The fall TV season is right around the corner.  I’m so excited to watch the next season of Chuck, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Survivor, and Amazing Race, just to name a few.  The question becomes which new series will be worth watching?  I spent some time programming the DVR last night to include The Event, Mike & Molly, Raising Hope, and Chase.  I also plan to try My Generation, $#*! My Dad Says, Outsourced, and No Ordinary Family.  I don’t plan to regularly watch all of these new shows, but I figure they are worth an episode or two to decide what are keepers and which should be deleted forever.  Are there any others that I’m forgetting?

I received a message from a friend on Twitter last night letting me know that I need to stop attending Reds games.  He couldn’t have been more correct, as the Reds went on to lose their third straight game to the Colorado Rockies.  I attended last nights game and the previous night as well, not to mention the loss I saw in Cincinnati just over a month ago.  I thought that maybe the Reds hat I wore on Tuesday night was bad luck, so last night I switched up it to another Reds hat that my friend Ken gave to me as a gift.  Unfortunately my superstitions didn’t help.  I won’t be attending the day game today that will wrap up the four game series, so I hope the Reds can get back to winning.  Actually the rest of the season should be filled with wins as I won’t make it to another game this year.  Go Redlegs!

While back in Cincinnati I also got the chance to see the WEBN Fireworks for the first time in a while.  My family used to head down to the Serpentine Wall early each Sunday morning before Labor Day with blankets, games for entertainment, and a bucket of chicken.  The seating on the wall is a prime location for watching the fireworks which are launched from barges on the Ohio River.  From this viewpoint, you are seated just over 500 feet from the fireworks launching position on the barges.  Needless to say it is very loud, but well worth it for the gorgeous view of the fireworks.  Here is a video I shot with my iPhone during the finale of the show.

You know it’s loud when the microphone on your phone stops working! I didn’t have anything other than my camera phone, so I left the real picture-taking for my mom. Also included in this photo set are photos from the second baby shower over at Kim’s parents’ house.

Kim and I traveled back to Cincinnati over the weekend.  Our families hosted a couple of baby showers for the ladies on both Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday was at my parents house, while Sunday was at the Hais’ house.  Many of the guys got together on Saturday afternoon to play a quick round of golf before heading over to my parents for a mini Pig-Fest party.  My parents decided not to have their annual summer blowout this year, and instead had a small family gathering with pulled pork sandwiches, cornhole, and a giant TV screen to watch videos and football. 

 

Despite not having a band, wiffle ball, or other Pig-Fest staples, we had a great time.  It was definitely way more low-key than past parties, but I think many people enjoyed that.  Time will tell if my parents will go back to having a big “Pig” but I’m hoping that they do.  How can our future child never experience one of these legendary parties?  Here are some pictures my mom took from the baby shower and mini Pig-Fest. 

Harvest season is here and we are finally reaping the rewards of our vegetable garden.  So far we have picked a half-dozen or so tomatoes as well as tons of kale.  The kale is used to feed Amstel, our pet rabbit, while we have really enjoyed the tomatoes.  There is nothing quite like a fresh tomato.  So far we had BLT sandwiches last week, and I made a delicious Arrabbiata pasta sauce last night with the remaining tomatoes.  The recipe I followed was one that I have used many times before, but I substituted all fresh tomatoes instead of the can.  I think it turned out the best yet.  I’m still holding out hope for some green peppers, jalapenos, and squash before colder temperatures set it, but I’m not sure it is going to happen.  Next year I may have to move the garden to a different location.

Besides going out to eat, I spent the majority of the weekend playing in a hockey tournament.  It started off on Friday afternoon, but I had to skip that game since I was still at work.  I later found out that we had lost that game with a score around 14-0!  Needless to say, the team was not very good, or at least not playing in the right level.  This team was assembled quickly to fill an open spot in the top division of the tournament.  I didn’t have high hopes for our second game on Friday night, and those expectations were met with a 12-1 loss.  We were making improvements, but not quickly enough.

We had two more games on Saturday, one around five in the evening and the next at around nine.  The game at five was even better than the other two the day before, and we actually had the early lead!  We managed to skate pretty closely with this team, but ended up losing 8-3.  Keep in mind that it was much closer than the score indicated, at least through the end of the second period.  And for the big finale, well it sort of ended the same way we started.  We were easily beaten once again, making our tournament record 0-4.  Needless to say, we missed the championship game on Sunday.  Besides the results, I had a good time and enjoyed some weekend exercise.  Our next season should start-up in a few weeks, and I’m ready to get back on the ice weekly.

Yesterday was our two-year wedding anniversary.  To celebrate we choose a restaurant that we hadn’t been to before, Gumbo’s Louisiana Style Cafe.  It didn’t hurt that I had bought a coupon a couple of months ago from LivingSocial (similar to Groupon) that gave us $50 of food for the $25 the coupon cost.  We had a couple of other ideas for dinner, but those restaurants were all closed on Mondays.  Anyway, we arrived between six and six-thirty to find Gumbo’s mostly empty.  Again this might be due to it being a Monday, but I was a little surprised.  We were seated at a nice booth table and service was very quick.

