Synchronicity

Off to part two of the honeymoon -- going to see the Police in concert at Hershey Park with Tom and Amanda and Tom's brother and sister-in-law. To start off the evening, we did a little tailgating.

Then it was on to the show. The Police sounded AWESOME! It's amazing that all that music came from only three people. The two hours that they played flew by and they played just about every Police song you could think of.

Beautiful weather. Awesome sunset.

The only blemish on the night was the more than two hours we spent in the parking lot after the show. But here's the funny part -- we probably would have been out of there a lot sooner if we had been looking in thr right direction. We were looking at the exit to the right, which never moved. If we had looked to the left, we would have seen the parking lot emptying. Here's a picture of the parking lot the following morning.

Next, we went to the American Antique Car Association Museum. Our luck they were having a special exhibit of race cars from the 1800s to the 1980s. These are some of those cars.

Like Matt says, drive it like you stole it!

One of the vehicles at the Museum was the Hershey's Kissmobile. We knew that this year is the 100th anniversary of the Hershey's kiss. What we didn't know is that its exact birthday is July 7. This intrigued us.

So we headed to Hershey Park to see if we could find anything with 7/7/07 on it, which we couldn't. But we did find this wall of giant Hershey's Kisses as a consolation. And a couple of stares as we took our picture in the middle of the gift shop.

From Hershey, we stopped to pick up the trailer for the car so we could embark on part 3 of the honeymoon. But you'll have to wait a day or two to read about it.

And we're off...

So yesterday was the official start to our honeymoon. We made a day trip to Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. Our ADD definitely kicked in here. Do we bet on the ponies or do we play the slots? Ponies? Slots? Ponies? Slots?

We started off with the ponies. Some of the picks were less than scientific, like the horses that had cool sounding names. Some of the other picks we went with the experts. Both methods seemed to work.

On our way into Pocono Downs, we followed a horse trailer for about 3 or 4 miles. When we walked up to the track, the trailer was parked out front, and it had 777 on the outside. Was it a sign? We asked the people the name of the horse. They told us it was Falkland Fighter, and it was running in the 7th race. However, they weren't too optimistic because it was running out of the "8-hole." Turns out that means it had drawn the 8th spot. Well, we bet on it anyway, and it came in second. So we took a little dough home on Falkland Fighter.

We'd love to show you some pictures of the slots too, but they're pretty picky about you taking pictures in the casino. But if you check out the slots tickets, you can see that we did pretty well. And we picked up Mr. Lucky as a souvenir. We tried to stick to the Lucky 7 slots for obvious reasons. Matt was the big winner of the day. He hit some sort of double Lucky 7 combination and won big!

There I am with part of our winnings. All in all, we came out ahead, so it was a pretty successful day. We'll parlay our winnings into our trip to Montreal, which is part 4 of the honeymoon. Keep reading. There's much more to come.

Who's laughing now?

I am! Because we're married!!!

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the wedding. It was a hectic week but totally worth it. But now it's back to business as usual.

We're opening a challenge to all those photographers (and wannabes) who attended the wedding. Send us your best shot (or shots) from the wedding. The best ones will be posted on the blog -- and our favorite might even get a prize. Hmmmmm ... year-old cupcakes. Send your entries to mattjen777@comcast.net or send a disc to the house. Good luck!

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fourth of July! Yes, 7/7/07 is coming quickly, but we took a little time to celebrate July 4th. It might be raining out, but we busted out the sparklers for some patriotic fun! Off to watch some real fireworks on the TV!

Rockin' With Sam

Say hello to our new nephew, Samuel Ray Sentivan. He arrived on Wednesday at 6:05 p.m., weighing in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce and measuring 20 inches. His likes are sleeping, eating, and, well, you know what happens after you eat. His dislikes are being woken up and, well, you know what happens after you eat.

What Not To Wear

Sorry there haven't been too many posts these days, but we've been busy with wedding plans and home improvement projects.

We've been getting some questions about the attire for the wedding. Yes, you can wear a Hawaiian shirt. Yes, you can wear shorts. Yes, you can wear sandals. NO, you cannot wear a tie! Hopefully these illustrations will help you out.

Here's what you can't wear:


Here's what you can wear:

(Leis not included).

