New house color!

Look! Our house is a new color! (See earlier post for a reminder of how ugly it used to be) This is not its best angle, but it keeps drizzling at the time of day when it's best to photograph.
Here's a photo of the back with our new (matching) umbrella, courtesy of my parents. Oh, and notice the deck, of course.

It looks SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better!

Visit Extraordinaire!

My parents came for a visit! We had a lot of fun during their stay.

We went to a botanical garden:

We loved this flower, but it was the only unmarked flower in the whole place! Anyone know what it is?We went to the driving range:
We went to the Boston Marathon:

We played bocce and cribbage and ate ice cream and Easter dinner. All was very fun. We miss them already!

New Front Door!

We're very excited because we're getting our house painted over April vacation. We had thought we'd do it ourselves, but we got a really reasonable bid (and we only pay half because it's a duplex) so we're hiring someone. That will be an interesting experience...to have someone else doing work on our house, that is.

Just in case people haven't seen just how ugly the color of our house currently is, here's a photo: (no offense to anyone else with this house color, but on a place as devoid of architectural detail as ours, it looks atrocious)

Because we're getting the house painted, it made sense for us to replace our front door before the painters arrived. We'd already been planning to replace it, because once we replaced the windows last summer, it became very clear that the door was leaking some major cold air into the house. When we took the door out, this is the insulation we found:

That's right...it's about 1/2 inch thick, and 1 inch deep. What a surprise that it was leaking air (insert sarcastic tone).

I was laughing when I read on a webpage that you need to be ready when you take the door out, because it's very disconcerting to have a hole in your house that you can't close. Here is our hole:That hole is gone, of course, and is filled by this lovely door:It won't stay white for long!

Knit Along with us!

I've joined the One Skein Knit-Along. I love this new knitting book! It's called One Skein and all of the projects are completed with just One Skein of yarn. Novel theory (and an apt title), hmm? Anyway, I've posted some of the projects I completed on the Knit Along site. It's very fun to share with other people who are working on the same projects.

Such knitting fun!

Go BC! And Go School Libraries!

It's BC fever around here as they play in the sweet 16 tonight. They've started off strong...hopefully they can keep it going!

Crazy week this week, including lobbying at the State House on Wednesday in support of School Libraries. You can read about the event here:
MSLMA Legislative Day

It's pretty cool to go around the State House and go into the Senators' and Representatives' offices to talk to them. Hopefully we've made some progress!

Odyssey

So I just finished my class last Wednesday that was called "That's Just Classic!" Among many other things, we read The Odyssey. We read Robert Fagles's version (yes, that "s" belongs at the end according to a couple of different style guides, which was also discussed in class), which I highly recommend. I also highly recommend the recording of Ian McKellan reading it--we listened to some of it in class. Justin was kind enough to read some of it aloud to me because he's such a great husband!

There's also a great article in this month's Smithsonian.

Happy Reading!

Weekend mania

Well, we had fun last weekend at the Celtics game with people from my staff...the Celtics lost, but that means the Milwaukee Bucks won...so I'm not too disappointed. However, I know that growing up, the Bucks weren't that great...so is this a case of the lesser of two evils? :)

This weekend Eric is coming for a visit! And we just heard from our friend Liz that she's going to be in town too. So much fun in one weekend!

This is not too exciting of a post, but I didn't want to go tooooo long between postings.

New Armchair

This weekend we bought, of all things, an ARMCHAIR!!


















Isn't it pretty? We were at Filene's in Natick because they're closing that store (it was in the same mall as a Macy's and Macy's bought them out), thinking we would buy a knife set, or maybe an espresso machine. We struck out on both of those two things, but they had just marked the furniture down to 60% off, so we walked through. I thought we had struck out until we saw this one. We both went "Ahhh" when we sat in it. It's up in our bedroom right now until we get our new couch this summer (we hope!). It swivels! Now we just need a reading lamp to go with it!

P.S. the photo on the wall is from our honeymoon in St. John. :)

One good picture

Here's that Florida picture you've been waiting for...














It was a lovely sunset...my dad's comment about him missing it was because someone (a Massachusetts driver, of all things!) was busy running into his van in the parking lot. Thankfully no one was hurt and the van wasn't totaled or anything, but it certainly wasn't the relaxing evening we were hoping for.

