The Quinn's Zoo

So, not too much has been going on here, just working, fixing up the house more (we've moved on to the basement project!! woohoo!!) The waterproofer is coming Monday to do the work, then we will drywall all of it and put down new floor. We will probably wait until the spring to do the painting, decorating, etc. I can't wait, we are going to have this HUGE area to have a nice family room. Our idea is to not have a TV in the "living room", just a stereo, which is nice because then hopefully we will watch less TV. We want to get a fancy dancy HD flat screen hang on the wall thing for the basement. Anyways, enough babbling...

Oh, by the way, don't ever use Value Dry to waterproof your basement. We found them and thought they might be good - they sent out some young punk salesman and quoted us at 3 times the price that my mom paid to have her's done. We called up my mom's guy and thankfully he is travelling down here to do ours. What a rip-off these big companies are!!

Our house has literally been like a zoo with our new addition. Bailey is the sweetest thing ever, except for her "accidents" and her mouthing. She goes to Puppy School every Wednesday so she has been learning a lot and being able to play with other pups. She is getting really big, she has been gaining about 2.5 lbs. a week now and she is about 4 1/2 months old. The vet thinks she will be between 60-70 lbs. full grown. It's funny she has these super long legs right now, she looks so silly!

She loves John the best, she is definitely a daddy's girl! Yes, we have succombed to calling ourselves "mommy" and "daddy" and to be honest with you I like it :-)

Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to Everyone!!! This year we didn't get to cook
:-( ...Although we did get to spend the whole day with John's family at his parents' house and we got to spend time with our "other family" (all of my in-laws' friends & their kids). It's a shame, when I first met John, we spent so much time with them, but these days it seems so hard for everyone to get together.

We had a nice day - here are some pictures of our baby! (I guess we've fallen into that category of treating our puppy like a baby - hey if it is all you can do right now, it works for me!!)

No caption needed!

Happy Birthday Alysa Helen Jones

Born November 9th at 10:45 am - 6 lbs. 1 ounce 20 inches.

Yes, this is my first niece!!! Congratulations to Davey & Annie, and Aiden & Riley.

We are going up to see her today, so I will have many more pictures!!

Mom and Dad and baby are doing great!

I FINALLY GOT TO MEET RACHAEL RAY!!!

Yes, I finally got to meet Rachael yesterday at the Moorestown mall!!! I was so excited. My friend Nicky went with me. It was crazy, we got there like 3 hours early, she was a half hour late - it was nutz! We were both glad that we did it though. It's funny, because I haven't been this passionate about something for such a long time (except for planning my wedding 2 years ago). I know everyone, make fun of me, it's ok, all you RR haters!!!

Anyways, I have had a non-sexual crush on Rachael since her daytime TV show aired. She is just so inspiring to me, and watching her really lifts my spirits. It was funny, I was so excited the night before and the morning of, I guess I didn't really know what to expect, the only kind of famous person I ever met was Pat Croce (does anyone care about him anymore?) He was signing his new release when I worked at Atlantic Books. So, I was like, what do I say, what will she say, just not wanting to say something stupid like it was even going to matter! This is how it went down...


I got up to the line (my friend Nicky and I had to say we weren't together or we would have only gotten 1 picture taken :-(







One person took my book, one person took my camera, I walked up said hello and how nice it was to meet her, she said "honey turn around so the guy with the camera can see you" and she giggled and gave me the autographed book back. For the picture we had to stand in front of the table, turn around and lean in to her - not a very forgiving position to the female body!

Bailey Quinn

Meet the new addition to our family!!!

Introducing Bailey Quinn...










We adopted her from Peaceable Kingdom yesterday. She is a Black Lab Mix and is about 10 weeks old. We're not sure what she is mixed with, maybe some Rotty, Shepherd or Pit. She has some brindle on her legs and some brindle beauty marks on her face :-)

We are so grateful to have her part of our family, since we've been trying to adopt for a few months now.

