Birthday Dinner

After a full day of work, out we went to dinner at Scoozzi in New Haven. Another place was recommended but we thought we'd venture out with only Zagats as our guide. The restaurant looks like it is built to serve mostly outdoor clients in the summer months. Summer or Winter it would be a bit loud,and trendy, but still very good food. Lise and I found the front door after a little wandering through a coffee shop/book store off the main drag. It was fun to hang out with the college kids for a bit. Lise and I especially got a kick out of a few kids talking about how they were pissed that their landlord was keeping the deposit on the account of a "few broken windows". I mean really... you gotta expect things like that to happen... Ummm sure... right.I forget what it's like to be a young adult sometimes now. I guess there was a day where that wasn't over the top... After exploring Chapel street a bit, we finally got to the front door which looked like a little red booth with an elevator.
Lise and I both enjoyed our dinners thoroughly and split a 1/2 a bottle of Chianti. It reminded me of so many places I'd been to in NY city. It was a little crowded, noisy and busy, but we enjoyed every minute of time to ourselves. I don't get to spend time where we are not worrying about a child or a calamity, so it was nice to just sit and talk.
After Dinner, we shared some cannoli and a cup of coffee before we headed back to reality.

Lise appreciation day 2 and she's already asked for mercy. Tonight Lise told me that she didn't want anymore surprises... I am not certain I can oblige... but we'll see. :)

I couldn't eat another bite.

It was a fantastic morning. The sun came up and burned off the fog that has lingered for the last week, and when it finally got cleared up, it left a beautiful blue sky. The Wind began blowing as soon as we got ourselves bundled up and we all headed out to get Gigi for brunch. She was sleeping when we arrived, and was a little groggy, but she soon rallied and we all went out to La Luna in Branford. Nice place and the brunch was crazy big. It had your usual eggs, omelets, fruit and pancakes; however, it also had ribs, potatoes, Chicken piccata, and all sorts of desserts.

Ryan and Connor settled down for a long meal of trying new things, and actually enjoyed stuffing their faces with the adults. Ryan ate a huge plate of shrimp and Connor ate everything in sight. He really enjoyed the whole experiance. After eating about 6 jumbo shrimp, Ryan ate a bunch of Auntie Nee Nee's and scavenged the rest of the table. :) I can’t wait to come back when they are teens, this will be my saving grace for two hungry boys.
After our orgy of eggs, pancakes, meat, cheese and fruit came the desserts. OK, sooo, I'm not supposed to break my diet, but they had peanut butter mousse pie. OMG. Let's just say, I helped Lise by splitting what I got for her. :) I am now stuffed to the gills and actually feel a little sick from my gluttonous rampage, but now and then, you have to splurge so your pancreas can find out how nice you've been to it all these months.
Happy Birthday Connor... and thanks for the excuse to stuff ourselves.

A new day

So, yes I was crabby yesterday and I had every right to be. Don't misunderstand my last post... I wasn't getting plastered, but it made a good visual for how I felt. Anyway, time heals wounds, and if I remain positive, I can survive anything, blah blah blah... I worked from home today and I needed to get a driver disk and in the same holder was a few images from my trip in 1999 to the South Pacific. Being a shameless thief, I took the picture out and dropped it in the lead position for my blog. It prints up kinda dark, so I cleaned it up a bit before posting. This is a sunset in Cambodia, not far from Siem Reap. I loved that trip.

I think I might go through my pictures and post some of my favorites.. I promise I'll continue to take a picture every day, but there is nothing wrong with going to the archive now and then for inspiration. :)

Tonight, after work we took Connor's speech teacher out to dinner. She is an awesome person, and while she did a great job of teaching Connor, she has also become a good friend, and Lise and I hope she'll continue to make time for us in her busy schedule. We took her to the Hibachi place in town. True we went there on new years day, but I'm easily talked into dinner with a show and we went together. The boys had a fantastic time... and like any night on the town, we arrived dressed as batman and Robin. Many oohs and aahhh's were had before we settled into our sundry dishes.

Click to See Carol's Send off Pictures

This weekend, we are going to take Marie out for Connor's birthday. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks and Lise tells me that she's checked out a bit this week, so I'm revving up to be party guy that day to see if I can get her Irish up.

FOOD... (the enemy)

What diet have you been on? I know that I have been on the south beach diet and the don't eat like a pig every waking moment diet. My kids are on the don't eat what anyone gives you diet. This one sucks and seems to the diet of 3 year-olds everywhere. This combined with the I hate sleep diet and the I want to eat garbage at snack time diet is enough to drive a parent to a liquid diet. True, we can get in nuggets and fries and the occasional meat pie (when Connor sees anyone else eating it) but it's amazing that they grow at all with what they put in there. I guess the hard part is, they get to eat anything in the whole world and they only like deep fried, ketchup covered or sweet foods. This is fine calorically, but they can pretty much have anything they want, and to choose chicken nuggets over a steak seems somehow inhuman.


I once read an article about a little girl who got stuck in her house when her father died and was left to her own devices for 2 weeks. She very quickly figured out how to get water, and ate all the cookies and crackers. She left alone pecan sandies, the bread (because no one would cut off the crusts) and a bowl of bananas (because she didn't like them when they weren't cut up) and instead dined for the last 3 days in "captivity" on a diet of Play-Doh and potato chips. A diet that, Connor, I'm sure, would approve.


-Mike