Newest addition to the family!

Meet Orpheus, our new blue-tortoiseshell Holland Lop!

The luck (and traditions) of the half-Irish and not-so-Irish

Tonight we have been preparing our St. Patrick's Day feast. For the past four years, Matt and I have enjoyed making a big crock-pot stew of corned beef, potatoes, carrots, turnip, and parsnip. It's a nice blending of traditions and preferences for us. It's one of the few holidays which we take the time to prepare a big meal for (Valentine's Day and our anniversary usually includes a meal at a fancy restaurant!), and probably the only one which we celebrate just by ourselves. We have always prepared what we call "mini-Thanksgiving" either the weekend before or after Thanksgiving, where we make little portions of all our favorite Turkey Day foods. But most of the big holidays we love to share with our family or friends - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter with family, or hosting a 4th of July Barbeque, birthdays, a Halloween fiesta, etc. with our friends. So St. Patrick's Day has unexpectedly become a low-key holiday which we have come to really enjoy. Matt has no Irish ancestry (that we have yet discovered, although I bet with all those English in his family tree, there's bound to be a few Irish lines far back!), and a quick calculation from my genealogy program reports that I am 53.125 percent Irish (100 percent from Mom and 1/32 from Dad through his great-grandmother Kate Morrison of County Cork, Ireland through her mother Mary!). But the celebration of the day is a nice combination of varied traditions - using my great-grandmother Marie's Irish soda bread recipe which Mom gave me a few years ago, or the inclusion of turnips and parsnips (while perhaps traditional in St. Paddy's day meals, they weren't present in my first stew creation! But our annual autumn trips to western Massachusetts began to include trips to a little farmstand in Deerfield, where we would buy tons of vegetables - including turnips and parsnips - and make lots of autumn stews and soups! So we began to add them to our corned beef stew too).

And now for some interesting historical facts about St. Patrick's Day and the man of honor!
* St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain about 387, and died 17 March 460 AD, and is believed to have been buried in Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland
* Two letters written by St. Patrick survive
* He was captured at the age of 16 by Irish raiders and worked as a sheep-herder and slave for 6 years before escaping back to Britain. He then became a bishop and returned to Ireland, converting numerous Irish, and, in his own words, he "baptised thousands of people".
* St. Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland by the 8th century
*St. Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to pre-Christian Irish
* Blue was the color associated with St. Patrick, but over time green has come to represent him, inspired by the tradition of his use of shamrocks
* Tradition states that St. Patrick banished snakes from Ireland, however, that honor actually goes to a much bigger force: glaciers (long before St. Patrick!)
*The oldest St. Patrick's Day parade is in Boston, where it has been held since 1737
* General George Washington declared 17 March 1780 a holiday for the Continental Army in honor of the high percentage of Irish-born and Irish-American troops in the Revolutionary War
* Since 1962, Chicago has dyed its river green, after sewer workers released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the water
* Today, the largest St. Patrick's Day parade is held in New York City, with over 2 million people in attendance

Adventures in House Hunting

After going house hunting for several winter weekends, we were surprised at the lack of open houses for the past few weeks. Maybe no one wanted to have their houses on view in the snow, mud, then snow again! But this weekend with its beautiful weather brought out more open houses than we could handle! We had to map out the exact order of houses to see today in order to fit them all in. The nice thing about visiting these open houses months in advance of our lease expiring in the summer is that we have the leisure of casually searching for "the right one" without feeling too much of a time-crunch to choose. And since we are renting and are first-time homebuyers to boot, we don't have an additional threat of having to sell our home and buy a new home all at the same time - I can't imagine the stress of buying a new home before you have sold your old home, and having to deal with two mortgages!

We've seen a number of lovely homes so far, and some that were just plain strange. Since we start our search for open houses online, we generally know what to expect, and generally choose which homes to visit based upon whether or not they meet our "wish list" of basic criteria for our house - for instance, we'd like at least 3 bedrooms and over half an acre of property. And we've learned a lot more about our wish list as we've seen homes in person too - as much as I love antique homes, we also both love open floor plans and fewer, bigger rooms over many tiny rooms, which are more common in antiques (plus Matt needs head room - we've seen several head-bumpers which were a no-go!) - although we have seen several homes which consist of a perfect compromise - old homes which have an addition built on with more modern updates. We've seen a lot of lovely elements to the homes we've visited so far - but also a lot of weird, strange, or just plain quirky elements along the way!

