new favorite drink in the raynor household - dark and stormy (must be said using a new england accent, dahk and stoimy)
goslings black seal bermuda black rum
ginger beer
pour about 2-3 oz of black rum over ice in pint glass
fill with ginger beer
enjoy
we haven't used anything other than the goslings rum, but i would guess using any dark rum would be sufficient.
i know it's been a while (actually, probably considered a long while) since the last post. lots of summer pics coming, but for now, this will be a short post about a monumental event. during week 6 of the NFL, the buffalo chicken dip finally made it's first appearance of the 2009 season. that stuff is soooo good, i want to eat the entire meal in one sitting (of course that's not advised as it would be completely spurning the deadly sin of gluttony, not to mention clogging an artery or 2).
welcome back, buffalo chicken dip, you were missed!
the weekend nightmare traffic season (and you thought i was going to say summer). memorial day weekend always marks the unofficial start of the summer season at the jersey shore, which brings with it 2 of the most unfortunate biproducts of living at the shore - traffic and summertime vacationers (not the people that come for a weekend or even a week, but rather most everyone who comes to the shore for the entire season).
traffic is a nightmare around these parts during the summer. what is normally a 30-40 minute commute home on fridays inevitably turns into at least 90 minutes and could very easily break the 2 hour mark. by the time you get home, you need anger management classes, 6 margaritas, and 3 hours of non-stop bob ross on tv to bring you back down to earth. Ughh!
and then there are the full summer vacationers. it appears many are from ny, based on the ratio of nj to ny license plates in the summer. for every 1 nj license plate you see, there are at least 3 ny plates. for the most part, many of the types of cars these vacationers drive are worth more than the house that we live in, and it certainly doesn't help my ego to see that most of the drivers of said cars aren't even old enough to drink and possibly may not have even graduated high school yet. but believe it or not, none of that is really what bothers me about these vacationers. what bothers me is the fact that as soon as they arrive in nj, they seem to think that they are the actual leaders of the free world. they drive extremely fast and aggressive on local roads, jump to the front of any line they may be waiting in, and believe that any service professional waiting on them should be doing so before anyone else. not all summer vacationers are like this, though, but the many that i've had experiences with have left a bad taste in my mouth (and by "bad" i mean horrifically abominable.)
i love having guests come visit us, especially in the summer, because i think the area we live in is beautiful and i enjoy showing it off. i can say with a great degree of certainty that i wouldn't want to live anywhere else. because i am so enamored with the area, i put up with the summer vacationers every year, knowing that as soon as the day after labor day comes, all summer vacationers are gone and my family and i can enjoy another 9 months of peace and tranquility at the jersey shore.
until then, margarita anyone?
yup, that's me, shirking my blogging duties for quite a while now. since my last post, i purchased a new blackberry (which i still haven't mastered), we vacationed for 2 weeks in florida, i took a new position at work (which is the reason for the lack of blogging - no time), 2 new babies were born into the family - cadiem and fletcher, nate morphed into a bearded rock star, joey got 4 teeth for a total of 6, dinosaurs became extinct, and jesus rose from the dead, prompting people to boil eggs, color them, and hide them for others to find, inevitably leaving 1 egg unfound which wouldn't be recovered until the smell became unbearable, giving the egg's location away.
our vacation to florida was fantastic. the weather cooperated perfectly. we had an incredible time at disney, and enjoyed the condo/beach/pool to their fullest. joey had his first pool experience while we were there, and seemed to love it. we were able to see the nokomis drum circle 4 times!
as soon as we got back to jersey, i had to start my new position at work. i'm basically doing the same thing i was before, but i'm supporting much larger customers (only 3 - EDS, DuPont, Koch Industries), and my days are filled completely with their needs. the unfortunate part of the position, though, is that i have to go into the office every day. guess i shouldn't complain since i still have a job.
joey isn't crawling yet, but he is real close. he's able to pull himself along on the floor, much like a military special ops person trying to sneak up on his prey in a field of long grass. i hope he starts to crawl/walk soon beause he's just getting too big to pick up. today, joey has his routine checkup with the dr. and i fully expect the dr. to tell us we can start putting him in pads and a helmet to get ready for football season.
finally, it's kim's birthday next week. anyone have any ideas?
since we weren't able to head out to PA for christmas because the kids were sick, we decided to go out there this past weekend. we arrived friday evening, a little before 5pm, and had a great time until we left on monday morning. we went to the park by the river and went on the "swirly thing" (as charlie called it - we would call it a merry go round) and fed the ducks. kim and nina went to gabe's and ollie's sunday afternoon. while they were gone, charlie and john had their own, mini version of a music weekend, spending about 2+ hours in the music room making beautiful music. and of course, we got to spend some quality time with granny and pappaw.
