Joel's Secret Identity Revealed!
Not many know that for 6 months out of the year my alter ego takes over. When the weather gets warmer and theme parks start to open for the season I resume my odyssey to ride the best roller coasters on the planet (well, country for now). Before anyone asks, yes, I've been to Cedar Point!

Armed with my trusty six year-old digital camera, a note pad, and years of coaster knowledge I ride and rate the roller coasters like a film or restaurant critic. Then, I rush back home to recount my adventure for my readers on The Coaster Critic's Blog (www.TheCoasterCritic.com). I started the blog back in 2006 as a way to merge my hobbies of theme parks and writing. I later found out that I was born on National Roller Coaster Day. So really, it's not my fault that I'm a coaster enthusiasts. To date, I've ridden 177 roller coasters at more than 20 parks. My favorite roller coaster is Kumba at Busch Gardens Tampa and the best roller coaster I've ridden is Superman: Ride of Steel at Six Flags New England (Mass).

Last year, my site was quoted by the New York Times in an article about the wooden roller coasters of Pennsylvania. It's been fun the last year or so being invited to theme parks for their media events. Jenn's been very supportive of my hobby and thankfully she likes roller coasters. If you ever need any theme park trip or blog advice, drop me a line.


Also, I can't forget to shamelessly plug the Facebook page. Become a fan!

August is a crazy birthday month, and I don't mean one or two birthdays, there are soooo many!!!

Joette (my friend from college) celebrated on August 1st.

My sister Hayley's turns the big 11 today!! Happy birthday sis!

My old boss and wonderful friend, Ina was born on the 12th.

Jimmy (Joel's brother) and Noele (a mommy friend) are a year older on the 13th.

Joel has his last year in the 20s when he turns 29 on the 16th!!!

My mom and Aunt Sheila (her sister) both celebrate their birthday on the 18th (10 years apart.)

Avery's friend Henry turns one-year-old on the 23rd.


So happy birthday to all of you August people!!!

This past weekend was Father's Day and we had some great celebrating to do. This was Joel's second Father's Day, but Avery was sooo little last year, so this one counted even more.

Joel's real gift was part of a rollercoaster trip to Georgia and Alabama obviously it didn't pay for all of it but we think he had a lot of fun there anyway.

Father's Day morning Avery and I woke up, and I started making Joel's favorite breakfast or really anytime food: Pancakes! Joel came downstairs and played with Avery while I coerced her to give him his Father's Day card, and she did soooo good too!!!
After I was done making my yummy pancakes, (sorry laur not out of a can,) I told Joel to put Avery in her highchair which I so trickily placed his other daddy day gift on.

Avery and I had a play date last Thursday; Little Monet for Daddy Day where we had our mommy group come over and make shirts for daddies, boy was that fun/chaotic, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, his shirt turned out pretty well:

Front: "World's Greatest Dad" True that!
Back: " I (heart) Daddy" with Avery's hands, those were NOT easy to get :)
After gifts and breakfast we called our respective dads to wish them Happy Father's day and then tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day. We thought of maybe going to a theme park but the good ones were too far away (4 hours drive there and 4 back) and it was too hot out for little Aves and she's still a tad too little to enjoy any sort of park. So we decided to stay home and enjoy our family, until we decided to make a purchase (as Joel would say,) on the DARK side. Ha ha, check out our next post but we got a Wii yippee.

Avery really really loves her daddy and she must have known it was his special day because she hurt her chin and surprisingly, but in a good way she wanted daddy. He passed her off to me and she wanted to go back to him again. It was really sweet to see that. Whenever Avery's awake she always sends Joel off with a wave or blows kisses and she's also always excited when he comes home from work, she loves to greet him at the front door and then be bashful when he tries to kiss her. She loves when he "chases" us upstairs and is always saying and signing, "Dada."

Gone are the days of the baby tub, but Avery still loves it when daddy gives her a bath. I can always hear her splish splashing and just laughing the whole time.


Happy Father's Day Joel, I hope you had a great day. Avery is lucky to have such a good daddy!

I'm going to share my infamous Blue Yonder Fruit Smoothie. It's a Joel exclusive. It's healthy, tasty, and energizes me in the mornings.

Ingredients:
1 cup of frozen blueberries
1 large banana
1 cup of water
1 scoop of whey protein (or 1 cup skim milk)
1 tablespoon of flax seed oil

Directions:
1. Combine ingredients in a blender.
2. Blend.
3. Enjoy.

