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With beautiful weather on Friday, we hopped down to nearby Branch Brook Park to check out the cherry blossom trees.

And more and more Mallory is loving jumping up and down in her, uh, jumper thingy.

When Adrienne and I first arrived on the East Coast in early August of 2005, we stayed in a suburb not too far from our current home. One of the first meals we had was at a little Italian restaurant there, and the experience remains with us both. It was a classic local place, where the waitress called you “hun” in her Jersey accent and knew all the customers. The food was great and the portions HUGE.

To mark the anniversary of our arrival, I’ve tried to get us back there at least once a year around that time. Turns out last August was a bit busy for us, but we finally got there yesterday after a hike in a nearby reservation. We got the same waitress as we had the very first time. (When we walked in and Adrienne saw her, she immediately got excited.) Mallory got a high chair (in which she looked hilarious, it so big and she so little). We order the Tony salad for one (it’s big enough for two) and one entree (we’ll still take half of it home). While we’re feeding Mallory her solid food dinner, the waitress comes by and remarks how she’ll be eating meatballs in no time.

Throughout the night I can’t help but think this is our Lino’s (Rockford restaurant used for Tallacksen special occasion celebrations) and wonder how that tradition began.

Anyway, here are a couple photos. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.

Owing to the beautiful weather today, we decided to go on a drive exploring a part of Northern New Jersey. I planned to take back roads for scenic purposes and to lengthen the initial drive to allow for Mal to get in the proper-length nap. Part of my planned route took us through a state park on a road called Burnt Meadows Road. Here’s the map:

Looks innocuous enough, right? So we’re cruising along – rather slowly, actually – when we pass the following sign:

And I think to myself – gravel road. Slow down, no biggie. But a second later, I’m slamming on my breaks. This photo is just around the bend of the photo above.

It’s hard to see, but there are a couple of significant ruts. Could have taken those in the CR-V. But then there are what I would qualify as small boulders. Man, no way I’m going to hack those. I was really disappointed! This was the one get-away-from-it-all looking road on our route. And I guess I was right!

Just as we had gotten turned around, a big Chevy pickup with steel cage back slowly passed us. I paused to watch them traverse it, and even their suspension looked like it was close to bottoming out.

So we made our way on to Ramapo Mountain and the New Jersey Botanical Garden. Mallory was still conked out in the car when we arrived.

(Gratuitous picture of cute little feet/socks:)

Not much flower-age just yet, but it was a nice area to get out for a walk. There was a significant manor there as well.

Sunny and temps in the low 60s made for a beautiful day.

The trip was a nice reminder that we need to get out of the house more, and that there are actually quite nice parts of New Jersey less than an hour away.

And with that, I present to you some crib photos. I’m glad Adrienne is commandeering the camera more and more. Have a great week!

Short story is the clouds made for not optimum conditions – they reflected so much light from the city that you could only see the Tribute in Light (barely!) through a lens.Look on the right side of the photo. This is the best one I got, argh. It might help to click on the photo to make it bigger.

The place we went to is Eagle Rock Reservation, which has a very nice lookout point on Jersey and NYC. It also has a 9/11 tribute, and had quite the crowd there tonight as expected.

And since we got crappy photos of the tribute, here are some Mallory pics to make up for it.

And one from I think yesterday. Two well-deserved naps!

I got a call on Friday from a friend offering me two free tickets to see the latest (and last) Harry Potter movie on IMAX 3D. Naturally, I’ve not read any of the books or seen the previous movies. But Adrienne has. All of them. I’m not sure how she’s slipped the movies by me. She was interested, so I took the tickets. Though a deal was made: I go to the movie, and we get to try another pizza place near the theatre. She was game.

So the movie: imagine Lord of the Rings crossed with Star Wars (the good ones – I haven’t seen the bad ones) – except with characters that seem to be confused about who they are and how they fit into the story arc. Push that into a silly, Sunday-night-Hallmark-TV-special kind of ending. And there you have it. I suppose it was IMAX and 3D. The 3D was mostly well done, not being too intrusive (other than the overuse of characters/things coming at you – a tired effect for 3D). Though it seems the technology doesn’t handle fast action too well. I actually thought the best use of 3D was in one of the previews for some animated penguin movie part two, where a wall fell down (towards you) but then “stuck out” as characters interacted with it. I think it worked because it very well bridged the gap from 2D and “normal” 3D to 3D as an effect/plot point.

But onto the pizza. First, go read this review of the place. Don’t continue reading until you do.

Done?

It’s pretty spot on. We walked down the alley and went in, to find there’s no seating. A pick up only sort of place. Ok. We order and make plans to walk 4 blocks to a nearby park (in 90-degree heat – thank Adrienne for being a trooper! – but did I mention I went to Harry Potter for her? :). Al, the owner/baker is obsessed during our time there with finding a magazine. Kind of talks to himself but also us in the cramped space: “I don’t know where I put it… it’s gotta be somewhere… it’s not on top of that pile?… well, it’ll turn up…” All the while he’s got a sponge rubber-banded to his forehead. No joke. It is 90 degrees outside and I’m sure his oven is more like 700 or higher! No AC, are you kidding? We get our warmed sausage bread. It’s good. I gotta learn to make a good stuffed bread. The pizza comes out, we pay. He asks if it’s our first time. I say yes. He asks how I learned about them, I mention the pizza site linked above, which he’s familiar with. At that moment he finds the magazine. And why has he been looking for it? He proudly wants to show how this Jersey magazine says his is the best pizza in the state. He makes sure we see and read it. And says once we taste the pizza, everything else will pale in comparison. He thanks us for coming, shakes my hand and we go on our way. A true Jersey experience!

