Tag: pics

Hiking in Portsmouth, NH

Yesterday Geoff and I went up to visit his newly transplanted sister Liz, brother in law Dan, and their three kids Will, Ben, and Kate along with their dachshund Ralph.  Liz was, up to that point, the only sibling of Geoff’s that I hadn’t met yet so I was very much looking forward to it.  We made arrangements to take the kids out for the day so that Liz and Dan could have some time to actually get some stuff done around the house.  (They just moved in and are still making the house livable.)

We took Thumbelina and Rerun with us and when we got to NH they met Ralph for the first time.  The dogs got along pretty well and the kids liked the dogs.  Kate was positively *taken* with having a female dog around.  Thumbelina is generally not a fan of the younger set so it took a while for them to get used to each other but they did.

After a quick lunch we piled the dogs and the kids into the minivan and headed off to the Portsmouth Urban Forestry Center.  It is quite an interesting place.  5 minutes from the center of Portsmouth and you can hike self guided trails, walk through meadow and forest, see salt marshes and ponds.  It’s quite a nice place to go, and it is dog friendly.  We packed up the kids, all 3 dogs, and we took along the Little Red Wagon of Brimfield fame and took off.

As you may imagine, an outing like this required hats, sunscreen, bugspray, and water.  But, considering that Geoff is Mr. Prepared and I’m not far behind, we were set.  We did manage to walk out of Liz and Dan’s house without the water bottles for the kids, which was a nice trick, but we had our own water already packed and we had a dog water bottle so everything was fine.  Knowing the propensity of certain individual in the party to fall down, hurt themselves, end up in the ER, or otherwise cause calamities, we also brought along a fully stocked First Aid kit.  Amazingly, nobody, human or canine, needed it.

Naturally, I had to take pictures.  You can find them here.  There were lovely flowers, the kids are ridiculously photogenic, and the dogs were having a great time.  The forest was also naturally lovely, so there are all sorts of pictures there.  Take a look, you won’t be disappointed.

Once we were done we headed into town and went to Canine Cupboard in downtown Portsmouth.  It was 5 whole minutes away from the Forestry Center.  It’s a gourmet dog treat store, toy shop, and all around fun place.  We had called ahead to ask when they were closing and if they had any suggestions about places where we might be able to find outdoor dining that would seat us with the dogs.  When we arrived the owner remembered my call and had an additional suggestion for outdoor, dog-friendly dining, the Portsmouth Gas Light Co.  Also, he had the bumper sticker I have been looking for forever.  The My Dachshund is Smarter Than Your Honor Student sticker.  For $1.00.  The one we got looks different than the one linked, but you get the idea.  For $1.00 who were we to say no?

We thanked him and headed off for the Portsmouth Gas Light Co.  We met up with Liz and Dan along the way and, after finding us a table to seat 7 humans and 3 dogs, we had a great meal.  The folks at the restaurant were super and even brought us a bucket of water for the dogs.

All in all a great day.  Uncle Geoff and Aunt Kelly are a bit tired today.  We’re not used to having kids around and it’s been a while since I’ve had 3 dogs on a lead at the same time, but it was great fun.  We’re already making plans for a trip back up north when we can take Aunt Donna with us.  More photos will most certainly follow when we do.

~Kelly

My brother takes pictures

As I think I’ve mentioned before, my brother periodically flies to far flung places and builds houses.  For charity.  He gets to work with cool tools and learn interesting languages and see really neat stuff.  Usually when he gets back he send us a link to a photo album of his exploits.

We just received this link the other day.  Some of the photos are really outstanding.  As he said, it is a work in progress, so not all of the captions are in place yet.  But I highly recommend that you look at it.

Enjoy.

~Kelly

Poor, pathetic puppy.

A week and a half ago, specifically Sunday June 19th, we noticed that there was something wrong with Rerun.  For those of you who know Rerun that’s a pretty general statement.  He’s a weird little dog.  Specifically, this time he had a foot problem.  He’d apparently managed to impale a toe or get bitten or something.  Either way, it wasn’t pretty.  His second toe on his front left foot was approximately three times the size it should have been and he had licked/nibbled on it to the point that hair was missing.

Knowing Rerun’s temper, we muzzled him, wrapped him in a blanket, and functionally hog tied him to keep from hurting himself.  He thrashed, growled, probably swore, and tried, despite the muzzle, to eat whatever human body part got closest to him.  Despite all of this we managed to bathe his paw in hydrogen peroxide, clean it, and drain the infection out of it.  Because it looked like, at minimum, an allergic infection, we gave him a weight appropriate dose of Benadryl and decided to call the vet first thing in the morning.

We called when they opened and they had an opening at 11:15am.  By the time we got there is was clear that he was feeling a little better, but his toe was still quite swollen.  The vet, one of the newer members of the practice took a look, inspected all of his feet, and upon finding out from us that he was a self nail trimming dog, opined that it was most likely that he’d split his nail to the quick while chewing on it and that’s how the infection had gotten in.  When she showed me that there was, um, infected fluid, coming out from under his nail, it made total sense.

We came home with a scrip for pain meds, 3 weeks of antibiotics, and the Cone of Shame.  That’s right, Rerun got an e-collar.  This immediately turned him into a Zombie Dog.  He came in the door and refused to move.  He just lay down wherever was most inconvenient and remained there like a rock.  A rock with Sad Puppy Eyes.

Naturally this required pictures.  For posterity, of course.

The Cone of Shame
"Daddy, please take this off. Please???"

 

"I keeeel you."
"Take another picture and I eat your face."