After much time looking at the plain powder room Joel decided it was time to paint it. Most of our rooms were painted by a professional, however we opted out on the powder room and the loft. Joel spent many trips to Lowe's trying to find a good miss tint. (Miss tint- a can of paint that someone has returned because it was the wrong color, often the larger cans are reduced in price to about $5.) He found a couple of good greens, but nothing that quite worked.
He got some advice from a coworker to mix several colors together and voila, he created what he likes to call, "The Perfect Shade of Green."
The powder room is a fairly small room, so you'd think that it would be a breeze to paint. Hmmm I don't know if either of us would describe this project as that. Joel took down everything in the room, mirror, towel rack, and so on and began to paint on Saturday. I helped a little with touch ups and of course the lower areas that Joel was too tall to reach, like behind the toilet and sick, lucky me...!
In all Joel did 98% of the work and hard work at that. But the painting is done as of Sunday night and looks great! I actually like the color too. Plus, anything's definitely better than white. I guess next on his list is the loft/man room. It's a much much larger room, to be continued....

When Joel was a kid, he used to help his dad with the yard, that was one of his chores, whether he liked it or not. Years and years have gone by since Joel has had to do lawn work. We've lived mainly in apartments since we've been married, although the townhouse in Virginia he got a tiny taste of lawn work with mowing, shoveling snow and raking leaves. His major request in finding a house here in North Carolina was that it have a nice size yard. And that we did.

Now our yard isn't acres upon acres but it's almost big enough for a riding lawn mower. Instead we got an electrical one. (You'll have to ask Joel about that.) Our lawn was one of the nicest in the neighborhood when we moved in and we wanted to keep it that way. Even with the drought and water restrictions hubby has managed to keep our lawn looking lush and green compared to some of our fellow McIntyrinians. (That's our community.)

In case you never saw the front of our house it has tons and tons of flowers and plants, unfortunately with Joel's job and taking care of Avery we just don't have the time and don't really want to spend that kind of money on the flowers. Don't get me wrong though, we definitely want to make sure our landscaping looks nice.

To Lowe's we go, of course, because of Joel's discount and the knowledgeable employees. We figured we'd get some bushes and trees and just leave a few of the flowers since bushes require much less attention. It was tedious work deciding what kind and what size and then how we would lay them out but we accomplished our task, with Avery's help of course.

Anyway Joel is ready to get the bushes in the ground and I'm ready to see most of those flowers gone. I can't wait until they start to fill in because they're wee little bushes for now. We'll take some pictures once we are done. But this is the fun part of being a homeowner.


(This is a picture of the front "garden" before we take most of the flowers out. I know they are pretty, just too high maintenance for us with the baby.)

Today is Joel's 28th birthday. This is his first birthday as a father. For his gift Avery and I sent him away to Ohio to visit King's Island and the notorious BEAST. I guess it's a really great roller coaster. For those of you who don't know Joel is definitely a coaster enthusiast. If you haven't checked out his blog you should at thecoastercritic.com. He's an avid poster and of course if you ever need any advice on theme parks to visit he's the pro.

Joel's birthday coincidentally falls on the day that Charles Manson was arrested in 1969. He shares his birthday with Angela Bassett, Steve Carell, and Madonna. Today also marks the death of Elvis Presley. And most importantly today is National Roller Coaster Day, how ironic is that?!?!




















Avery wasn't able to sign her card to daddy quite yet, but she told me everything she wanted to say in it. We wish Joel the best year of his life and are happy to be a part of it.

"QUIK JAB 5" is a Family Car
So we decided to trade in my old Altima for a larger, safer, family car. We got a 2006 Sonata. It's not only larger than our other car ('06 Civic - Motor Trend Car of the Year), it's also larger than other cars in its class like the Camry and Accord.

So we'll have plenty of room for Avery's car seat, stroller, pack-n-play, luggage etc. The Sonata's also packed with safety features like, front and side curtain air bags, traction control, electronic stability control, and anti-lock brakes. Plus it's got a V6 so Jenn can get Avery to those play dates on time. The MP3 CD player, sunroof, fog lights, and automatic stick are pluses for me. No more little sporty cars for me. At least until my mid-life crisis. I've got a date with a 2030 Acura sports car.

First Post!
This is our first post. This isn't really Jenn, it's Joel. Jenn's getting tired. So, we're getting off soon. More to come!