That's also why we're greatful that neither of us learned to drive in Massachusetts! :)

Mousse-tro

Tonight while I was at choir rehearsal, my dear husband decided to make the chocolate mousse that chef Alton made on J's favorite cooking show, "Good Eats." He even garnished it with raspberries. It was VERY tasty (very rich, too), so now I'm going to call him the Mousse-tro (instead of maestro, get it?). He made half a batch and I think we still have more than 1/2 of it left for tomorrow.

Florida was great...I'll add a picture later (once I get them off of my camera).

Good night!

Woe is Me

Now, those of you out there that I know and love may be wondering how I can be saying, "Woe is Me" when I am heading to Florida in two days, but here's the deal:

VERY FEW OF YOU EVER WRITE COMMENTS ON THIS THING and it's depressing me. Which means I'm not inspired to write lovely and informative posts. So then you really don't have reasons to comment, and then we find ourselves in the midst of a Catch-22. Alas.

Suzy gets the super-commenter crown for now. I will award another crown soon...don't you want the crown?! I bet you do! You should write a comment then!

Snowshoes again!

We went out snowshoeing for an hour this afternoon at a great place called Noon Hill Reservation that is 5 minutes from our house. (We're slightly embarrassed to admit we didn't know the place existed until today, and it's got great trails!)

It was neat to see the snowshoe prints from people who had gone out before us. We also got to see a golden retriever who was having a great time playing in the snow.

Thanks again for the snowshoes, Mom and Dad!

Snowshoes!! (finally)

It FINALLY snowed today. (A ton of snow, actually...15 inches and counting) I say FINALLY because we got snowshoes for Christmas and we hadn't been able to use them yet because of our unseasonably warm weather and NO SNOW. Not to worry now, though, and we headed out this morning:



Erin and Dave--Note the poles, purchased with the REI giftcard you gave me!

We had a lot of fun and got a great workout!

Knit-o-rific

Well, I've been trying to diversify my knitting projects and skills, so here are a few of my latest items. I am proud to say that I have now made two sweaters. Granted, they've both been for babies (it's so much easier to finish a project when it is small!), but I think they're cute:

Here is a hat and (thumbless!) baby mittens for Grace:










My felted slippers:









My felted tote:

Time to Catch Up

Well, December flew by in a blur--two stomach viruses, a sinus infection, a bunch of Christmas parties and a trip to Montana will fill any month, hmm? But seriously, we're both amazed that it's already 2006. I'm going to back-post some photos from our time in Billings for Christmas for all of you to enjoy!

J and I received snowshoes for Christmas from my parents, but we returned to Boston and there wasn't any snow! The snowshoes are in the basement, anxiously awaiting their inaugural runs.

Happy New Year!

Before and after an English lesson

So, J and Dayton were hanging out together on our last night in Billings. At first, Dayton was having a great time:






Then J started talking to him about something about analyzing English literature and look what happened to the poor kid--out like a light!












Also, Josh, Mandy, Delaney and Kaitlyn stopped by on Thursday night to say goodbye and I snagged this picture of Josh with Kaitlyn (she goes by Kaity, but I wasn't sure how they spell it...)

Gonna get you!

Our nephew Micah (Jess and Shad's youngest) became a crawling fiend while in Billings. I got down on the floor to take a picture of him crawling (wearing the hat I knit for him) and got this shot:














As you might be able to to tell from the dark background of the picture, the flash went off and I was afraid it had hurt Micah's eyes....but the boy loves flashing lights and kept heading toward me to get me, so I got this adorable shot:















Talk about an adorable face!

Spinning 'round and 'round

The last time we were in Billings, the young James boys received Beyblades spinning tops as gifts. The older boys (Shad, Trevor, J and Josh) played with them after the young ones went to sleep, to the point where one of the tops ("Old Blue" was her name) exploded in a blaze of glory. You can ask Trevor about "Old Blue" and he'll extole her many virtues.

Well, this year the big boys got their own Beyblades. Here are some action shots:










And yes, they're playing using an inverted pot-top as their arena.

On Thursday, we were getting milk at Albertson's and they had a real, genuine-article Beyblade arena on clearance for $2, so the tournament was world-class on Thursday night...no more pot tops for these boys!

Christmas Day

After a sleepy Christmas morning, we got ready for the Christmas open house at Kathy's. Trent's daughters and their families came, Josh and Mandy and the girls came, plus Suzy, Russ and Judy, and all the folks that were around on Christmas Eve.

Here are two pictures of cutie-pie Dayton, who was working on holding his own head up while we were there.


















