sharing my birthday month

i'm not completely self-absorbed
well maybe I am
but for someone very special I can make an exception and share my birthday month

just last summer out on the boat

and i do
and this year that someone very special is turning

"95"

i can't believe it either!

you can't live that long without learning something, right?

in her much younger days - LOVE, LOVE this pic

so i asked her what the secret was to living so long

"just be happy and go out all the time"

1982 - and yes she probably ate the entire thing...and then some!

i guess i'm on track to living quite a while longer then!

Happy Birthday to Sean's Grammie!

new brunswick, canada

I've already shown you all the fun Duke had on our trip to Saint John, now it's time to see it from my perspective.  It really was a nice area for an extended weekend trip.  There is so much beauty up in this area of the country.

The city of Saint John was full of beautiful blooming buds and blossoms.  Even the median was abounding with marigolds.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it, as it really was spectacular.

The rock beaches, although difficult to walk on, were not difficult on the eye.  All the beautiful colors of polished stones from the pounding of the ocean leading to an endless ocean and never-ending sky.

"where's duke"

Finding a little piece of inventiveness in the woods offered some fun for Duke and me, and I suppose for Sean too watching us trip and huff-n-puff trying our hand at it.  Rumor has it this rope ladder was a prototype for offering access to hikers on steep hills that was later used throughout the area.

My favorite part of the trip (aside from enjoying our 2nd anniversary bottle of wine and reading all the lovely comments from our friends and family while playing Smess - I must own this game!) was enjoying a peaceful picnic and playing in the ice cold river with my two favorite men!

originally thought he was laughing but I think he's screaming because it's SO cold

But what Maine road trip would be complete without a little randomness on the side of the road?

We drove home Monday, Labor Day, down a nearly deserted road that is so dark at night Sean insisted we plan our trip around being on this road in the daylight.  With a grumble in our tummies we looked and looked and looked and looked for a place to eat.  When we finally found an "open" flag blowing in the breeze, we found ourselves driving too fast to pull in so we had to drive and drive and drive and drive before we could finally turn around.  The sign on the door indicated they were closing early for the holiday - in 10 minutes.  Feeling guilty for doing it, I walked inside and asked in my most polite, southern, voice if they would take two more.  After asking Grandma the chef she agreed we could eat.  It turned out to be the cutest, back in time feeling restaurant - and actually had some really good food!

"will you quit taking pictures..."

I'm saving the most amazing thing we saw for last, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that...

I know - such a tease!

random time

this little guy comes and poops rests on our float every fall on his way south

this little pampered chef beauty has been awesome

to help me turn all this into a tasty treat

for those of you wondering what fab prizes we won...

got to try my hand at some serious machinery - notice the big grin on my face

look at all this fabulous goodness just waiting for the pickin'

that's it for now...
next up, more pics from "canadada" trip

birthday month celebration part tres

so my self-absorbed birthday month celebration continues
i guess that's a benefit of not having kids
i can be totally self-absorbed
so here's what i've done in celebration this past week

day 15: read a book - book 2 and 3 of The Hunger Games series
day 16: finished the series and watched TV - total veg
day 17: went to see The Last Gas at the local theatre (don't bother...)
day 18: went apple picking (yea!)
day 19: spent quality time with my honey, just the two of us, talking about anything not work related
day 20: baked some paper bag apple pies which i shared with our neighbor
day 21: had drinks with Survivor Bob

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One day watching Food Network, I saw them bake an apple pie in a brown paper bag - you know, the kind you used to get from the grocery store.  Something about it cooking more evenly and coming out beautifully golden brown.  I'm a sucker for a good cooking trick technique and have been wanting to try it ever since.  Since we had just been apple picking, and I LOVE apple pie, I decided now was as good a time as any to try it out.  I hit the store and got all the ingredients I needed, mixed everything up and assembled the pie.  I got ready to add my pie to the paper bag when something hit me.  Then I proceeded to have a conversation with my honey that went something like this...

Me:  Sean, do you have any issues with me putting a paper bag in the oven?
Sean:  Tonya, let me ask you one question - what do we start the bonfires with?
Me:  newspaper?  *smirk on my face*
Sean:  and???  we have a gas stove...if you sit right here and watch it the whole time with a fire extinguisher next to you....
Me:  It says I can use parchment paper instead but we don't have any.
Sean:  I guess use the bag...on second thought why don't you call Alicia and see if she has some parchment paper - whatever that is.

BTW...Camp didn't burn down and it made for a very tasty pie (the recipe is linked above)!

*******************************
Who is Survivor Bob, you ask?  It's actually a very funny story.  That was not at all the plan when we left the house.  There's a local late night show that airs each Saturday night.  I've never seen it, as we don't get local channels, but I knew when they were taping the show and thought it would be so fun to see them tape.  I had been to see David Letterman before, so this was the next logical step in my late night show watching.  Anyone can go to the taping for a donation.  I was so psyched and finally had convinced Sean to muster up the energy to leave the house and go with me.  So we pulled up, ton of cars everywhere, and walk in.  "We're here for the show."  "Well, it's in the back.  Feel free to go back there but they're just wrapping up."  Yes, you read that right, we showed up when they were done. HA!  Apparently I read the flier wrong and missed the little 6 at the front indicating the start time and read it as starting at 9:00 pm.

In my whiniest voice I exclaimed "What are we going to do now?  I saved up today's birthday month celebration activity for the show.  We HAVE to do SOMETHING."  Being the loving husband he is, and continuing to put up with my celebrating, suggested we go to our wedding reception location and have a glass of wine.  We walked in the door with a group of three other people (who we also saw leaving the late night show taping when we were trying to show up), holding the door for one another, making a funny about who does that anymore.  We settled in at the bar and waited quite some time for the bartender to arrive and take our order.  No one came to take the order for the other group that came in with us so they got restless and moved to the bar next to us.

