Boys Weekend

This past weekend Christopher's friend G who is in Boston for a 2-week business trip came out to visit us for the weekend.

As boys like to do when they get together, we consumed copious amounts of meat at the local eat-all-you-can churrascaria. And then they headed out to check out the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods and play some poker.

A fun time was had by all - the boys returned home a little "less rich" than they were at the beginning of the evening, but were still in good spirits.

Olympic Fever

Christopher and I have Olympic Fever! Ever since we recorded the Opening Ceremonies on our DVR and watched the whole thing from beginning to end, we have been tuning in every night. If you add up all the Olympic viewing I have done in my entire life up until Beijing, I don't think it would total to half as much as I have watched of these games so far (and there are still 4 days left).


I think there are three main contributing factors to our increase in Olympic viewership:

• USA: we now live in the US and the US Olympic team got off to a great start in these games (thanks to Michael Phelps!)


• HDTV: for me sports is meant for viewing in HD. And now that we have a new HDTV, we find ourselves watching different programming than before. If something is only offered in a 4:3 SD format, there is a good chance we won't be watching it. If it's upconverted SD, we'll consider it ;)


• Time Difference: with live events being broadcasted every night right around prime time, we can't help but tune in. And if we needed any more excuses to stay up later than we already do - the Olympics would be a pretty good one. Me: Please Christopher, I'll go to bed as soon as Rogers/Dalhausser finish this match

There certainly has been lots of excitement during these games - Dara Torres, Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, & Shawn Johnson to name a few. Most recently we've been rather entertained by Usain Bolt's antics on the track. I wonder if we'll ever get to see this guy actually break a sweat!

Work Hard Play Hard

This weekend Christopher and I put our carpentry skills to the test and built a railing for the steps up to our front porch. Our insurance company had identified the lack of railing as a potential exposure and it is also against the building codes for our town. So after putting it off for several months Christopher hit up the lumber yard for some wood and I borrowed a miter saw from a friend at work.

Here are the results of our handiwork:

Before: no railing

Back Porch Railing: our goal was to match this

After: completed railing - just needs a coat of paint

And to reward ourselves for our hard work, we hit the beach on Sunday :)

And here is our truly finished railing, after two coats of paint:

Fascinating isn't it - but we're just so proud! You always remember your first :)

Barter

Every once in awhile I peruse Craigslist for our area to see if there is anything interesting available. For the first time, I decided to check out the 'Barter' classifieds.

I couldn't help but find it humorous that the listings were looking for such specific items as well as what was being offered for trade. For example:

• snowboard, guitar & Xbox360 for golf equipment/PS3 bundle
• tattoos/body piercings for fishing equipment & guns
• commercial grade slushie machine for utility trailer
  
• tandem bike for moped or tandem kayak
• almost new lawn tractor for reliable car

It just seems so inefficient to me, but I have never bartered before so maybe I am missing something here. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to list these items for sale on Craigslist to get money so they can purchase whatever they are looking for? I am sure it is possible to find a match for these exchanges, but if I traded in my reliable car for an almost new lawn tractor it would certainly take me a long time to get to work!!

The Rez

Just around the corner from our house are 6 water reservoirs located in 3,000 acres of beautiful forested land, with hiking trails and bike paths.

Because it is so convenient you would think that we would have visited the Reservoir at least a dozen times since we moved here. Like many things worthy of procrastination, a trip to the "The Rez" fell into this category. 'We can go any time' we told ourselves, the trees aren't going anywhere.

But driving home from work today it was such a beautiful day that I decided to find out what we were missing. So we strapped on Tyson's new red backpack and treated him to a bonus walk. And a great time was had by all - we'll definitely be back!

Nancy Scissorhands

This weekend I trimmed about 175ft of hedges in our front and back yard. Usually I do this in two separate weekends, but I decided to tough it our and just get it done in one. Boy were my arms tired from holding the hedge trimmer up high above my head.

Before

After

All my hard work was appreciated when we had our neighbors over for drinks on Sunday evening and we could see out from our front porch.