One house seemed great with a great piece of property, but then we discovered that the beautiful, huge private backyard had just been subdivided by the seller and the back half had been sold to another person to build a house directly behind the property. Although the house was lovely, we did not want to lose the gorgeous woodland view in the yard for a big, noisy new house built in the way!

Or take the house which was actually two houses which had been squished together to form one big, awkward house. The layout felt strange, but the weirdest element seemed to be the "Buffalo Bill" (the bad one, from Silence of the Lambs, not the Western folk hero!) style basement, which was subdivided into maybe 10 tiny rooms which all linked together via twisting maze doors and were filled with perpetual junk and hanging linens lit with single, flashing bulbs. I know you are supposed to look past the current owner's junk and visualize your own, but having a Silence of the Lambs basement just creeped us out!

Then there have been just plain funny elements. One basement had a solitary tub raised up about two feet off the ground to wash dogs in - Matt knew this was a unique find to have a house built just for the dogs! Or when we walked into a big empty room on a second floor which just had a sink attached to a wall and nothing else. When we opened a tiny closet across the room, there was a little toilet inside - a quirky "bathroom" indeed! Or the house whose main driveway and entrance to the house was literally covered every step in dog-poop - we love dogs, but why wouldn't you clear the decks on the day of your open house???

The houses have run the gamut of "staging", too - some homes seem pulled right out of an HGTV show with perfect staging, colors, and de-cluttering. But I don't mind clutter, that's easy enough to look past - and sometimes the Red-Sox themed boys rooms (and sometimes men's offices!!) or the Jonas Brothers-covered girls room are just too cute! It's sometimes harder to visualize updating kitchens which have not been changed since the '60s or envisioning what to do with top-floor rooms which feature two or three different roof-lines from awkwardly-built additions.

Its been fun to visit the open houses and get a better sense of what we love, like, dislike, or hate in both houses and property, and we've been learning a lot about the process of house-hunting along the way! We look forward to finding just the right one to call "home".

Quote of the Day

Matt (walking through the front door in from the rain): It's warm in here and smells like bacon... this is home!

Corey;s interview on FOX about the partial building collapse at NU

Here's the video link to Corey's interview on Fox:

Partial building collapse at NU

Corey's dorm roof collapses onto Huntington Ave

My poor brother awoke this morning to stone dust filling his room and the police evacuating the 60 or so Northeastern kids residing in the dorm at 377 Huntington Ave for the summer. Looks like no one was injured (thankfully!) save for a poor traffic officer who was hit by some flying debris and stone work, which fell from the roof.

The students have been moved to another dorm for the time being, until the building is deemed safe to return to - Corey only had time to grab a few things. He was interviewed by FOX (see the link to follow) while waiting outside of the building. The green line was halted for most of the morning for fear that vibrations from the train would cause additional rock to fall. The E train is up and running now, but Huntington Ave was partially blocked off into the evening, the huge piles of window-sill lengths of granite in heaps on the ground! Yikes! Thank goodness Corey was ok, and no one was hurt!

Peep-show!

Peeps on the beach

The third place winner: Escape from Danvers State Mental Hospital, 1882 (based off of a true ancestral event!)

The Family Peep Tree

Peeps on the Green Monster

The first place winner: The Wrestler!

The Wicked Peep of the West

Hire the Expert Peeps

The second place winner was the deranged Barbie (who is eating her Peeps!)

New space, new blogging efforts!

It's been awhile, but blogging efforts renewed!!

First of all - happy birthday to Mom! This evening I was able to arrange the last part of her birthday presents - but she will have to wait until Easter to enjoy them!

Matt and I recently bought a fabulous new computer at a great discount - loads of space to fit all of my genealogical documents; and awesome graphics for Matt's games (our biggest use of computer time besides general emailing, blog reading, news-catching-up-on, etc.!). I'm still getting used to using Vista and the new Microsoft Word 2007 (ok, so "new" in the sense that its new to me, despite the fact that its now 2 years old!) With the new computer, I quickly realized that we were long-overdue for a better printer. Years ago when Matt bought his laptop it came with a free Dell printer which never printed great quality images to begin with, and recently had been consuming ink at far quicker rates than normal and printing all sorts of wobbly misaligned lines where none should be! So I picked up a wireless HP printer that comes with a scanner/copier built in - what a difference!

