photos – Page 37 – The Books are Taking Over…

The care and feeding of a wedding registry

This whole getting married this is supposed to be complicated. At least, when you have the large-ish church wedding with the cast of thousands. I get that. That being said I have yet to buy a wedding magazine or leaf through any of the GIANT magazines that I have received “complimentary subscriptions” to in the mail. (Seriously, you get amazing amounts of crap once any wedding vendor gets your name.)

What Geoff and I have done, among other things, is set up a wedding registry. Or, rather, several registries. Basically, I picked out a couple of things that were important to me and let him, with some power of veto, pick out the rest. We set up registries on Amazon.com, Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s. What I did not anticipate was having to regularly visit said registries and maintain them. Apparently, vendors like to play games with availability of the stuff that they offer up for registries. So, that really cool thing that you actually need? It may just up and be unavailable for no particular reason with no instock date in sight. So, you have to check in regularly and then edit as necessary. This is kind of a pain, but we have gotten used to it.

The nice part about this is that we were invited to Bloomingdale’s for a “Couple’s Night Out” registry party. Having never been to one, and because they’d feed us for free, we decided to go. The food wasn’t bad, the mocktails were excellent, and once the presentation was over, there was a **competition**. As couples, we basically got to run all over the tabletop department and come up with our coolest place setting and then set it up for judging. There were actual prizes. Granted, they were tacky champagne flutes which we didn’t need and I knew that at the time. But, that wasn’t the point. I wanted to win solely for the point of winning.

We didn’t win. Which, in the end, was probably a good thing since the last thing I need is more clutter and wedding related crap in the house. But a took a picture of our cool place setting in its fancy pink-ness. Here it is.

Can you believe the one in the upper left won? — Our fabulous pink and gold place setting.

Anyway, we had fun while at Bloomingdale’s. We did actually learn some stuff, and we met our “Registry Consultant.” Basically, she’s the person that you folks can call if you want to get us something and you are 1) not internet savvy, 2) out of state, 3) out of the country and don’t know how to get something to us without all the stupid international mail and taxes and snafus and whatnot, or 4) don’t have one of the bricks and mortar stores near you. We’re apparently allowed to put her name up and post her info, so here it is. Fabulous Bloomingdale’s lady is Claudia Askew 617.630.6044 She was very personable and nice to us at the party and the customer service the night of was fabulous (aside from the fact that we didn’t win…)

We may go to one of the same type of parties thrown by Macy’s at some point in the future. Or we may not. We’ve pretty much picked out everything we need at this point. (And no, we didn’t do this.) Now we just have to hope that everything stays in stock till the big day. And now for those wedding magazines… anyone need any reading material for the bathroom?

~Kelly

Moar snow pictures!!!

So, as some of you may have heard, and others experienced firsthand, we have a lot of snow this winter. Like, a ludicrous amount.

Naturally, this requires that we take pictures.

As you may have noticed in our last round of snow photos, our dogs are rather big wimps when it comes to snow. Or rain. Or mist. Pretty much anything that falls from the sky makes them upset. Our youngest, and perhaps craziest animal, Scratch, however, has no such compunction. Scratch, originally a barn cat/foundling from Alabama, will literally wade through chest deep snow, burrow into snow banks, and wallow around in it until he gets cold. The fact that he’s wet doesn’t even seem to register.

And so I present to you, Scratch in the snow, both in front and in back of our home. There is chest deep-ish snow in in the back yard where we haven’t shoveled all winter and where I had to shove the door to even get it open wide enough to get out the door with him. You may notice the distinct lack of doggie footprints. Remember I said they were wimps? Yeah, that. Anyway, here’s Scratch in the backyard.

Chest deep snow! — Hmmm, the recycling bin is under here somewhere. I think.

And here are the photos from the front of the house.

Giant front snow pile. — Yes, that's right folks. The snow in the front is up to the front window.

The front yard. — There's shrubbery under there... somewhere...

Kitteh! In the snow! — Scratch inspects the front walk.

Shivering wimpy dog. — Rerun looking for the ideal snow-free place to pee.

We’ll be posting some photos to Boston.com. If they get added to the storm album we’ll link it up here.

~Kelly

Snow!

