely changed since then, and it seems like she's doing very well. We also got to see Curtis' childhood friend, Cindy, who I had met before many years ago. And of course Sharon was there, and we of course made fun of the fact that for the first time ever, she didn't bring Heineken to a party ;-) I was completely obsessed with Curtis' mom's pug, Benny, and was very tempted to sneak him back up to Maine, but I decided against it. The party eventually made its way to the Willimantic Brewing Company (only the young people attended) and we said our final goodbyes around 12:30am. Luckily Erik was awake enough to drive Sarah's car back up to Boston, which is where we spent the night.

While it'll be awhile till we see Curtis again, I am VERY glad he decided to make this move. I know he's still a bit skeptical, but I also know that he's going to have a blast. Sometimes you have to do what's best for yourself, ignore what other people say, and take the chance. It's been our mantra for the past year or so and we think it'll be the best thing Curtis ever did for himself.

Arr Matey, Walk the Plank!

Here are some pics from July 4th weekend that I just found on my camera while taking mugshots of Erik (he had to shave off his facial hair for the Coast Guard Reserves).


Dos and Uno


Dos, Uno, Erik, Karla


Ditto

Snore!

So my husband was bitching at me to post something since it's apparently been awhile. He has ten fingers, he could do it, too :-P Nothing too exciting has really happened in this neck of the woods. Last Friday I worked all day at the Maine Preservation conference. This year's theme - "Sacred Places at Risk." It was really interesting, but it also made me REALLY tired by the end of it all. Not only did I almost work a 12 hour day the day of, I also worked 2 and a 1/2 hours last Wednesday night in preparation for the conference AFTER having been at York all day. One of the few times where I'm glad I'm hourly.

Saturday Erik worked in the morning, and I pretty much just vegged out and enjoyed the weather. I read a lot for some reason. I finished the book I was reading plus two magazines. That night we stayed in and watched "Garden State." It was VERY good and we both highly recommend it. Sunday we went down to Boston (again) for our niece Maeve's second birthday. Nice to see the kids as always.

And that's really about it. I'm sure you were probably snoring after the second sentence. Erik is being sworn into the Coast Guard Reserves tomorrow, so maybe we'll have more to say come tomorrow evening.

"Band of Idiots"

I realize that I have a TON to update on this blog, so I'll try to cram it all into this one entry and hopefully not lose your attention :-) Anyway, Erik and I went to the Red Sox game down in Boston on August 31st and we had SUCH a good time! We both worked a half day (me from home) and then headed down to Beantown around 1pm. We visited Erik's mom at the Chuck (she hooked us up with free parking) and then spent the couple hours before the game walking around the city since we hadn't done that in ages. We each picked a place to go for beer for all times sake (Salty Dog for Erik, Whiskey's for me). Erik's sister and her husband also had tickets for the same game, so we met up with them for a quick beer before the game inside the Park. Of course, the difference between their tickets and ours was that they actually had seats - we had standing room only tickets. Never knew those tickets existed until Erik bought them for my birthday. But you know what, I would HIGHLY recommend them! I thought we had a better vantage point than some of the actual seats we've had in the past, and these tickets were much cheaper! A coworker of mine at Old York had told me about a place to go between home and first, ALL the way at the top that apparently has really good views. We had all intentions on going there, but were sucked into the fact that we could stand right in back of home plate (well, about 40 rows in back of home plate), which is a vantage point we've never experienced before. AWESOME location! You could totally see everything at the plate, and no one looked like an ant. The only complaint I had was that when people hit the ball up high, you couldn't see it because the upper level of seats got in the way. Oh, well, and the fact that it was SOOOOOOO muggy out! I thought for sure I would freeze at Fenway once the sun went down, and boy was that not the case! The air was practically chewy! But all in all, we had a blast.

And that brings us to this past weekend. Friday night after work, Dos and I did the free First Friday Artwalk in Portland which occurs on the (duh) first friday of every month. Besides the art, we like to take advantage of the free food and wine :-) The highlight was definitely the open artist studios. I had never seen that on the schedule before, so they must not do it very often. It reminded me a lot of visiting Rachel on the art floor of SFA at BU.

On Saturday, the Gang came up for one last hurrah before Curtis goes off to Prague. We decided to do dinner in Portsmouth Saturday evening, so Erik and I took our time driving down and even stopped at Old York to tour some of the buildings. Erik had only been in two of the buildings before, and since I can obviously get in for free, we decided to stop. We missed going into two of the buildings that require a tour (I've been in both), but it'll give us something to do next time we're passing through on a weekend. In typical fashion, we had dinner at the Portsmouth Brewing Company, but this time downstairs in the lounge area. I had never been down there before, but it was pretty cool. They had couches and long bar tables which was perfect for our size group. Waiting for a table in the main dining room would have taken an hour, so we said screw that and went down to the lounge. Vivian met up with us for a drink (she was visiting a friend in northern MA), and it was really good to see her, even if it was just for a short period of time. After dinner we walked around Portsmouth a bit and then headed up to Portland.

Sunday was the big end of summer BBQ. In addition to the gang, Curtis' friend Mikki from NYC came up. He was so awesome, and instantly blended in with our wacky group. I also invited Sarah and Aaron from the first floor, and my old coworker Eric's (Tova's) roommate, Aaron, who showed up with his friend Erica. After we had eaten enough food to make us burst, we headed downtown into the Old Port for some karaoke. Of course, the one and only place that had karaoke that night was the gay bar, Styxx, which Curtis remembers very well from his last visit :-) Anyway, being a gay bar, everyone who came up to the mic could have practically been in a Broadway show. Only one guy totally sucked and couldn't sing to save his life. Curtis and Sarah were the only brave souls who sang a few songs, but it was a lot of fun to watch everyone. We had a great time.

Then today Erik went canoeing with Aaron from the first floor. They went on the Presumpscot River in Portland. While on the river, they tried their hand at fishing from the canoe, but nothing was caught by either of them.