Saturday, I got up and fed Wolf his breakfast

then we went for a walk and noticed the lovey dovey geese have taken over the abandoned beaver den? hut? cottage?

When we got back, I made myself a quick smoothie

and headed to Aquacize for the ‘Hightide” class (I’m trying out this new gym that has a pool!). We go through through a series of drills in the deep end of the pool using water belts. It’s a great workout and no pressure on the bum knee. Thankfully there’s no picture for that!

Then I went home, had a bite to eat for breakfast/lunch and waited for my friend and her husband to pick me up for a bike ride.

We ended up going 20 miles, with just two breaks, one to check out a celebration (10th anniversary of the Nashua River Rail Trail)

and one to enjoy the view

Oh, and we stopped for a quick second so I could rescue a baby turtle on the bike path!

In the car on the way home, my friend and I were talking about lobster rolls, so I texted Dave and asked him if he wanted to go out for lobster rolls. Dave’s not one to turn down some lobster, so when I got home, off we went!

After that, we played a round of miniature golf, and Dave beat me, first time!

(I think I was tired from the swimming and biking, but don’t tell him that, ok?)

after THAT we had an ice cream (this one was Dave’s, mine was much smaller!)

Dave said it looked like a hemmorhoid (sp). He’s gross like that!

after THAT, on the way home, we saw these bikers. A few seconds later, the one on the orange bike somehow laid his bike down. He was unhurt, but probably pissed as HELL!

Finally I got home and relaxed!

Sunday, I got up early (thank you, Wolf) and after feeding and walking him, went to get coffee and a donut for Dave. On the way, I saw this

and knew I had to take a picture for my friend Debbie in Japan since she loves her some flamingos! It says, “You’ve been flocked!” and it was by the Girl Scouts LOL!

Since we had a mountain of laundry piled up, and didn’t want to waste a beautiful day, we dropped it off to be washed, dried and folded. It’s not cheap, but oh, it’s a nice treat!

While there, we noticed an Asian market across the street and had to investigate. They had duck heads! And something that I couldn’t pronounce that was from a cow! In the freezer section, Dave found frozen giant water bugs which apparently are a popular food in Thailand. BLECH!!!

Afterwards, we decided to take a ride to Plum Island for a leisurely walk in Hellcat Swamp (nicer than it sounds) on the wildlife refuge. On the way, I screetched to a halt when I noticed a Farmer’s Market in Newburyport. Luckily, there was a parking space right there (thank you parking gods!).

Dave bought the most amazing pastry (about the size of a muffin), called a Kouign-amann…it was DEEEElicious!!! Of course it would be, as you’ll see once you read Wikipedia’s describtion of it: It is a round crusty cake, made with bread dough containing layers of butter and sugar folded in, similar in fashion to puff pastry albeit with fewer layers. The resulting cake is slowly baked until the butter puffs up the dough (resulting in the layered aspect of it) and the sugar caramelizes.

We saved it for after our hike! We also got some frozen porchetta w/fennel & chilis ravioli (made those for dinner that night, on a bed of kale and it was omg good), some rosemary goat cheese and some jalapeno cheddar crackers.

Out on our walk, we walked past many of these on the boardwalk

after that, we drove to Hampton Beach and saw these huge kites way up in the air:

got lunch at Tripoli’s pizza and then home where I think Dave might have discovered aliens in the spare room:

How was your weekend?

It started a day early, hanging with Dave’s sister, Sue (a girl’s night!) of hors d’œuvre and a movie (Sweeney Todd) at her house! We also enjoyed a couple small glasses of Southern Tier’s crème brûlée stout…WOW!!! Picked that up my last visit to Jamestown, NY at a brewery tour.

my coworker and I have a habit of flipping the finger at each other as a joke…so I came in to work on Friday and found this on my computer and laughed

That evening, Dave and I made nachos, then went to see the movie, “Emperor”. It was … strange? Not particularly well-acted? I don’t know…Matthew Fox played a WWII general and I kept thinking it was a weird plot line from the TV show “Lost” LOL! Tommy Lee Jones as General MacArthur was…interesting. I think I fell asleep for a bit …

Saturday we had Ralphy and originally our plans were to head to Maine to see if the outline of an old shipwreck was still visible on Long Sands Beach. Unfortunately, Ralphy had a cough, and it was cooooold out so we didn’t want to aggravate the cough.

I took Ralphy to the library, where we looked at books and checked out a couple, then to my work because I forgot my phone charger there. Then home to relax and chill. Dave went out to run some errands and ended up coming home with Popeyes for lunch, lobsters & steamers for dinner and two new movies, Spiderman 3 for Ralphy and Life of Pi for me (I LOVE that movie, although I have to close my eyes during the whole hyena-baboon-zebra scene).

We tried to get Ralphy to touch a lobster but he was having none of it. Still a bit skeptical of it, as you can see:

Sunday I met a friend at the Owl Diner for a St. Patrick’s Day pancake

I snapped this shot on the way out…the cars in the owl’s belly made me think of that song, Rapture, by Blondie.