Well, we had a white Christmas more or less. There was a little snow on the ground from Monday’s poorly forecast Rush Hour storm that snarled traffic and left Geoff in a traffic jam that meant it took him about an hour to get the 4 miles home from his interview.

Yesterday, however, was an entirely different story. This time they got the forecast pretty much dead on. They even got it right that the snowfall amounts would vary *wildly* not only from city to town but from block to block. What started out as light fluffy snow ended up as heavy wet stuff. Trees have come down and at one point about 60,000 people state wide were without power (that’s nothing compared to the ice storm from a few years back.)

Anyway, once we dug out from under our own Winter Wonderland, we took the dogs, dressed them (much to Rerun’s distress) and put them in the AWESOME red wagon my mom got us for my birthday last year. It was intended as a Brimfield accessory, but it has all terrain wheels, so we figured we might as well try it out in the snow.

Behold, photos! Of annoyed Chilly Dogs! And snowed in trucks!

View from the front door, BEFORE shoveling. — Do you see stairs? I don't.

A view looking down our street. — The quietest you will ever see our street.

The truck, still snow covered. — No, we haven't actually dug it out yet.

See the hidden kitty? — This is what happens when you don't have storm windows.

Our Little Red All Terrain Wagon — Geoff and the Little Red Wagon of Awesomeness

Impatient Chilly Dogs. — Waiting for Daddy while he's in the store.

Spoiled, who's spoiled? — We may be freezing, but we're riding in style.

And, a picture from the dog park that we took on our way home.

A snowperson presides over the park. — Braver dogs than ours play in the background.

We’re back inside now nice and safe and warm. The dogs are not traumatized from their wagon ride, and dinner is cooking in the oven. We hope that wherever you are that you’re nice and safe and warm.

~Kelly

Officer Geoff

Geoff as your friendly neighborhood police officer — Friendly Officer Geoff

This past week the Cambridge Police Department sat down for our formal photographs, thanks to SGT Lashley (who normally does crime scene photography). So I got my picture made as well, and since SGT Lashley was making me laugh with his running commentary my photos came out with me grinning from ear to ear.

Holiday photos coming soon!

-Geoff

Finally, some new pictures!

Geoff and our friend Amanda and I went to the Deval Patrick and Barack Obama rally on Saturday October 16th. We waited in line for HOURS. It was unusually cold and even Geoff was freezing. I was convinced that we’d never get in to the rally and, despite the photo it was not all smiles.

smiling and freezing while waiting in line

We did eventually get inside. We got to see Vicki Kennedy, Mayor Menino, John Kerry, Deval Patrick, and the Leader of the Free World, President Barack Obama. Oh, and James Taylor spoke and played and we all sang along. It was exhausting but fun. I’ve added some pictures below of various speakers. I’m going to upload the full set of edited photos to shutterfly in a little while and I’ll add the link here.

It was a beautiful day — It was a beautiful, sunny, cold day.

And that’s it for now. If you want to see Amanda’s photos the link is here http://picasaweb.google.com/abs0628/ObamaPatrickRallyOctober2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCMXtpvu_sNOSkgE&feat=directlink

~Kelly

P.S. Here are all of our photos, so far, from the rally. Enjoy. http://devalpatrickbarackobamarally.shutterfly.com/

Much belated Duck Tour photo

Geoff here – I have been meaning to get this photo scanned and posted for a while. It was great to see Matt, Shayna and the kids and it was nice to meet Shayna’s sister Tonya whom I had never met before. The kids had a lot of fun that day on the Duck tour and walking around in Charlestown. For some reason they were hung up on pirates that day – I think it was because we told them the U.S.S. Constitution had been used to fight pirates a long time ago. Campbell got to drive the Duck so he was pretty excited about that. Believe it or not, this was actually my first time to ever go on one of these tours.

A surprise visit to Fenway

Much to our surprise, Kelly and I acquired a pair of Red Sox tickets. A guy we know from our Church has season tickets, and he was not going to the game so he let us have them. It was quite generous and we gladly accepted. I did not expect to get to go to any Sox games this year, and here I am going to my second one this year. And the seats were pretty awesome.

Sadly, it turned out that this was my first time to get to see the Red Sox lose live and in person. And boy oh boy did they lose. They got stomped… by… oh, it’s hard for me to say… Baltimore. Not Tampa, not the Yankees, but a team that is arguably one of the worst in baseball.