Last night I worked diligently on creating a "Peeps" masterpiece, which was a blast to do! Haven't a clue what that means? Well, each year the Washington Post has been hosting a Peeps diorama contest in which people creatively use Marshmellow Peeps (rabbits, chicks, and more!) in funny or creative scenes. One of the ladies at work decided this year to host a staff contest to compete for the best Peeps masterpiece. The judging takes place tomorrow - photos to follow!

In the meantime, check out previous years "peepshows" winners:
2008 Peep Dioramas

Westminster Dog Show

Matt loves dogs, and Tivo'ed the Westminster Dog Show this year, trying to avoid any mention of the winner until we had the chance to watch it this weekend!

Last year's winner was the adorable Uno the Beagle:

And this year's winner was the oldest dog to ever win at Westminster, Stump the 10 year old Sussex spaniel! We had fun watching the variety of breeds (both those on their best behavior, and a few who were not!). One caught our eye, the Black Russian Terrier: who the announcers stated was being shown for the first time at the show, and had been "developed in the labs in the USSR". That definitely caught our interest, and we quickly searched Wikipedia to discover that indeed they were bred as military and working dogs in the 1950s from a number of different breeds. One of these was the extinct "Moscow Water Dog". I felt bad at the idea that the breed was extinct in such a short period of time; although apparently the decision to stop breeding the dogs was a conscious one - according to O. Krasnovskaya, "That was not a good idea as [they] were not willing to save drowning people, but mostly were looking to bite them so this breed was never developed". Yikes, imagine the tests in which this fact was discovered!

Of the finalists, we were rooting for the beautiful Puli, Scottish Terrier (whose chances were lost when he peed in the final round!), and Giant Schnauzer!

And although our first dog will probably be a golden retriever or a Lab, Matt has high hopes for the Great Pyrenees:

A holly jolly month

Despite the fact that I have been struck down with the killer cold that started with Corey and then went to the siblings, Mom, Matt and finally me, here's a review of the festive month of December:

• The first weekend, Matt & I took a trip to Cambridge to locate the office where he was having an interview at, and we strolled around Central Square, had a tasty lunch, and ended up at the Harvard bookstore. Then Greta and I did Christmas shopping and had pedicures!
• A few months ago, I was invited to join the staff advisory committee at work, and one of our tasks is organizing the holiday party. The party was a blast, and I ran the raffle (we raised a lot for charity!)
  
• On the 13th, Holly, Greta Natyra and I went and saw the Nutcracker, always a beautiful production! This year was fun because we went to the matinee, and so many cute little kids were there, dressed in their finest dresses and little suits. Then a send-off party to Jeff, who was leaving for California the following day, followed by a surprise party for Nenna's 80th birthday with a funny and touching "This Is Your Life" slideshow with her family and friends
• The next day, I went with Greta to a Handel Messiah Sing, where we rented the musical scores and sang along with the entire audience ( I wanted to sit with Greta, so I faked - pretty successfully - being a soprano!)
• next weekend was the major snowstorm, soI got to work from home instead of fending my way through the snow-emergency streets of Boston, and Kevin's winter party was (sadly!) cancelled. The Kiwanee family reunion was also much smaller than usual, because of the bad roads (Matt and I became friendly with a snowbank in Hanover on the way down!), and when the kids came up to visit us for our pre-Christmas party, the heavy snow was cause for an early departure!
• Then came Christmas, with much celebrating (amidst our lovely decorated apartment, decked with all sorts of Christmas decor). Present highlights included history books, video games, a GPS, and (at last!) a snow shovel to finally help dig us out of the parking lot! I created genealogies as a number of presents, which was a blast to share.
• We ended the festive season with our annual New Years Eve party which (surprise!) was also a major snowstorm. The Yankee Swap included some great prizes, and we played a new game - Wise or Otherwise, which was a blast! (Perhaps due to the fact that yours truly was the winner by a landslide! Apparently in a former life, I was a proverb-writer!)
  

A week of turkey!

I love the Thanksgiving weekend! Wednesday work closed a little early, so I got to catch an early train home and make several Thanksgiving desserts and wrap a few November birthday presents (Uncle Yon and Matt's mom).

