Introducing Vinny!

Everyone, I'd like you to meet my new friend Vinny!  Vinny the shop vac was my anniversary present (this anniversary thing seems to be lasting all summer, and it's awesome).  He's adorable, blue, and packs a serious punch.  He wasn't supposed to be here until tomorrow, but magically showed up today, so I spent the whole afternoon sucking up everything in the living room and hallway.  It was the best.  I forgot to take a picture of Colin's awesome anniversary present, but I promise I will tomorrow and it will get it's own fancy post :)

In other news, we (mostly Colin) finished the tile in the entryway!  Yay to being done with tile!  There just isn't anything enjoyable about the tiling process, and just the idea of having to tile bathrooms and the kitchen makes me squirm.  But until then, I'll just enjoy our beautiful new floor and forget about how it got that way :)

Coming soon:  An introduction to our new diesel Truck showing up Monday :)

The end of an era :(

Last night, the magic died.  The last Harry Potter film is finally upon us, and we celebrated accordingly!  At the last minute, Colin and I decided to make an impromptu visit to Portland to watch with friends since he got Friday off from work (yay!)!  This is the last film, and the last time we can wear our shirts without looking like crazies, so we figured it was more than worth it :) 

After a three hour drive we (of course) headed to buffalo wild wings before the big movie with some of our besties! (I also reunited with my baby!)

If my old girl would make it up to WA we wouldn't even need to find a truck!  She could haul everything for us!

My first attempt at getting a picture of the boys.  Apparently saying "this is for the blog!" doesn't elicit the exact response I was looking for :)

Much better :)

The Winging Beauty!

After we had our wing fill, we headed to the movie!  For the first time ever, we didn't have to wait in a huge line outside, they let all Harry Potter moviegoers into their auditoriums to wait!  It was a much better system.  Much warmer.  After finding seats together, we conjured up some free popcorn from Yahoo!  with our wands.

After two hours and five minutes of pure emotional roller coaster, we gave our final review:

I'd say that was one successful conclusion to a Harry Potter lifetime of fun.  Now, please excuse me while I go read all seven books again and cry about how it's ended too soon. 

PS
Um, did I mention there was an ever so short teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises?  Yeah it was pretty much the most epic moment ever and I can't wait until Summer 2012!!!!

Arkham Asylum and Mohegan Sun

Today was another eventful day!  We decided to go exploring again, and found a comic book shop in Norwich called Arkham Asylum!  I just had to see what it was like!  Besides the awesome paintings on the walls and general insane asylum feel, it was actually pretty overpriced and not really comic book central.  There was a ton of Magic stuff, and mostly just trade paperbacks.  Sort of a let down but still fun to visit.

Since it didn't take up nearly as much time as we thought it would, we decided to stop by Mohegan Sun, the second largest casino in America.  Foxwoods, the largest casino in America is also only about 10 minutes from New London, but we decided to save the big daddy for a more planned out trip.  Mohegan Sun was still pretty amazing.  It's absolutely huge and has some of the most beautiful artwork and architecture.  I was really surprised. 

The casino from the parking lot

The casino is made up of three main rooms - the earth room, sky room, and wind room.  Each one has pretty much the same stuff, just a different decorative theme.   We spent most of the time walking around but I did have a good feeling about the earth room, so I put $5 in the penny slots and came out with $9.02!  I'd say that's pretty successful!  There are also about a million restaurants and designer shops.  A lot of the restaurants had some famous person/chiefs name attached (Bobby Flay, Jimmy Buffet, etc.) and the price tags definitely reflected it, so we decided to eat elsewhere.  Even still, it was more than fun just to take it all in.

As I was walking by the giant auditorium I noticed that there were signs everywhere for Glee!  That's right, the live show is coming to Mohegan Sun the first weekend in June.  Since it looks like we'll be here at least until then, Colin said that if we get the schedule and car sales stuff figure out we could maybe look into getting tickets!!! They're almost sold out, and all that's left is horrible nose bleed sections, but it would still be so worth it!  I'm just surprised he even entertained the idea of going with me :)

Awesome artwork in the casino

Glass sculpture in the casino

We posted the car on craigslist to try and sell it ourselves instead of trading it in (they hardly offered us anything so we decided to see what would could do), and we've already got a serious buyer willing to pay near full price!  I'm so shocked!  I guess since it gets such good gas mileage it's a steal.  We got her all cleaned up today and ready to show this week.  I'm so excited and sad all at the same time.  Versa was our first dealership car buying experience, and also our first car that was less than 20 years old :)  It'll be sad to part with her, but exciting to find something new!  That's just how these things go I guess.

We're thinking about heading to New York City next weekend for the end of fleet week, and to see some of the last things on Colin's wish list that we didn't get in the first few trips.  Even though we're stuck in a less than ideal situation, it sure has been fun spending time together and exploring Connecticut!

A weeks worth of updates

I wish I had better news to share, but we're definitely at a standstill here in CT.  Colin has a preliminary appointment with Navy med on May 31st that he's been trying to get moved up to no avail.  So right now we're just hanging out trying to make the most of this time together.  He's been told that even if everything goes perfectly at his appointment, it will probably still be at least a month before his new waver arrives (from wherever it is they come from).  It's discouraging news, but there's nothing we can do so we went exploring instead of pouting!

This week we went hiking at the Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, CT.  Of course I spent the majority of the time being completely distracted by the most giant tadpoles and frogs I've ever seen in the wild.  I'm talking Goliath (our frog who was adopted by the Schlotz's when we moved) Pixie frog sized.  I also almost stepped on a giant water snake that was well hidden in the grass and was too fast to get a picture of.  The best part is that I almost stepped on it, but it went after Colin :) 

(click on the images to see them larger - especially the panoramic)

Gillette Castle

The view from the castle

A giant frog in the water.  They were everywhere!

It's tough to see, but there is a log in the middle covered in a bunch of turtles.

Attack of the giant tadpoles!  There were regular sized ones too, but they're so small you can't even see them in this picture!

The pond where all of this awesome stuff lived.

We've also been actively looking into buying a new car.  After testing out the removable roof rack on our drive from NY to CT, there is just no way that it's going to work long term as we hopefully make our way to WA soon.  We've test driven a bunch of different midsized SUVs, and researched a ton, but we still haven't settled on anything.  It'll be sad to see Versa go, but she's just too small for us now.  I think we've narrowed it down to a Honda CR-V, Toyota Rav4, Jeep Liberty, Ford Escape, or Hyundai Santa Fe.  Driving all over Connecticut to visit different dealers has definitely made the time fly by, and has allowed us to see all sorts of cute little towns we never would have known existed.  We even accidentally stumbled upon Yale one day on our way home! 

So that's it for now!  I'll be sure to update as soon as we have more news.  Like I said before, our cell reception is horrible, and we never know when the internet is going to be working, so if you tried to get a hold of us and couldn't, I'm sorry!

Do you have any suggestions of what we should see while were in Connecticut?  Is one SUV better than another?  Leave any insight you may have in the comments!