Joe and Jamie's Blog

Yesterday Jamie and I made the trip out to Newport, Rhode Island. It isn’t a bad ride at all, about 3 1/2 hours from Poughkeepsie. We hit no traffic and it was a beautiful day. We arrived at the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites around check in time. We walked around to see what was near by while we waited for the room to be ready.

The beach is litteraly right across the street which is just awesome. Unfortunately our room doesn’t have a view of the beach, but that is only because their new hotel the built next to ours blocked our view; one year ago we would have had a view. :/

So far we like Newport. We walked all last night down by the warfs and had some food at one of the restaurants on Bowen’s Warf called the Landing Restaurant and Tavern. We tried some of the native quahog clams. We actually have never heard of them before but they were delicious. Apparently clams are the big fare around here. Jamie enjoyed her salmon dish and I tried some of their fried clams, along with clams casino for an appetizer.

We ended the night by picking out spots where to eat tonight and at the arcade. I kicked butt on one game and won over 1,000 tickets!

Shot of the hotel from the beach.

Views of the beach and surrounding area.

This little gull was determined to keep that clam. It was funny watching him trying to keep it in his mouth and play keep away from the other gulls. It’s a full clam, so I’de like to know how they were going to get it open.

This is where we had dinner.

Picture of Bowen’s warf, one of several warfs in Newport.

Here’s the arcade where I won all of those tickets. Jamie beat me in the other games. :)

My goal is to post pictures from each day, so check back each day to see what we did!

This past Tuesday was my mother’s birthday. We celebrated most of it on Sunday since everyone would be home and another celebration on the actual day. Basically I guess we like it when everyone’s home so we do it as much as possible, plus the cake is always good.

Jamie and I got her a gift certificate to one of her clothing stores and a reed difusser from Yankee Candle to put in the bathroom. She liked her gifts very much.

Here’s some of the pictures from the day.

Here’s the ice cream cake from the actual day. No one was at the store to put the word “mom” under Happy Birthday so I made it in the candles.

As it gets warmer out the days just seem to fly by. I have been incredibly busy this summer with extra tasks at work and the web business getting busier. I find myself in front of a computer for 20 hours a day sometimes. I have started on some new ventures that will later be announced, hopefully these will bring in some cash a bit faster than the rest.

Other than driving myself nuts lately, I actually have accomplished a few personal things that needed to be take care of around the house. Jamie painted more in the attic (yes thats is still going on, since March), I finished up the electric, patched the new wallboard area, mounted hooks, took down shelves, removed the spoiler from my car which was broken and falling apart.
You can view the past articles here:
2008/03/23/a-little-housework-remodling-the-attic
2008/03/24/continued-house-work-in-the-attic
2008/04/14/progress-on-the-attic-project

On the brighter side, we still aren’t smoking, been since May 12th, so thats like almost 2 month cold turkey for both of us. Luckily we did, only way we can afford gas now! Check it out: 2008/05/12/no-more-smoking

One more thing before I go. I have just have to get this out and rant a bit here. We are saving to go away on vacation in about 2 1/2 weeks (can’t wait). Saturday I brought Jamie’s car to get inspected since it expired come today (Yeah I know way to wait for the last minute). I figured okay it’s just $21 and that’s nothing. ERRR WRONG. With my luck the tires were worn on the inside tread where I couldn’t see it so I had to get new ones, and then an alignment because that is what caused the issue. So my $21 day went to $600. Needless to say, that’s less money for vacation now. FUUUUUN. This kind of stuff always happens.

This past Saturday was very nice. It wasn’t scortching hot or raining. Everyone pitched in and did some stuff outside. It always looks so nice when it is done so I figured I would share it with everyone.

Here’s some bears we got a few years back in Lake George. My father made the stand they are on.

Here’s a wooden turtle.

There is a story to the next two photos. Jamie found this really cute turtle figure with a straw hat and one paw in the air waving at you at Rite-Aid. I accidentally broke it when playing soccer, so we buried his head in the flower bed. The big guy is the replacement turtle, he’s just a cute with his flower.

And here is me if I was a frog in the backyard.

The neighbors are extending the second story on the back of their house. Going pretty well, just need better weather to finish it up.

Recently a robin made a nest above the back deck on the new gutter and deck light. We never had the gutter there before so that is probably why we never had a bird’s nest there before. We typically get them in the potted plants on the front porch. It’s nice having them on the front porch because you see them grow up from in the house without disturbing them. Unfortunately in the nest in the back is right above one of the chair spots, so “bombs away!” if you catch my drift.