On Thanksgiving, we headed to Carver for Thanksgiving Part One with my family, where we had delicious appetizers (including much-beloved rashers!), debated between watching parades/footballgame/DogShows on television, and had a delicious feast crafted by mom (with a variety of sibling helpers). We also had our "traditional Pilgrim hardtack" (made from a recipe I once had in kindergarten), which no one ever eats except the littlest ones who don't know better or older ones who are stubborn in spite of the taste and texture! Except this year it came out more like "soft-tack" and was actually pretty tasty! I brought down a copy of Pilgrim Migration in which I had bookmarked all of the Pilgrims we where related to - a surprisingly large number! Earlier that morning I had gone through my genealogy program to find which early Plymouth settlers where in our line, and "discovered" (since apparently I had forgotten - even though I do this professionally, its hard to keep track of your thousands of ancestors!) that through out Ramsdell line we were related to John Jenney, who made the original grist mill in Plymouth. Our family has always loved to visit the grist mill and wander its walking paths along the river, we even buy the cornmeal there for our Thanksgiving cornbread, and I have a large photograph hanging in my living room of the gristwheel that I took the summer that we visited with mill with Margie's girls, cousins Maggie, Allie and Chrissy!, so it was neat to have a direct connection to a place with such meaning for our family. We then took our annual hike through the woods and powerlines into Middleboro, and then came back for dessert - my caramel apple trifle! Then Matt and I headed off to Thanksgiving Part II with his family, where we went out for dinner at the Scarlet Oak Tavern. His parents had the turkey feast, but I went with the pumpkin ravioli, which was delicious! It was nice to catch up with them and his aunt Linda and uncle Steve. That's the best part about Thanksgiving, despite the flurry of preparation and work for the serving of the meal - just having that time to relax and share with family!

Friday I met up with Sara and Momoko, friends from Brown, and we caught up with each others lives (Sara's in Texas, Momo in DC), did some Christmas shopping and fought off the crowds of Black Friday! We managed to get some really great deals, though, for our efforts!


Saturday we headed down to Acushnet to surprise my grandmother with having all of her kids and grandkids gather for a hayride to help her choose a Christmas tree as an early birthday present (Nenna turns 80 years this December!) It was a blast to see Nenna and all the cousins, aunts, and uncles, most of whom I only see once or twice a year! Then we surprised Holly with her birthday present and had dinner in Plymouth.

And what does today bring? A chance to relax! Probably a day of pajamas and Christmas decorating in the house, with a possibility of heading to the local Christmas tree farm to get a Christmas tree!

Happy anniversary!

Happy second anniversary to my wonderful Matt, who fills our home and my heart with laughter and love!

The power's back on in Boston, so I am off to work, and then a romantic anniversary dinner and evening!

Snow day! Err, power-outage day!

I got into Boston today to discover that the subway station where I get off was in complete darkness, with a few bulbs illuminating the tunnel. As I walked outside, a group of businessmen ran down the tunnel, giddy with excitement, and grabbed a co-worker who was on his way to work by the elbow, shouting, "There's no power in the building! We have the day off!! Turn around and get back on that train!! It's like a snow day, only with no electricity!"

Cops were at the traffic lights, directing traffic, since the lights were off. I walked down the block to see if my building was effected, and saw our poor IT guy standing outside in the cold with a paper in his hands. Sure enough, we were affected too, so the building was closed for the day (but our IT guy had to stand there for awhile to have everyone sign their names and numbers in case they needed to call if tomorrow the power was still out). So I caught the next train home and later saw the news that some fires in manholes shut down power in the Back Bay and near Boston Common.

But that meant a lovely day of Christmas shopping, lunch, grocery shopping for Thanksgiving goodies, and frolicking with my lovely soon-to-be-married-for-two-years-husband (who also heard good news today that he's up for a great job interview after the holiday!)

Out with the old, in with the new...

This is a week of significant change. The nation was ready for change, and I think Obama is just the man to help achieve it. What precisely that change will entail will be seen in the upcoming months, but I am hopeful that it will be for the good of the country as a whole, and its citizens as individuals.

On a personal level, too, this week has brought even greater significant change. On Monday, very unexpectedly, Matt and his entire company was laid off. Its still all a bit surreal, although for veterans of the video game industry, its a common enough occurrence. But we are not veterans yet(!), and took us (and the company) by surprise. Its unfortunate that there are so few companies on the East Coast, and I hope someday there will be a greater shift towards developing games nearby. However, the existing companies nearby - and even some on the West Coast - have immediately responded to the news, sending out phone calls, emails, and posts about available jobs, some even personally contacting Matt directly, and his studio has been in daily correspondence. Its a great feeling to be a part of such a supportive network, which does not necessarily exist in other professions.