And here's a nice shot of Kathy and Trent:










P.S. If anyone out there (Jess? Kathy?) has a picture of J and I together during our visit, please email it to me! We don't have any pictures of the two of us this Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Thankfully, our travels went smoothly (all three flights!) and we arrived in Billings around 7:00 p.m. Christmas Eve. The party was already in full swing at Kathy's house when we arrived.
Below are some pictures of the older kids with their nose warmers...they humored their Auntie Kahla very kindly.

After opening gifts, we all snuggled down for a long winter's nap. :)

My first sock!!!

Not meaning that it was the first sock I ever had, but the first sock I ever KNITTED!! I started small so it wouldn't be so overwhelming.
J's disappointed that it doesn't fit him.

After

Here it is with all the lights and stuff! It is B-U-T-FUL!!!!!!!!!!

Before

We went and got our Christmas tree today!! I think it's quite lovely. We're relieved that we have similar tree taste--this is our first time picking a live tree together.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving....very low key with just the two of us. We tried lots of new recipes from food network and they were all tasty!

Pumpkins!

I listed "crafts" as something this blog is about, so here's the first crafty post....

I made these adorable felted pumpkins for fall. I got the pattern from knitty.com.















Even J has admitted that they're fairly charming. :)

Finally, a nicer day...or at least this morning was.

We got some pictures of the finished deck, so here they are, finally. :)

From the driveway:

Here's from inside the kitchen:

J was happy to see that the deck is still sitting level:

We got outside this morning to try and clean up some of the thousands of pine needles that have fallen in all of the recent storms. Here's a picture of needles that were on the driveway:

We know you thought we were joking about all the rain we've gotten, but these extra garbage cans were open during all of the rain and you'll notice that they're full to overflowing:


I just looked out the window and IT'S SNOWING!!! Not hard, but still, there is snow coming down. That is not right, especially since they're forecasting 60 degrees for tomorrow.
I just finished an adorable fall knitting project..I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Chrissa and Kevin's Wedding

It was quite a blustery day (48 degrees with 20 mph winds=feels like 40 degrees), but as the first sunny day in over a week, it meant that the wedding would be outside. Here's a picture of J and me (don't you like J's tie?). This is a finalist for a Christmas card picture.















There are a ton more pictures posted on Chrissa and Kevin's wedding website. I'm so self-centered that I'm only including a picture of us because I think it's especially cute. :)

I was going through the pictures on the computer and found this from our engagement (2.5 years ago already!). I think it's hilarious how much younger we look. However, when I think of the converse, i.e. how much older we look in the first picture, then I freak out.

Very Behind

Dave says, "I see nothing interesting has been happening with the two of you...there's nothing new on the blog." Oops. I shouldn't harass people to read the blog and then not post, hmm? :)

Too much stuff has been happening, actually....Chrissa's wedding, and then Tim's wedding. The camera batteries are currently recharging so the new photos will have to wait until tomorrow at least. Instead I share this lovely photo from St. John, where we'd much prefer to be today after 3 more inches of rain and 55-60 mph winds (I know, I know, I shouldn't complain because we didn't actually get hit by the hurricane, but we've had maybe 4 sunny days in all of October and we're getting depressed). (P.S. that's also why we haven't posted a completed deck photo...it's been raining and we haven't been able to take a picture)













The good news is that we purchased our tickets to Billings for Christmas and we only have 3 flights each way (optimal is 2, but who wants to pay $800 for each of us?), not 4...Seriously, there was one option that was:
Providence to Detroit
Detroit to Minneapolis
Minneapolis to Grand Forks
Grand Forks to Billings.
All in a 14 hour span! Now we just go Providence to Detroit to Minneapolis to Billings. Those of you around Minneapolis we'll be calling you if we get stranded there on Christmas Eve. :) We'll keep our fingers crossed that the weather cooperates.

Ok, that's all for now. I can't believe that it's a week until November.

Extreme-ly Cool

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is building a house 2 miles from us! We went on site and while we were there they used the crane to put in the tub:



















And then they were putting in the floor of the second floor.



















They demolished the old house YESTERDAY and look what they already have! Sheesh! It's a corner lot and not very wide streets, so they're framing it up a half mile up the road and then driving it in on the flatbead trailers.

There weren't any members of the design team on site today...rumor has it that they're finishing up a house in Maine during the basic construction of this house. I did see the one and only "move that bus" bus while I was on playground duty yesterday morning. Very cool. More details to follow.