Check back soon. There should be more coming in the next couple of days.

Also, for those of you staying at the North Maple Inn for the wedding. The hotel is now under new ownership. However, the only thing that has changed is the name of the hotel, which is now the Dolce Basking Ridge. The phone number and the rate still are the same. If you need to see the hotel on the web, go to www.dolce.com.

If you're coming into town on Friday for the wedding, drop us a note. We're having a get-together.

Meat machine

A couple of weeks ago, Matt was working in Philadelphia, so it seemed like a good opportunity to visit the City of Brotherly Love. I could see Matt, who had been on the road for work for almost two straight weeks, and I could visit with my brother Drew and my sister-in-law Heidi, who are expecting a new addition to the family in July. The weather turned out to be awesome that weekend, so I got a chance to take in some on the sights.


First, it was off to Center City Philadelphia with Drew and Heidi. We went to the Reading Terminal Market, which in and of itself is an interesting place. There are vendors everywhere selling all kinds of food.

But as an added attraction, it was the first-ever Scrapplefest! Who can turn up scrapple?!? Actually, to be honest, I never had scrapple until that day. We tried pork scrapple, pork and beef scrapple, and turkey scrapple. We all agreed that the turkey scrapple was the best. That's Drew with the Hatfield pig. We didn't let the pig know that the turkey was the best.

Got some wedding ideas while we were there. I can honestly say that we hadn't thought of a scrapple wedding cake. And not to worry, there will be no scrapple wedding cake.

After Drew and Heidi dropped me off at the hotel, Matt and I left on a quest to answer one of those burning questions in life...

Geno's or Pat's? Matt has been to both establishments on a number of occasions, but I have never been. So I had to try them both for myself. We ordered (actually Matt ordered because it's a little overwhelming) a sandwich from each place (wiz wit -- that's a cheese steak with cheese whiz and onions -- the things you learn), and we each had a half from each place. It seems as though we live in a split household. Matt likes Pat's, and I like Geno's. But I'll be honest -- I'm not picky. I'll eat from either place. Although after the scrapple and the cheese steaks, I had my fill of meat for the day.

Here's a look that the intersection at Geno's. The only thing that I missed out on was the full effect of the neon signs. We later found out that both places are open 24 hours a day. I'm sure that knowledge will come in handy some day. There was a pretty good crowd going, but the lines kept moving. Do you see the taxi cab on the right? The driver was sitting there waiting for two women while they got their sandwiches and then take them on to their next destination.

Happy Easter!

The good news is that, for the second year, Matt and I took in a Devils game on Easter (one more year and it will become a tradition). The bad news is that the Devils lost. The Devils actually were down 2-0 in the third period. They scored with about 5 minutes left in the game to make it 2-1 and then tied it up with 0.8 seconds left. That's why you never leave a game early! But the Devils lost the shootout and lost the game. Here's hoping things go better in the playoffs.

This may very well have been the last regular season game at the Continental Airlines Arena. If all goes as planned, the Devils will be playing in Newark in October. That works out well for us

because the games will be only a short train ride away!

A quick note about the photo -- Matt is quite proud of it. This actually is a self-portrait taken with his D40x. You can't even see his arm! The two guys behind us offered to take a picture but admitted that they couldn't have done as good a job.

Hope everyone had a good Easter!

You say it's your birthday?!?

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear me

Happy Birthday to me!

Comments welcome

My friend Gretchen, who also is a blogger, expressed her frustration last week that she could not comment on the blog without being a member of Google. I had no idea! So I've changed the setting so that ANYONE can comment on our blog entries. Now there are no excuses. Comment away.

Bristol -- Day 3

Another beautiful day at Bristol. Blue skies and temperatures in the low 80s. Couldn't have asked for a better weather day. Although I have to say that I'm glad that our seats were in the shade. I can only imagine how much redder my neck would have gotten. This is right after the National Anthem and the flyover.

504 laps and many cautions later, Kyle Busch won the race. It was an exciting finish. Kyle wouldn't have been my first choice for the win (Jeff Burton would have been better), but it definitely was better than Jeff Gordon.