So please keep us in your thoughts as Matt touches up his resume composing skills!

Halloween Gang 2008

Buddy Jesus, Sarah Palin, Sleepin Beauty's Maleficent, Nun, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Space Ranger Seneca, Evil Miss Muffett, Cyndi Lauper, and Hippie Megan!

Trip to Deerfield

Over Columbus Day, we went on our annual Western Massachusetts autumn trip. I have loved trips out to western MA ever since I played at UMass Band Day for each year during high school, and travelled down the long foliaged roads to Amherst, and played my baritone sax or flute in the crisp air, with leaves crunching underfoot as we practiced our marching formations. Later, when Matt and I were dating, we would take a variety of fall field trips around Amherst; sometimes with specific destinations in mind, but often just either hiking or driving aimlessly to see what we could find (which, Matt will tell you, often ended up in the discovery of a beautiful old graveyard which we would wander - I knew then it was love!)

Last year Holly came with us and we journeyed to the flagship Yankee Candle store in Deerfield and also went pumpkin picking.

This year, both Holly and Natyra ventured along for a day of numerous Deerfield sights. For years, living on the South Shore, we would take the turnpike and Route 9 out west. But now that we are on the North Shore, the most convenient route is Route 2, the Mohawk Trail. Like Route 44, it is a very old Native American path, linking Massachusetts to New York (or in the case of Rt 44, linking Plymouth to Providence, and beyond). The road is gorgeous, and at some points near the town of Erving, Millers River (a tributary of the Connecticut River), comes right up to the road. Just beyond that is the French King Bridge, which crosses over the Connecticut River itself:

We then drove to Historic Deerfield, where we took tours of the historic homes and learned about the families of Deerfield. I even managed to be mistaken for a colonial ceramics expert and collector, much to the amusement of my friends who knew better! At the visitors center they had a craftsman making pottery and a demonstration on how to make colonial hot chocolate (which was very strongly flavored!). We walked along a path which went by a farm and Deerfield Academy, and explored the old cemetery where we located the mass grave of the 56 colonists who were killed at Deerfield during the attack on their town during the Queen Anne's War on 29 February 1704 when French and Native American soldiers burned the town just before dawn, and brought many of the captured women and children to Canada.

We then went off to a local farm stand to obtain pumpkins, vegetables, mums, and apple cider, and then went to Yankee Candle for our autumn and Christmas candles.

The jog!

This past week the Concord Road sidewalk project (which has been going on for the past two years) just completed pouring the concrete for the sidewalk in front of our building, thereby connecting us all the way to the little downtown district on Rt 3A. So this morning I had a few things to mail and decided that I would get my errand plus exercise all in at once! The total distance was only about 1.2 miles, but the way over was a bit rough (having not run in quite some time, plus having a box and letters in hand!) According to my googlemap walking directions (a cool feature by the way!), it should take about 22 minutes to get there by walking. On my way TO the post office, I walked and jogged in bits here and there, with far more brisk walking than jogging, and took 20 minutes. But I was inspired by three other runners (who all managed to catch me in "jog" mode rather than "walk"!!) who each shouted out what a nice fall day it was for a run, or gave a big smile. The way home FROM the post office I tried to motivate myself based off of all the orange construction cones that are posted down the road (If I run to THAT cone, then slow down until THAT cone, then run to THOSE cones down there....) and managed to get the ratio of far more jogging time than walking time, for a total of 14 minutes! Ok, so not even close to those who can do a 5 minute mile, but a personal 6 minute improvement on the way home rather than the way over! Still not convinced of the idea that running is "fun", but it did feel like a personal accomplishment!

The cutest pumpkin in MA

Can you spot the most adorable one? Suzannah and Ben's lovely Lydia gets ready for the autumn season in style!

First week back on Weight Watchers...

And down two pounds!

Last time I lost 20 pounds and then plateaued even with good dieting, but without much exercise. So this time the focus is on getting moving! Time to bring out my yoga mat, new weights (a birthday present from the family), and the key to the gym!

Send me you good thoughts!