Meanwhile, Papa and Ralphy enjoyed some guy time:

Since the new band that Dave is in had a gig on St. Patrick’s Day, Ralphy and I headed to McDonald’s Playland (still too chilly to be outside for any length of time)

And then came time to leave…he was not happy

Note the ketchup and apple slices…yes, he dips…yes, he’d probably eat ketchup as a meal.

Early in the morning, I’d put a pork shoulder in the crock pot, poured in a two liter bottle of rootbeer and cooked it on low for 8 hours. The result:

Dave said it was “skrumdiddilyumptuous”

How was your weekend?

Today I saw a picture of something called a wiener melange. It looked like a cafe au lait or a cappuchino, but… wiener? Melange? Ignorant of the German language, a weiner to me is a hot dog (or a you know what). Melange, French in origin, is a mixture or medley.

I looked at the cup in the picture and thought…could that truly be a medley of hotdogs? Juiced? I mean…juicing IS all the rage now…but…*shudder*

So I googled these two words, “wiener melange” and while I was correct on melange, I found a new meaning for wiener! It also means “Viennese”.

Wiener is German for Viennese, but may also refer to:
•A hot dog, from German “Wiener Würstchen”, meaning “Viennese small sausage”
• A slang term for pen!s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Melange: “…in Vienna, the Melange is 1/2 cup “black coffee” and 1/2 cup creamy milk, completed by milk foam.”

See, it’s possible to learn new things, even at my advanced age!

I took out my big girl camera the other day and shot this pic of Dave and his older son, Keith.

I called it “Up to something, these two” and Dave’s comment on FB was “heh heh heh heh you can tell we were up to something laurencelleish”

And I leave you with this laugh

Ralphy (he’s saying “we’re tickling the eggs”), newly turned 5, with his big boy haircut. His big brother wears his hair that way and Ralphy wanted his hair to look like his brother’s…I mourn the curls, but oh well!

What a weekend! My friend Maureen was in town with her sister to celebrate’s Mo’s birthday and they invited me along! I should’ve gone Friday night, but I wasn’t really sure they’d want me the whole weekend…what was I thinking!

That’s Mo on the right

The hotel had a very interesting mural along the walls:

Here’s a close up:

Mo had brought me Christmas gifts from her (toffee peanut butter, oatmeal mix and granola mix from Great Harvest Bread Company, and a gorgeous bracelet), and from Kim and Betsy (who I didn’t get to see on New Year’s Eve). Kim gave me a couple of LOTR lego sets, one of Frodo & Gandalf that I loved, and this one.

Yikes!!!

After that we headed to lunch at Rock Bottom Brewery

pulled pork, avocado, radish, cabbage and chipotle crema…so good! Oh, and a side of mac & cheese.

and then we saw a movie (Parker, a crime thriller, I hadn’t even HEARD of, but enjoyed)

Course I had to take a picture of this at the theater…my three favorite movie series!

back to the hotel to change and then walked to Newbury Street and beyond. yes it was chilly, but we stopped for a good long time at the Apple store so Mo’s sister could buy a new phone.

Then to the Prudential Center to walk in warmth at the mall to kill time before our dinner reservation at 730.

Dinner at Lucca Back Bay was wonderful! Salad course was “Insalata di Cesare”: Romaine lettuce, perfectly dressed with parmigiano dressing, white anchovy (lovely whole filet right on top), pickled shallots and deviled egg on the side (which was so good!). It also included diced toasted focaccia, but I’d had enough bread to start.

My delicous dinner was pappardelle tossed with bolognese sauce ground beef, veal and pork) with mascarpone and parmigiano reggiano. It was heavenly, but I could barely eat 1/3 of it.

For a drink, I had The Yarmouthport which is cranberry and sea salt infused Grey Goose vodkas, Campari and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. YUM!

We wandered over to the lounge afterward to join Mo’s sister’s friend and her boyfriend. I had quite an interesting conversation with him about the DAR, Rosicrucians, the Mayflower, etc. We had a shared history of sorts LOL!

Back to the hotel via cab, then basically straight to bed for me…I’m not used to staying up so late LOL! Mo went to work out in the hotel’s gym til 130! Crazy lady! The lobby of the hotel turns into a nightclub and boy, did we see some dressed up folks! They were like peacocks LOL! Men AND women!

The next morning, Mo’s sister went across the street to Panera to get us coffee and a few pastries, all of which were fantastic. We sat around chatting and relaxing before checking out.

Mo’s sister headed back to the Vineyard, where she lives (lucky gal!) and Mo and I headed to Wegmans to complete out weekend.

Dave encouraged me to spend the night with them and took great care of Wolf while I was gone. I’m a lucky gal to have him in my life, that’s for damn sure!

Wolf was happy to have me come home

Hope you all had a great weekend! Tell me about it!