It was a tall, lean man in a bow tie and another man and woman.  They immediately introduced themselves and we began chatting it up.  Bow tie man was introduced as "Survivor Bob", which meant nothing to Sean or me as we don't watch much TV (Sean HATES reality TV).  Come to find out he was the winner of season 17 and was one of the interviewees on the late night show we tried to go see. He was so charming to talk to and had such great stories about the whole experience.  He even showed us how he started the fire that helped him win - literally.  Come to find out, he also won 'fan favorite' that year and I can definitely see why - SO personable and such a story-teller.  So we sat, exchanging stories until they kicked us out because they were trying to close up shop.

...and that, my friends, is how I came to have drinks with Survivor Bob!

duke's trip to canada

you may remember that part of my birthday month celebration was a trip to canada

so we called around and found out in order for duke to go we just needed his papers saying he was current on his shots

so we headed to the vet to get a printout, grabbed our passports and off we went

we stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast in saint john
and they were pet friendly!

duke had so much fun walking around saint john

hiking the fundy trail
and climbing all the rocks

he wouldn't have stopped climbing up that rock had i not yelled at him
of course dad is just standing there letting him

posing for pics with mom and her crazy hair in the freezing cold river

trying to find good places to sit and take a nap

walking on his first suspension bridge

and doing what he does best - looking so cute!

and by the way, border patrol never even asked us for his papers
or even acknowledged he was in the car with us
hmmmmmm

city forest

maine has trees
so many that the cities actually have forests

and in these city forests there are some extremely old trees

that are extremely tall

along with celebrating my birth the entire month
i always, always take the actual day of my birth off work
and this year was no different

since sean was out of town for work, duke and i thought we'd explore the city forest

there are tons of trails and no maps
and i'm bad with directions

but duke and i did find a nice field to have a picnic in

and read a book and listen to all the bugs
and didn't hear or see a single person

it was ah-mazing!

until we came across the bog boardwalk
and it's duke hating
apparently he might go potty on the beloved boardwalk
even if i carry him
it's a bunch of boards in the woods...
and he prefers grass anyway

boo to the boardwalk - i guess i'll never get to see it
but i'll definitely go back
and explore more of the trails

even though i secretly want to boycott the place altogether for not letting duke (and me) see the bog
but i'll go back so i can have another picnic
and lay in the grass
with my honey

and the winner is.....

remember cupcake wars...

and how awesome my dock scene turned out

well, there was some stiff competition, but...

i won!

2 out of 3 categories

the whole family won some fabulously amazing prizes

to enjoy on the real dock

next summer

when it warms up again

props to my coworker for taking the picture for me with his cell phone!

birthday month celebration part II

i think i may have worn out the hubs already on the birthday month thing
he skipped town on me
claimed it was a work thing
so i've been forced to come up with fun and exciting things to do on my own
including the actual day of my birth
how dare he
at least duke still likes celebrating with me
so here's all the fun i had for the 2nd week of the celebration

day 8: wine dinner at lucerne inn with a friend (if you live near or ever visit near lucerne inn you must do so during a wine dinner - ah-mazing!)
day 9: no work!  took duke hiking and for a picnic at the city forest - who knew there was even such a thing???  more to come on that
day 10: pedicure day!
day 11: gardening day - LOVE gardening and haven't taken the time to do any this year with all the visitors and all
day 12: devoted the night to my photography class
day 13: movie night - just laid around and watched movies all night
day 14: blogging night!  been neglecting my blogging lately and devoting the entire night to it

birthday month celebration

my annual birthday month celebration has begun!
yes, i'm totally self absorbed that way
but i'm ok with it

this year has been exceptionally good so far
wanna hear about it?
well, i guess you have no choice
unless you close your browser now
but hopefully you won't, so here goes...

day 1:  wine tasting and dinner at a new place
day 2:  dinner at another new place with friends
day 3:  road trip to saint john, canada with my 2 fav boys (that's sean & duke btw)
day 4:  hiking the fundy trail and enjoying our 2nd anniversary bottle of wine while playing smess
day 5:  flea market browsing in saint john, stopping for lunch at random place that was actually open, picking up blueberries on the side of the road and watching movies with my honey
day 6:  baking some tasty treats with the blueberries from the side of the road
day 7:  making homemade salsa from all the yummy goodness from the farm stand and catching up on blogging finally

**********************************
i had a work computer mishap
it wouldn't start
so i got a new one
had a couple of pics on the old one
they were able to recover them
but i'm still waiting to receive them
i also hope to get through the pics from our canada trip soon to share them with you

we weathered the storm

we thought we would be in irene's path
so we hunkered down and prepared for her blow
we pulled out one boat and tied up the other in the middle of the lake

so of course because we were prepared
it was really nothing
but lots of wind
(the dead part isn't from irene but shear lack of water)

lots of rain
no power for about 12 hours
lots of twigs down and needing picked up

so we headed next door
to play euchre
have you ever played?
fun, fun!  but easier if you play with people that know what they're doing
(or have people they can call to confirm the rules - especially if it's in my favor)

and so we woke up in the middle of the night to all the lights coming back on
and it was all over
you know the saying "calm before the storm"?
well, we had a calm after the storm

and all was right in our world again
oh except for the flickering on and off internet
and dead work computer
that had some of the pics i wanted to share with you from other happenings...