We had already decided to try some gumbo before ordering meals.  Kim went with the chicken and sausage, while I ordered the red beans and rice.  Both of these were delicious, though I’d give a slight edge to the chicken and sausage gumbo.  The red beans and rice were fairly typical, but not that it’s a bad thing.  Our server was excellent, suggesting other beers when the one I had chosen was out of stock, as well as voicing her opinion during the crucial entrée selection.  Kim decided to have the pistachio crusted Mahi, which is served over roasted shallot jalapeno cream sauce, topped with sautéed crabmeat and grilled asparagus spears.  Our server commented that this was her favorite.  I decided to have the blackened chicken pasta, typically served over tomato basil sauce.  However, the server recommended that I order it with the mushroom bacon garlic sauce, which I did.  Both of our choices were delicious.  Well I’m assuming Kim’s was delicious, as I didn’t try it, but she did finish the entire piece of fish.  I was glad that I switched the sauce on my pasta, as I thoroughly enjoyed every last bite.

So the food was very good, the price wasn’t overly high, and the service was excellent. I’d definitely recommend this restaurant to any fans of creole food.

After celebrating our friends’ wedding in Newport, Rhode Island, we spent the next day exploring parts of Connecticut.  Rhode Island was my forty-fourth visited state, and Massachusetts was number forty-five, making Connecticut number forty-six.  Rather than taking the interstate between Newport and Mystic, CT, we drove the entire way on highway 1, which included a couple of scenic moments.  It wasn’t nearly as pretty as I had hoped, but it was better than the highway, which we later took back to Providence for our flight out.

Our friends Tracey and Kevin came along for the adventure in Connecticut.  Our first stop was for lunch at the famous Mystic Pizza.  Prior to our trip I had never heard of the movie with the same name, but I was able to view clips of it on the restaurants TV sets as we enjoyed some pizza.  It wasn’t the best pizza I had ever had, but it was good enough to satisfy a very hungry group of four.  After lunch we decided to check out the Mystic Seaport.  Admission was a little pricey, but once inside I realized there was a full day of entertainment available.  It was a little hot for my liking, but we gave our best effort to see as much as we could and actually stayed all the way until closing.

After the Seaport, Kevin decided to start his drive back to New Jersey, leaving Tracey to explore with us for the rest of the day.  Eventually we made our way over to our hotel in the nearby town of New London, and after getting settled, decided to drive back over to Mystic for dinner at the Captain Danial Packer Inne Restaurant and Pub.  After checking out the upstairs menu, we decided to eat at the more casual downstairs pub.  Fortunately many of the dishes served upstairs are also available downstairs and at a discounted price.  This was another of my favorite meals!  The Lemon Peppered Chicken was delicious.

The next day we explored the boardwalk of another nearby town called Niantic.  Part of the boardwalk was closed, but we still enjoyed the limited time on the rocky shores of this tiny town.  We had one last meal at Dad’s Restaurant before making our way back to Providence for our flights out-of-town.  We had a great time exploring New England, and I’m happy that there are now only four states remaining that I have not yet visited.

Mystic on Dwellable

Does anyone remember that Geico commercial that featured a collect call from Bob Wehadababyitsaboy?  I can’t be the only one.  Here is a YouTube link if you need a reminder.

Anyway, we are having a baby and it is a boy! We actually found out a few weeks ago, but it was confirmed at yesterdays twenty week appointment. I added some pictures and additional information over on kimandedjr.com to go along with all the entries Kim has added over the last couple of months.  Be sure to check it out.  Here is one of my favorite images from yesterday.

We spent a considerable amount of time dining out over the weekend.  Saturday evening was no exception, when we decided to try the nearby Mecca Grill.  This Lebanese restaurant appeared to get mostly favorable reviews, minus one or two that mentioned very slow service.  After dining here I can agree with the service being extra slow, but the food was so good that I nearly forgot about the service.  We arrived around eight in the evening to find one server outside on the patio chatting with a couple of customers, along with one or two tables of people inside.  We walked in and didn’t know if we should seat ourselves or not, but a man who appeared to be the owner came out soon enough and asked us to sit where we liked.

The owner was not only serving as the cook and dishwasher for the evening, but also as baby sitter for what appeared to be his grade school aged son.  Needless to say, he had his hands full, so the slow service from him was understandable.  However, the whole experience could have been much better had the server who was sitting on the patio actually was doing his job.  Eventually he did help out, but at that point it was already too late.  Anyway, back to the food.  We started with some humus, which was served with plenty of warm pita bread.  Kim ordered the vegetarian plate, while I went with the falafel plate.  Both of these were excellent selections!  Their falafel were perfect, as was the baba ganoush and tabouleh.  We were given even more pita bread with our meals that we filled with various ingredients before eating.

If you do decide to try this restaurant, be sure to allot plenty of time for the experience.  Though it was slow, the service was friendly, and the food was definitely worth the wait.