Oh, and the pizza? Quite good as well. I think I was most impressed by the sauce. But it was a very good, unique pizza. A bit messy, the canned mushrooms, meh – get meat  or just cheese is my recommendation. I’ll be looking foward to the leftovers!

We decided to get out of Dodge for a short while this afternoon and night, and I suggested a visit to a pizza place in SW Jersey. On the way there we decided to stop by Princeton and check out the scene – which was pretty quiet, since it was late Saturday afternoon in the summer. We took a photo nonetheless.

This is near the chapel, apparently the third-largest university chapel anywhere. It was a rather short visit, but when people ask, now I can say I went to Princeton! On to pizza:

We only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table, and while we were waiting we enjoyed the many raised beds of basil growing right there. If you followed the link above, you probably noticed they try to do as much locally as possible.

Here’s the actual place – quite small, with an equal amount of seating outside as in! They also have a mix of a couple large communal tables and individual ones. We had a salad to start, and ordered a 4-cheese (white – no sauce) pie as well as one with spicy sausage and onions. Adrienne enjoyed both, and even ate her pizza bones!

Close up shot:

I don’t know that Adrienne loved their wicker chairs, though:

After the pizza we went on a walk around the town – Hopewell, NJ – and came across this quintessential looking garage structure:

The way home took us through some beautiful parts of New Jersey – yes, they really exist – before we wrapped up a nice afternoon/evening.

A couple more from DC. First, Adrienne on the Mall:

And here is the Lincoln Memorial:

Adrienne says she likes this photo of me. I’m just checking my email… or maybe we were lost and I had to do some GPS’ing…

That’s a wrap for the DC photos. Last night I made my first pizza with potatoes on it. Quite good! It was a white (no red sauce) pie, but had: mozz, blue cheese crumbles, potatoe, cheese and parsley sausage, onion and a sprinkle of rosemary.

Also did a more traditional one with Sopresetta, green pepper,  and onion.

Don’t worry, we had a salad on the side as well! And Adrienne had a (pregnancy?) craving for cake, so she whipped one up:

Chocolate with coffee buttercream frosting. It was a nice enough to have the windows open but that made it quite brisk in the house, so I built a fire at night. The cats seemed to enjoy it:

And I finally got the basement painting done. Well, half of it, for those of you following the project. Admittedly, it doesn’t look all that different from the paint that was on it before:

But the goal is to not have it do this, which the current finish is:

Not too much planned for today, though we’ll probably spend some time watching the goings on at our neighbor’s house. They had a 1.5 story house. They’re adding a story to it. Friday the workers gutted the upstairs. And yesterday the four guys completely took the second story off the house. Kinda cool to see the process and how quick and easy the destruction is!

Whoppie Pie from ACKC:

Adrienne on Capitol Hill:

Modern art at the Hirshorn Museum. Some people don’t get the music I like. I don’t get the art that some people like. I guess it works out.

Adrienne in the sun on the Mall:

Julia Child’s kitchen, now on display at the National Museum of American History:

The Monument. So wishing that flagpole wasn’t there. Oh well.

Another day of exploring tomorrow. Likely will check out Georgetown and who knows what else. Happy Sunday!

Today I was doing some work outside the house (specifically looking into how to get rid of some pesky squirrels that have finagled their way into our siding) and noticed two trees severely leaning. These trees have been dead since we moved in, and it’s been in the back of my mind to get them down at some point. But while the trunk is on my side of the fence, the trees go through the fence and the whole of the trees are on my neighbor’s side. And they were leaning so much so they were depending on support of other trees and the neighbor’s house. It appeared one of the windy days this past week was enough to uproot both trees. I talked to the neighbor and asked if he minded if I took the trees down. He didn’t so I got to work with my bow saw. Heh heh. Without too much trouble I got both trees down (we’re talking six to eight-inch trunks here, 30-40 feet height. But here’s the weird thing: I figured the fence was cut around the tree. No, it appears as though the tree actually grew through and around the fence! Check it out:

Here’s the shot before I went and rented a chainsaw:

And after:

Now, you may wonder: where was Adrienne to help you during all this? She, of course, was out in Oakland, getting her picture taken with Santa Claus!

Well, she was in San Francisco for work, then flew up from Oakland to Portland (then home to Goldendale) for the weekend for a surprise visit. Then she’s back in San Francisco on Monday for more work, and flies home Tuesday. I think. I guess Microsoft was running some promotion for Live(.com) where you get your photo taken with the Jolly Old Man at the Oakland airport. And she had some time to kill. Kinda bad lighting, if you ask me. But it was free!

So needless to say I had to fend for myself for dinner, so pizza it was! I tried out the recipe from the latest Cook’s Illustrated, which was supposed to be akin to what we’d call a New York slice.

I thought it was decent, but Adrienne would think the crust too thick. Eh, to each their own. And since she wasn’t here…

Happy Weekend, one and all!

Always fun to park beside a carbon copy of the vehicle you’re driving.

Ok, so it’s from NY and close inspection revealed it was an automatic, and a much messier owner! On this occasion we found ourselves in the parking lot of a buy buy baby store (in dreaded Paramus off route 17 – you can’t understand it until we take you there). Never heard of buy buy baby? Neither had I until now. Take a Bed Bath and Beyond (triple Bs, get it?) – its parent company – and instead of pots and pans, fill the store with diapers and strollers, and you’ve got a buy buy baby. Adrienne was doing some shopping for a baby shower. I never knew how much stuff one needs to have a baby! How did parents of yesteryear get by?! 🙂 Anyway, while Adrienne searched high and low for items on the registry, I amused myself with the 6-program electronic rocker, featuring emulations of car rides, kangaroo rides and riding in a boat, amongst others. And the stroller aisle looked like a used car lot to me – and this was only half of them!

Sheesh. These ‘burbs wear me out at times, maybe I should go back to the city!