We thought about moving it before it laid it’s eggs, but we waited too long and now can’t touch it because we don’t want the mother to abandon the nest. We are used to seeing all sorts of birds in the yard all summer. We get sparrows, pigeons, a lot of crows, robins, blue jays, and cardinals. Usually it’s the sparrows that make a nest somewhere, first time a robin did it. I can’t wait to see them grow up. Wish I could peek at the blue eggs, but once again don’t want to disturb it.

Before I start, this is the second post thats about a week late. I know, I know, I was busy what can I say.

My Uncle Jimmy turned 60 this past Sunday. My cousins threw him a surprise party at the Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank, New Jersey. It was a very fancy hotel with great service and food. Uncle Jimmy received a very nice surprise gift, but you have to scroll through the pictures to see what it is!

Red Bank is a nice little city, nothing like the crappy parts of Jersey, which is almost the entire state. The catering room we were in overlooked the Navesink River. I wish I was the guy out on the jet ski, it was even hotter out than Saturday.

Again, forgot the camera. These were with the Treo again.

Here’s the Birthday Boy along with my Aunt Susan and sister, Katelyn, in the background. My aunt is going to kill me if she sees this!

Here’s almost everyone cramming for photos before we left. Now here comes the surprise gift.

My cousins got my uncle a 1968 Oldsmobile 442. He almost had a heart attack when it rolled up. He honestly didn’t know he was getting it nor it was his since we were in the valet area. Its a very nice classic. He used to have one, same year and tires, just he had the hard top.

It was a great party and good weekend full of awesome food, free beer, good views, great weather, and fun times with the whole family.

This past Saturday we went to my cousin’s baptism, well actually two of my cousin’s baptism at the same time and place. My cousin Suzanne and her husband Howie baptized their son (King) George and my cousin Keri and her husband Chris baptized their son Matthew. Matthew is 5 1/2 months old and George is 2 1/2 months old. It was good to see the whole family together for something happy after the long series of sad events. Both babies were baptized in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church at 856 Pacific St, Brooklyn, NY.

From there we went a few blocks to a very nice catering place, Giando On The Water at 400 Kent Ave, Brooklyn, NY. This was the same place Keri had her wedding reception, if I am correct I believe they are relatives of Chris. It is a beautiful place right on the bank of the East River with a wonderful view of Manhattan. The Williamsburg Bridge is practically right over the building (its the cool one with the train that goes in between the cars across it). You can see all the major skyscrapers from the outdoor patio. The food was great. It was 97 degrees out that day, but it wasn’t too bad in the shade.

Like usual I didn’t grab the camera, I need to keep a second one in my car I think. Excuse these photos as they were taken by my Treo, which has no flash or focus.

This clown actually stole our seats!

Very good chocolate cake with real strawberry and banana filling.

Suzanne and George(left). Carmine and Matthew(right).

Keri and Matthew.

Look at George tasting the cake!

Keri and Matthew(left). Suzanne and George(right).

Here’s Jamie and I just hanging out. I’m pretty good at taking reverse pictures like this. That’s right, I took this!

We’re going to Newport, Rhode Island.

We decided on this because it’s a lot closer for us to get to since we didn’t want to blow most of the vacation money on gas. I booked our 8 day stay at the Newport Beach Hotel & Suites just 2 miles from downtown Newport. It looks lovely and has received great reviews. It’s a historic old hotel, which I will have to do some more research on; I typically just wing hotels and see how it turns out. The hotel just finished renovations in May for many upgrades to all the rooms, which should be nice. The hotel’s front yard is a park with a beach in front of that. I can’t wait to wake up with an ocean view.

Here’s some pictures I took off their website.

All photos show above are copyright Newport Beach Hotel & Suites, the Newport Hotel Group, and the photographer.

This next photo I took off Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, Google Earth’s competitor. I love Google Earth and all Google’s products, but Microsoft Virtual Earth has the Birdseye View feature which renders the photo so much clearer and lifelike, and also it gives it the feel of flying around the place in a helicopter, not the straight down look of a satellite. Google does have street view though, which is just amazing.

I didn’t zoom in all the way because I wanted you to see the surroundings. Go to MSN.com and on the top search bar click on Maps and then do your search and play around with the Birdseye View.

Back to the topic now.

I will take thousands of pictures like I do every vacation. I promise I won’t post them all, but a bunch of really good ones scattered throughout many posts.