Still, we did have a good time. And much to my amazement, I finally… finally managed to get myself a Narragansett. It was quite funny. A group of guys sitting next to us were also upset that they could not get a Narragansett, and they didn’t understand why the beer vendors would not come up to our section. I decided that I was going to go try get one, and so I went down and asked the security supervisor, a guy around my dad’s age, about where I could get one. He looked at me and said, “You don’t want one of those fancy foreign beers?” I replied, “No, I want a ‘Gansett.” He laughed. We ended up having a long conversation about Narragansett. It was quite funny. Anyway, so I went down to the area where the Narragansett guy was and bought myself a beer.

So Kelly put up with my weird beer obsession, and we still had a lot of fun at the game. We especially had a lot of fun talking to the people sitting around us who were all friendly and often funny. Those guys sitting next to us were joking about how Kelly was “Lady Luck” or something as they were playing some sort of betting game. And were all singing together and swaying when the seventh inning stretch came up. Red Sox fans are so awesome. I am so glad I live here.

167 photos!

That’s right, folks. That’s how many photos I took all told while we were in Mystic. If you’d like to see some of the photos I didn’t blog here, including some really cute doggie photos, click here.

~Kelly

Mystic, CT- Day 3, Mystic Seaport The Amistad

After we finished seeing the various sites and the dog demonstrations, we took some time to look over the Amistad. It had been closed when we were there on Friday so it was nice to have the chance to go on board today. The crew were wonderful and welcomed the dogs on board with us. The following are all Amistad photos.

There were small children playing with these, it made me nervous...

Geoff talks history with the real Captain of the Amistad.

Geoff here – I had such a long and animated discussion with the captain and one of the Mystic Seaport volunteers that I kept getting in the way of people who were walking on the ship. My bad. But it was still a lot of fun for me. I don’t get to geek out like that very often.

A *giant* pile of rope on the main deck.

A view of the Mystic Seaport flag on shore, from the Amistad.

Thumbelina found her sea legs and climbed up on the rope pile.

And that concludes our day at the Seaport and on the Amistad. There are a lot more photos that didn’t make the cut, especially dog photos. I’ll find a place to put them all online and I’ll post that link here later. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed our little vacation. (We did! ~Geoff)

~Kelly

Mystic, CT- Day 3, Mystic Seaport Dog Days

Today was our last day in Mystic. We spent the day at the Seaport attending Dog Days with Thumbelina and Rerun. I took a startlingly huge number of photos today. I’ll try not to post too many here. Try…

We met two weenies in the parking lot on our way in. Dachshund party!

Geoff here – these two little sweeties’ parents drove a nice Mini Cooper and are thinking about moving to Cambridge. They were really nice. It was funny when we got out of the truck with ours, and they were getting out of their car with theirs at the same time. Kooky.

Newfie water rescue demonstration. The Newfie is pulling the boat!

Some of the Newfies from the demo team after being in the water.

This handsome brindle boxer *really* wanted to go into the water with the Newfies.

One of the Newfies get direction from his handler before being sent out into the water. — One of the Newfies gets direction from his handler before being sent out into the water.

We wandered into the village and came upon the smithy. This large box of anthracite was outside.

Geoff again – of course, all of this period material culture is some of my favorite stuff to see. The blacksmith shop was one of the few places that I had the chance to really look at but there are so many others I will have to check out sometime when we have more time. Next year!

A fire engine from Block Island, circa 1850.

Geoff again – I have never seen a fire pumper this old. This was a real treat.

One of the beautiful ships docked at the seaport.

Thumbelina "breakdancing" in the grass while relaxing in the shade.

Geoff again – the dogs were really good this weekend, and were generally very friendly with both dogs and people everywhere they went. It makes me glad that we have the ability to travel with them like this.

The largest anchor we saw at the Seaport, Geoff is standing next to it for comparison.

Rufus, the Grand Marshall of the Dog Parade and the winner of Westminister, 2006, relaxes in the shade after posing for photos.

This is Joe, he is a percheron and one of the horses who pull the wagon around the Seaport.

This is Joe and the cart that he pulls. Dogs ride free.

That’s everything from our day at the Seaport, except our time aboard the Amistad. The next post will be all Amistad, all the time.

~Kelly

P.S. Yay history! ~Geoff