So far, in the 24 hrs that she has been here the cats are taking well to her. Delilah comes down (believe it or not!) but when the puppy jumps, she hisses a little. She has already learned how to sit and got to go to PetSmart and get her first bath today!! I can tell she is going to be a little mama's (or daddy's) girl, she is just too sweet!

Still Here!

We're still here! Been a little busy, here are just some random pics I thought I would post...

AIden & Riley - Aiden supporting the Phillies with his red hair, and some pics from our "camping night" in our backyard a few weeks ago!





















Some pictures from Prague (I never could get the Photoshow to work again :-(

London Photoshow

Here is a link to out pics from London, enjoy!

London

GOOOOOOOOOO PHILLLLIEESSSS!!!!!!!!

GO PHILLIES!!!!

So John and I managed to score some Phillies tickets for last night's game. It was another sell-out due to Phillies promising chance of making it to the playoff (more props to the Marlins for taking the Mets down tonight!).


















Thanks to LB for getting us her Aunt's season tickets that were in the 10th row right field!!




Oh, and my highlight of the game was the Phanatic "streaking" out on the field :-)
Priceless!

We're BACK!!

Hello All, Well we are back, again, and boy does it feel good to be back at home!


I had to go to Prague for a 3 day Global Peronnel & Organization Conference with my buiness unit. Since it was from Monday night to Thursday morning and you had to fly to London firsts to get to Prague, we figured we would have a 3 day getaway in London especially since it was right around our anniversary and we only had to pay for one night in the hotel (the company picked up the rest). So for one night at the Marriott Park Lane and John's flight ticket we were able to have another discount European vacation!!

Friday night we left PHL at about 9PM (which I suggest to anyone flying internationally - take the latest possible flight) We were actually able to sleep 5 out of the 7 hrs there. When we arrived in London local time 9am, our time 4am. We went straight to the hotel dropped pur luggage then grabbed some breakfast.
We stayed right by the Marble Arch so we were conveniently located by the TUBE (their subway) that takes you everywhere - even though we basically could have walked to almost everything including Buckingham Palace and the London Eye.


Monday I went to the Basingstoke, England Mars Drinks office to meet everyone - it was great to see all of the people in person I have been working with for the past 6 months. Monday night we all flew to Prague, Czech Republic. It was nice having John with me - made me less homesick!

Unfortunately, Prague was not as much as I expected it to be. There were a lot of really neat castles, almost like the Magic Kingdom in Disney World, but besides for that it is just a really old town. It was neat to learn of the history from the plant manager at the Porici, Czech site when we got our plant tour. Basically, up until 1989, Czechoslovakia was a communist country and when the Berlin wall was torn down they became free. Their unemployment rate is actually crucially low because of the industrial boom.


I have to admit, seeing towns that are really old are cool, but there were no official landmarks that we were looking for that really caught our eye, except for the Astronomical Clock - that was neat! Definitely not a place I would go back to, but glad I had the opportunity to go. We would however go back to London, we had so much fun!


I will post a link to the photos soon!

Little Jack

Hopefully our friends Bryan & Max don't mind us posting this, but this is one of the cutest babies I have ever seen!!



And he is actually a miniature version of his father - too cute!!

My love, My life, My everything!!

So this weekend we had a little party to celebrate the End of Summer. It was nice to have our family together since it marked one year from when all of our close family and friends were with us when we pledged our love for one another. I couldn't find my camera so I am hoping that some people can send me a few :-)

Everyone had a great time, I think at one point there were about 15 little rugrats running around giggling and playing! Aiden & Riley thoroughly enjoyed themselves as well as the McLaughlin bunch.


