Bowling

We celebrated KB's 35th birthday today with a surprise party thrown by her family at Legends, a sports bar in Raymond.

Our "Wanakee" family was all there: KB & Tony, Sarah & Reg, Sean & Victoria, Eric & Meredith, Mike & the kids, Lisa, and Bob & I. It was really nice to all be together and catch up with each other.

Legends is in the same building as a bowling alley, so we all migrated there and had so much fun bowling!! Here's Bob, showing off some good moves, with Alex bowling next to him.

It was a really great afternoon and we had so much fun. Neither Bob nor I have been bowling in years and I forgot how much fun it is!

Reg is bowling in a league with work, so maybe the four of us need to go bowling more often so he can practice for his league!

Celtics

I've always been a Celtics fan, but my love of them has laid a bit dormant since the Bird/McHale/Parrish era of my childhood. I got into them again the past few years when I caught them in the playoffs, but have never watched them regularly. Everything is different now! Bob and I have become huge Celtics fans and we watch every game. I'm partial to Rondo lately, though my heart will always belong to Ray Allen. And we're definitely happy to see Kevin Garnett back tonight. Everyone else in New England can get all worked up about the Patriots and the Red Sox, but my loyalty will always be with the Celtics. Cuddling on the couch with my husband and a glass of wine, watching the Celtics = my idea of a perfect night!

Movies

Bob and I don't usually watch very many movies (we've only watched a handful in the whole time we've been together), but we saw two great movies lately.

We went to the Red River Theater during Christmas vacation and saw The Kings Speech. We were both blown away by this movie and thought it was so good. Colin Firth is one of my favorite actors (Mr. Darcy = swoon!) and he was incredible! We liked it so much that we are even considering going to see it again in the theater - we can't wait until it comes out on DVD!

We watched The Social Network tonight and really liked it as well. I know there have been complaints about the dramatization of the movie, but I've read some articles about the founders of Facebook, so it was interesting to see the way the movie portrayed them. The actor who played Mark Zuckerberg was really good and I even thought Justin Timberlake was good!

We're curious to watch the Oscars and other awards shows and see how these movies do. I've seen some articles that say it will be between these two movies for the big wins. I'm definitely rooting for Colin Firth and The Kings Speech, but it will be neat to see how The Social Network does too. I'm glad we saw both of them - they are the only movies nominated for anything that we've actually seen this year!

From The Vault

I borrowed Mom's photo albums and have been scanning some of the photos so we will have them in digital form. I love these photos of me and Marc from when we were little.

Snow Day!

We finally had our first snow day of the year today and it was wonderful!! We got slammed with over a foot of snow, so Bob and I were happy to hibernate in our apartment all day. We slept late, lounged on the couch, read, took a long afternoon nap, then I made risotto and cookies for dinner, and now we're sitting on the couch, drinking wine, and getting ready for the Celtics game tonight. All and all, a perfect day!

Things have been incredibly busy since we got back to school from vacation. Its been a bit rough getting back into the swing of things, but I'm trying to stay on top of everything. The calendar is pretty full between now and the end of the school year, so I know it will go by very fast!

I hope all of you in NH had a nice snow day! What are the chances we'll have another one tomorrow?? I don't think its going to happen, but its nice to dream! :)

Rockport

Bob and I drove home from Bar Harbor via Route 1 for a change of scenery (we get very tired of Route 3 through the China Lake region) and I was telling him the story of Andre the Seal in Rockport Harbor (you can read the story of Andre here). We used to stop to see Andre every summer on our way up to Georges Pond and I described to Bob a picture of Amanda, Marc, and I visiting Andre. I was going through some old photos when we got home and look what I came across!

There are many things I love about this picture:

1. Andre the Seal in his pen in the background

2. Marc holding a Cabbage Patch doll (he would do anything we asked him to do)

3. Amanda's Epping Central School t-shirt

4. My rockin' pigtails

I love this picture of us! It brings back wonderful memories of perfect summers spent in Maine.

New Years in Bar Harbor

We spent three days over New Years in Bar Harbor and it was wonderful! It was a bit of a spur of the moment trip (as spur of the moment as a planner like me can do!) - I mentioned to Bob a couple of weeks ago that we should go to Bar Harbor for New Years and he quickly agreed. We stayed at the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, the only hotel open during the winter. Can you believe that - only one hotel open in the entire town in the winter??? Its beautiful up there - I don't understand why everyone isn't going there in the winter too!

We had a very relaxing few days and didn't feel like we had to be "tourists" at all. We went to breakfast at a place in Southwest Harbor we had found when we were there in February and saw this gorgeous view on our drive there.

We also drove through Somesville and saw the iconic bridge that has been photographed a million times. I thought it was really beautiful with the wreath and the snow. It is truly a perfect photo opportunity.

We also stopped at Eagle Lake and took a couple of pictures. It was REALLY BRIGHT, hence the squinting.

Most of our time in Bar Harbor was spent looking at this - the view from our hotel room. We happily read, watched tv, and just relaxed. It was perfect! We went out for dinner on New Years Eve, but we were back in our room by 8pm. We had a little champagne and were asleep by 11:30pm.

It was a perfect few days away and I'm so glad we did it. It was hard to come back, knowing that we have to go back to school, but we absolutely love Bar Harbor and we were happy to be there even just for 3 days. We've now seen Bar Harbor in February, April, August, October, and January - not too bad for one year!!