If you look closely in the photos you can see the swollen toe on his front left foot.  It looks MUCH better now and he’s clearly feeling better, though he still HATES the e-collar.  If I can get any more photos without inducing him to kill me in my sleep, I will.

~Kelly

My first trip to the Harbor Islands

Geoff here – I had the chance to go to Fort Warren for some history programs and to meet with some of the staff and talk about Civil War history and living history.  It was just me this time, but I hope to bring Kelly with me sometime because I think she would love it.

24_Sally port from parade ground
The fort's main door from the inside

Especially since this year is the 150th anniversary of the outbreak and the first year of the Civil War, I have been trying to get back into the world of Civil War history.  The people I spoke with at Fort Warren were really great, and several of them were highly encouraging.  They seemed to be interested in possibly having me come out there sometime to do some talks.  How awesome would that be?

It was particularly meaningful for me to be at Fort Warren this month.  It was on June 13, 1861 that the 11th Massachusetts Infantry, the “Boston Volunteers”, were sworn into the Federal service there at Fort Warren.  For those Beaulieus that may be reading this, this was the unit that Moses Beaulieu joined.  So it was somewhat personal for me.  For those of you who have never seen it, here is their recruiting poster that I found.

Recruiting poster for the 11th Massachusetts

I took a lot of pictures, but I don’t want to put too many here.  If you would like to see the rest of my photos (and the Harbor Islands are really beautiful if you have never seen them) from my day trip we will be putting them up in an album on Shutterfly.  Once I have the link I will post it here.

Once a year, in June

I have the odd fortune to have a huge number a friends who have birthdays in close proximity to mine.  I swear, I grew up without knowing a single other Gemini (Ok, I knew one person who had the same birthday as me, but she and I didn’t hang out.)  Now, as an adult, I have two friends who share my birthday and half a dozen friends who have birthdays within days of mine.  This doesn’t even include my parents.  My mother’s birthday is  7 days after mine and my father’s birthday is another 4 days after that.

So, for about, oh 8?  10? years now, my friends and I have been having a big joint birthday party.  As times have changed the parties have gotten smaller and involved less alcohol and ended earlier.  Now they involve offspring.  Ah, how times have changed.

This year the kids were remarkably cute and SO energetic.  For your enjoyment I have uploaded a video from the party of 7 1/2 month old Thomas and a bunch of photos from the party and also from a while back when we went out to cut down some trees felled by an ice storm (aah, life in the burbs) and one of the wee ones is wearing my hard hat.

Enjoy and if you’re the parent or Auntie of one of these kids, feel free to leave a comment if you want me to email you an original of one of the kidpics.

And here is the URL for the photos from the party.  http://junebirthdays2011.shutterfly.com/

Enjoy!

~Kelly

Monday June 13th – 4:00pm – Beacon Hill, Boston – El Fuego Concert

El Fuego Concert Poster
A Cantar y Baylar!

A Cantar y Baylar!

An exploration of the Villancicos and Xacaras in the 16th and 17th centuries from Spain and the New World (Mexico and Guatemala). Works by Juan del Encina, Juan de Araujo, Fray Francisco de Santiago and Rafael Antonio Castellanos.

James Dargan, voice and violin; Teri Kowiak, voice; Dan Meyers, recorders and percussion; Camila Parias, voice; Zoe Weiss, viola da gamba; Salomé Sandoval, voice, baroque guitar and direction.

Monday, June 13th 4:00PM
Beacon Hill Friends House
6 Chestnut St
Boston, MA 02108-3624
$10 donation

More info at  www.elfuegofire.com

I got to hear the preview concert this past week and it was excellent.  If you’re in the neighborhood or if you’ve got some free time please come by and hear this concert, it is outstanding.  I’ll be working the door so come and say hello to me as well.

~Kelly

Geoff Graduates

Some of you may have heard that Geoff graduated yesterday.  He finished school back in December, but like a lot of his classmates, he finished his internship a day or two too late to walk in December.  So he and a bunch of his compatriots from his NCIS class at Lincoln Tech in Somerville got their Diplomas last night.

I shot video from our seats which were back halfway in the auditorium just past the middle.  Before you scroll down and click, there are some things you should know.  There were a LOT of people there with no concept of how to behave in public.  Many of them talked through the whole thing until it was time to award diplomas.  There were probably hundreds of infants and children, many of whom cried, fussed, or otherwise made noise.  There were friends and family of the graduates as well as the graduates themselves who were arriving late to the ceremony right up to and through the awarding of the diplomas, so there were people wandering into my shot, completely oblivious of what I was doing.

The most important part of the ceremony was that Geoff was selected as the student speaker.  Out of all of the graduates, he was the only one who was selected to give a speech and it was the only speech that actually got the attention of the audience enough that they quieted down and more or less stopped talking.

I’ve embedded the videos below.  His speech is there in its entirety along with the various processional, recessional, line up, and diploma stuff.  He’s going to blog the whole text of the speech and write about his own experiences at a later date.

And here are the photos of Geoff in his regalia at the podium and with the head of his program and favorite teacher, Jay.

Geoff & Jay at Graduation
Geoff graduates, again!
Geoff behind the podium
Geoff "speechifying."

~Kelly

Kittehs comment on the current state of world affairs

I have much to talk about later including my recent shopping victories and my job interview yesterday, but for right now it’s LOLcats.  I think the Crazy Screaming Fiendish Monkey Children I taught last night ate my brain.  Or, at least, my ability to think for myself.  Damn, I hope they didn’t turn me into Sarah Palin, I’d better check on that.

Anyway, here they are.

~Kelly

CIA Informant Kitty
How much for the 'nip?
Basement Cat does Harold Camping's "Research" for him
'nuff said.