Signing off for now from Bristol. Tomorrow is the long ride home. We'll be posting more when we get back home and I have a faster Internet connection. Thanks for reading.

Bristol -- Day 2

This is pretty much what we saw all day at the Busch race. Spin after spin. This one was pretty early on in the race. Kyle Busch (the spinner pictured above) spun a couple of times but managed to come back and finish third. But that's OK because ...

my favorite driver, Carl Edwards, won! And we got to see his trademark back flip. Never thought I'd get to see that in person.

Hate to cut this short, but it's time to get ready for race day. The big Cup race is in a few hours. More later!

Bristol -- Day 1

After making a good portion of the trip on Thursday, we hit the road from Christianburg, VA. It's always nice when the signs point to your ultimate destination.

Here is our faithful pilot. Thanks to Matt for doing ALL the driving (not that I didn't offer).

When we pulled into the driveway of the house that we're renting, we looked into the backyard, and this is what we found. Cows!

I know what you're thinking. It's Abe Froman -- the sausage king of Bristol (if you don't get that joke, you need to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off again). No, it's Jim, enjoying a sausage sandwich. No pictures of his elusive wife, Diana. But we're working on that.

That's their daughter Emily with her finger up Junior's nose. And Kirsten there for moral support.

Sharpie set up an autograph wall for the fans to sign this weekend. If you look between our heads, Matt signed us in.

Can't believe that we're actually at Bristol. The weather was amazing yesterday for qualifying. We're expecting more good weather today and tomorrow. The only thing that spoiled the day was that Jeff Gordon won the pole. After watching qualifying, we did some shopping, got autographs from Dave Blaney and, oh yeah, Kasey Kahne, and then watched Carl Edwards at the Speed TV stage.

Matt and Jim went out last night to take some pictures. Here's the result.

Check back later. We'll hopefully have some photos from today's Busch race.

Let's go sledding!

Matt and I went to New Hampshire last weekend to go snowmobiling. This a group shot from our ride on Sunday. That's me and Matt on the right. In the middle is Dennis, our host, and his girlfriend Deb. On the left is Dennis' brother Patrick and his girlfriend Rachel. Dennis lives right near the lake, so it's a quick ride out his backyard onto the lakes and trails. The trails were in great condition, and the weather was perfect for our ride on Sunday. Blue skies!

Matt has snowmobiled for years, but I have never been before. I look pretty comfortable on the sled, but then again it's not moving. :) I was pretty sore when I got home, but it was worth it. Saturday was trial by fire -- we went out Dennis' back door and rode on the frozen lake. I quickly got used to the speed -- it was fun. Sunday we basically rode the trails. Some of the trails were narrower and twistier (is that a word) than others, so it was nervewracking at times. I had to remind myself that I was riding through the beautiful snow-covered woods. We covered more than 40 miles on Sunday!

Matt bought himself a new (well, new-to-him) snowmobile while he was up there. It's a 1998 Ski-Doo MXZ 670. Apparently it's quite fast (over 150 horsepower), and I think it's pretty. Now Matt just needs some spare time and snow to ride it!

Even the novice that I am knew that the trail conditions were really good. They had a lot of snow up there, so there were a minimal number of rocks on the trail. At times it was hard for me to comprehend the trail system and how it wound through the woods. At one point, we actually rode on the perimeter of someone's farm. We used the farm as a rest stop. Patrick enjoyed the two ostriches (or were they emus) that they kept at the farm. And we all enjoyed the old John Deere tractor and 1925 Ford. On the way home, we passed right by the Seventh Day Adventists Church. Snow apparently is not an excuse to miss church.

Got to start 'em when they're young

Many of the bigger NASCAR teams have developmental programs. They start working with the NASCAR drivers of the future at a young age.

Well, Matt and I have the same philosophy. We need to build NASCAR fans at a young age. So we started today with Mac and Cailyn. I think we've done a pretty good job so far. High fives all around!

Happy Valentine's Day from the both of us!

Final product

And here's how it came out...

We're pretty pleased with how it came out. We love the colors! You never know what it's going to look like until you get the color on the wall. A definite improvement from the floral wallpaper that was there when we moved in. We still have some touch up work to do, and the trim needs to get finished.

And yes, painting left me very sleepy!