On Sunday John and I ended up going to Valley Forge Park to celebrate our 1 year anniversary - boy, where did the time go?!?!? The only thing (besides for my pink sapphire right hand ring (hee hee)) I wanted for this day was to have a picnic in the park with my honey. The day was absolutely gorgeous, you could not have asked for better weather! So we packed up the leftovers (yummy!) from our party along with some champagne and fancy glasses and drove out to Valley Forge. I think we are going to start a "tradition" and try to do this every year.




Looking back, I can't believe it's been a year! I remember the morning of my wedding waking up in the Luxurious Hyatt down on Penn's Landing with my mom and Annie thinking, I am not going to see or talk to John until 5:00pm tonight! As I looked down at the Moshulu from the hotel window, all these thoughts ran through my head and I was so anxious!! I was so nervous for the first time since we got engaged. It all changed once the Trolley picked us up and took us to the Moshulu for the ceremony. Once I saw John as I was coming down the aisle I knew that I was going to be truly happy for the rest of my life!

Wrigley Field

John and I went to Wrigley Field in July when we were out in Chicago for my work and to visit Missy, Greg and the girls. I know, it was like over a month ago when we were there, but my digital camera battery had died and we had to buy a disposable. With that being said, I am not very good at the whole dropping off of film and picking it up, etc. since all of my pictures go from my digital camera to my computer. What's really cool is that you can just get a disc with all of the pictures on it for about $5 and your disposable camera is instantly turned into a low quality digital camera (the pics didn't turn out that good!)



Besides for its popularity for being one of the oldest fields and having its "brick wall" in the outfield there were some pretty cool things we found out being there. Across the street from the stadium on right field and center field, the people who own the buildings actually built patios on top of their roofs so that they could view a "free game" at their leisure.



We were almost jumped by Cubs fans because we were representing Philly on their turf. John did sport Emily's Cubs hat just in case. We also hung out with the "unofficial mascot" there, finding this out about him when we got home

"The Cubs have no official mascot, though a 'polar bear' looking mascot, which had no name, and was not popular with the fans, was used briefly in the early 1990's.[Currently, however, the Cubs' un-official mascot is a formerly homeless man named Ronnie Wickers, who goes by the nickname of "Ronnie Woo Woo."[6] Wickers is not employed by the team, but is seen daily at games and outside the park, dressed in full uniform, usually with a hula hoop or jump rope. Wickers is the second fan to reach this status, the first being "Gary The Drunk" in the 1980's thru mid 90's.Wickers, however, is much more popular. He is known for his trademark yelling, for example "Mark.... Wooo! Grace.... Wooo!," and has been adopted by fans as a part of the culture at Wrigley Field"

So, my question to all of you out there who may be Cubs fans - Who the heck is this bear we were hanging out with and why can't I find any info about him on the web. From the research I did below, he is not "Ronnie Woo Woo" (Ronnie doesn't wear a bear uniform", he is not a homeless man and according to this website, the Cubs do not have a mascot at this time.

Hmmmmm......

Walking With Dinosaurs

Most of you know John's infatuation with dinos. It is almost as bad as Ross from Friends. Everything was dinosaur this and dinosaur that when he was growing up, almost similar to the Strawberry Shortcake and Cabbage Patch craze that I went through as a child!!

So I thought it would be cool to surprise John with tickets to see the "Walking With Dinosaurs" show that was going on at the Spectrum this past weekend.
Since the tickets were about $50 a pop for the crappy seats I thought that it would be a pretty good show (and more "adult" oriented). Boy was I wrong! The show was only about an hour and a half long and I think we were the only adults there without children in tow.

I have to say that it was neat how they brought out these dinos that were scaled to actual size and you could actually see their muscle tone. The best was the T-Rex - of course he was the "grand finale" and they messed with everyone bringing out a baby one first. It was actually cute.
Two other dinos started messign with it, then the "MOM" T-Rex came out to protect her young. Boy was she pissed!! This video shows how they brought everything to life.
Not worth the $100 though, I would have paid about $25 each ticket but no more! And it was kind of scary, I wouldn't recommend taking a child under 12 to see it.