March 2011 Report

Happy Birthday dear Kim, Happy Birthday to you….

We had fun celebrating Kim’s birthday, she said she liked her presents, we hope she did. We made her favorite apple spice cake. For dinner we went to a new (for us) fondue restaurant called the “Melting Pot”, it was a lot of fun. Dinner started with a cheese fondue, followed by a selection of meats cooked in broth. The grand finale was melted chocolate with a variety of fruits and snacks to dip. Yummm was it good.

For years we have heard tales of the Patterson Water Fall. Patterson is best known for the race riots in the late 60’s, and today is not considered one of the safest or nicest places to hang out. Architecturally I’ve always found the city intriguing, (we drive by it on the way into NYC) but just haven’t made time to visit and explore. Kim and I were bored one Saturday afternoon and decided it was time to go find the falls and have a look. We were pleasantly surprised by what we found. The falls are really cool, it has the effect of looking like a huge sink hole appeared right in the middle of the river. Kind of like a mini Niagara Falls. The area around the falls is filled with old mills and looks like it could have some potential as a tourist area, that is if the rest of the city wasn’t so run down. It was cold, so we didn’t do as much exploring on foot as we would have liked, but perhaps we will make another visit one of these days.

Just above the falls Kim and I stumbled upon an old rundown stadium, we managed to find a break in the fence and poked our heads inside just enough to take a picture. As I was looking online for some info on the falls later I came across the name of the stadium, Hinchliffe Stadium. It actually has an amazing history. It was built as part of the New Deal in the 30’s. It hosted the Negro League equivalent of the World Series, and later became the home of the New York Black Yankees. You can read more about it at the link below if you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinchliffe_Stadium

Scenes from the mill area:

Next on our list of places we have been meaning to see was a Cathedral in Newark, NJ. Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart is the name and it is an impressive structure. We lucked out and happen to time our visit with a children’s choir practicing for a concert planned for later that night. Their singing and the sound of the organ in that building was incredible. It was nice to just sit and listen for a while.

Chayce came home for Spring Break; it was so nice to have him around again, even if he sleeps in way too late. When he was awake we did a few fun things.

While Brandon was in school Kim, Chayce and I took a trip into NYC to visit the Bodies Exhibit. They don’t allow cameras so you will just have to go if you are ever in NYC or if the show comes to a city near you. It was very cool and for Chayce who has aspirations to be a doctor it was especially interesting. I won’t attempt to describe how amazing it is, but I’ll just say whoever came up the human body is a genius. Anyone who goes to that exhibit and says it is all just by chance from some big bang is smokin’ some strong stuff.

Here are a couple of pictures I found on the Internet.

Afterwards we took a walk around downtown, it was a nice warm day so it was great to be outside.

Actually this was lunch before the show, the sun was in my eyes, I’m not sure what Chayce’s excuse is.

South Street Seaport

Note the cops with the M16s keeping a close eye on Chayce and Kim (@ Wall St.)

The building on the left is actually the start of the new tower being built at ground zero. It is probably about 1/3 of it’s eventual height. It is hard to see, but if you look at the picture on the fence you can see what it will look like.

Chayce and Rob went to the range to do a little shooting. Kim came along for the ride and we dropped her off at the factory outlets. I don’t have any pictures of that, probably a good thing .

We filled up several targets, but these are representative of the day. Which one is best? One is Chayce’s one is Rob’s, you can vote for the best one via the comments section.

A

B

Rob had a couple of trips to California during the month and it is easy to see why people like to live in California when it comes to weather, especially Southern California. After enduring the cold in NJ it was nice to be in the warm sunshine. The surfers in the shot below are high school kids from the local HS that start everyday with a surfing class. How hard would that be to take.

Kim and I hit a major milestone in our life together, 25 years of wedded bliss, well at least it has been for me . We celebrated with a nice dinner and a show in NYC. The show was Catch Me If You Can. It was a fun show and we enjoyed it very much. People are so talented, seems like every show we go see we walk out amazed at how many really good singers, dancers, etc. there are in the world, just wish I had a little of it.

News from Arizona:

Chayce sent us a picture of the Maple Bar he was enjoying. He loves to taunt us about the weather and the food he can get that isn’t available in NJ.

His cousin Jessica was in Arizona for a visit and sent us these pictures. For those of you that don’t know, Chayce has a BAD habit of of making faces every time someone is trying to take a picture of him. I’ve decided I’m going to start posting said pictures until he learns to stop.

It seems it wouldn’t be a blog from NJ if we didn’t have a section on the never ending winter of 2010/2011.

March 20th, last day of winter, Brandon and his friends out playing basketball.

March 21st, 23rd, and 24th 9” of new snow, so much for Spring.

Well that is enough for March. Hope you all have a great April.