to see more from the weekend, check out my
pics page and click on the PA and assorted Feb 2009 folder.
big ben did it again. he led his team down the field with 2:30 left and made an incredible pass to santonio holmes, who in turn made an unbelievable catch to win super bowl XLIII. we had a nice spread of wings, chipped ham, guacamole, vege dip, kim's homemade spreadable cheese, cupcakes, cake, and banana cream pie. of course, to accompany all of that food, we had yueling beer and margaritas. even tux, our dog, got into the act.
congrats stillers!
i feel i've been shirking my duties as a blogger by not posting in 2 months, so i'm sorry for being neglectful and will try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
not much going on since my last post, just thanksgiving, st. nick, a day trip with the boys to ny, a special visit to our house by santa riding in a firetruck, christmas, both kids getting sick christmas, the giants getting beat in the playoffs, the steelers making it to the super bowl, a new president taking up residency in the white house, a christening, and our household becoming a part of a much larger family - the wii family.
on a monday at the beginning of december, kim, charlie, joey, my mom, and i went into nyc to the museum of natural history and rockefeller center. it was a bitter cold day, but we were unfazed. we took a 5 minute ferry ride to the city, and then jumped on a shuttle bus which dropped us off about 25 blocks from the museum. after our nice, brisk walk, we arrived at the museum and the large dinosaur that greets you in the lobby. charlie loved the museum. we got to see dinosaurs, all kinds of wild animals. we walked through a live butterfly exhibit, and a live reptile exhibit that included lots of snakes and lizards. it was a great experience and even more fascinating to watch charlie soak everything in. once we were done at the museum, we walked another 30 blocks or so to rockefeller center and went to the "top of the rock." it was beautiful up there. there were incredible views of the entire city, made even better by the fact that we were up there at sunset. we then went back down to street level and got a close up view of the beautiful christmas tree, lit up in all its glory. after we took a shuttle bus back to the ferry terminal and rode the ferry back to the jersey side, we got to our car and quickly warmed up inside. as we were driving home, we asked charlie what was his favorite part of today's adventure - the museum with all the dinosaurs, animals, snakes, lizards, and butterflies, or the top of the rock and the big christmas tree? his answer: "i liked the ferry ride and bus ride the best."
unfortunately, the night before our adventure, i took the battery out of the camera to charge it up, but forgot to put it back in before we left in the morning, so we only had our flip video to use for pictures and movies. with the software that comes with the flip, you are able to snap pictures from the movies that were taken. they are not the highest quality pics, but something is better than nothing.
christmas for us this year was a tough one. we woke up christmas morning and found that santa did visit us the night before, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't going to be like it was in years past - charlie was sick with a fever. he didn't attack opening the presents with as much fervor as in previous christmases, and really only wanted to lay down on the couch, hoping to feel better. joey was unfazed about the whole thing. he just sat in his chair, taking everything in. little did we know that he was coming down with bronchilitis, which we found out the next day.
this past weekend was joey's christening. john, nina, mickey, and alan came out from pa to join in the festivities, as well as our good friends from new hampshire, jessica and larry mcgondel. jess and larry, along with my brother scott and his wife danielle, are joey's godparents. with my family and kim's family at the church, we made up about half of the congregation. after the ceremony at the church, the party continued at the langosta lounge, an eclectic restaurant on the boardwalk in asbury park. it was the perfect setting. with the bloody marys and mimosas flowing, and the food being exceptionally good, everyone had a great time. and to end the day on a high note for all the folks that traveled out to nj from western pa, the steelers won the afc championship game and are headed to the super bowl. i'd like to think that joey becoming a member of god's family that day was in some way connected to the steelers victory. ;)
also this week, we started giving rice cereal to joey this week, and he loves it. our pediatrician told us back in november we could start giving it to him, but with christmas and all the things we've had planned, we wanted to wait until things slowed down a little before we changed his routine. it appears that he's making up for lost time - he has devoured his cereal the past couple days and now thinks he's ready to upgrade to pulled pork, ribs, and chipped ham (which might be hard since he doesn't have any teeth yet.)
and finally, we got a wii and wii fit this weekend. holy cow is it fun. i got it set up yesterday afternoon and "tested" it with a couple games of bowling, but last night was the official wii welcome into the household. charlie, kim, my mother, and i played it for a while after dinner and had an awesome time. charlie bowled a game first, and did pretty well (i think his final score was 87, which is fantastic considering i thought it was going to be difficult for him to understand how to do it.) after his bowling game, he wanted to do something different, so we chose to do boxing. everyone got into the act - my mom, kim, and even charlie. it was so much fun. i can't wait to fire it up again tonight. and we can't wait to unlock all the different games for the wii fit.
many of the pictures of all of the escapades you read about on this blog can now be found at the following website:
www.picasaweb.google.com/douglasraynor
Enjoy!