New England Quilt Museum

I went up to Lowell on Friday to the New England Quilt Museum for their quilt documentation day to document two family quilts, both believed to have been made by Imogene (Everson) McClellan in the late 1800s. The process was very interesting to observe, a team of volunteers worked with me to document the oral history about the quilt (which I had brought with me, a sketch about Imogene as well as a genealogy and the provenance of the quilt) and then they photographed each quilt and identified technical aspects of the quilts. The Chinoiserie blue and brown quilt they thought was perhaps mid-1800s instead of late 1800s as we had supposed. Additionally, they discovered a small cross-stitched "D", leading to an educated guess that the quilt was made by Imogene's mother, Deborah (Bates) Everson. They thought the Asian quilt was beautiful, and loved small details like the fact that she used blue thread for the blue fabric and brown thread for the brown pieces, and arranged the patterns with little men to face opposite directions to correspond with how the quilt would drape on a bed. The green childrens quilt they all agreed was well-loved, and noted that the white fabric was actually originally yellow, and that the main batting for the quilt was actually a thin wool blanket.

London photo highlights

A few photo highlights in Yorkshire

Vermont reunion

Last weekend we headed up to Barre for the annual family reunion for Matt's family. The drive up there is always beautiful, I love seeing the scenery change, driving past the large brick factories and towers that stretch from Lowell up to Nashua, physical evidence of the recent industrial past, then gradually turning to the more distant green mountains, layered with hazy dark blue mountains, physical evidence of a much more ancient glacial past.
As we drove into Barre, they were having their old home day, with a 5K race - the same time Mom was making her personal best time in the old home day race in Carver (huzzah!)
This reunion there were a number of Somaini distant cousins who we did not know as well. But we had a blast with cousin Candi and her adorable blond-haired,blue eyed baby girl Sydney (born one day after me, Aug 13th!) and cousin Bryan and his wonderful wife Gladys. Gladys' mom (also Gladys!) came too, and we had a fascinating conversation about genealogy and her family's immigration from Guatemala to Massachusetts, and her grandfather's immigration from Spain to Guatemala.

I had updated Matt's family genealogy binder to bring, and it was passed around, generating lots of interesting stories. That evening we slept at Bob and Terri's gorgeous home, and he had pulled out old photo albums and a fascinating video about the Barre granite industry and its connection to Northern Italy for me.

Bob runs the antiques mall in Barre, and their home is filled with an incredible array of antiques. They built their home a few years ago on a beautiful property set back in the woods at the base of a small mountain. Matt & I spent the night on their enclosed porch, surrounded by antique chairs, baskets, rugs - and a spectacular view of the fields of wildflowers and forest.

The next morning we briefly saw Matt's cousin Missy and her two cute toddlers, and then Matt & I headed over to Bruce & Sylvia Mitton's home in East Barre, where Bryan and Gladys, Candi and Sydney, cousin Tammy, and her parents John and Cindy all gathered for a leisurely lunch. And Brian and Gladys two "little puppies"... Ika and Falen, their two (enormous) Great Danes. Matt was in heaven playing with them. They are both merle-colored, which result from breeding harlequins. The merle color in Great Danes is a disqualification for the AKC - so we had fun chatting about color genetics and obedience training (they were extremely well behaved - a great quality, considering they are big enough to drink from the sinks and open the door handles!)

Matt's grandfather, who left Vermont at the age of 18 when his mother died and came to stay with his aunt in Quincy, MA, always had his heart in Vermont, and loved coming back to visit his siblings and their families over the years. Matt & I daydreamed about buying a place up in Vermont, or New Hampshire, or Maine, as we often do after our summer vacations. Even daydreaming about our future Massachusetts home is filled with the idea of land - and lots of it. Mom calls it her "Irish farmer" genes - that sense of land, a sense of home, a topophilia (love of place) that provides a feeling of connection to both a place and the idea of a place.

Taking London by storm

We took the train from Leeds to London on Sunday, a beautiful way to travel to see the countryside! We arrived to our less-than-stellar hotel - but that's ok, since who needs to stay inside a cramped slightly smelly room when there is the whole city of London to explore? We took a walking tour on Sunday to some of Chris' old haunts when he worked and lived in the city. On Monday, Matt and I wandered the British Museum. I have decided I could live in the British Museum, and if only I could get behind the scenes and explore their archives and storage rooms, I would have a life of contentment. Of course we went to the Egypt rooms and were on the lookout for Amelia Peabody and Emerson grumbling in the corners. Then we explored some of the antiquarian bookshops and antique shops around the museum (I have also decided that I could be quite content to fill my house with ancient artifacts, too... this vacation may result in some expensive new hobbies! ;) ) Monday ended with a trip to Shakespeare's Globe Theater to see A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was absolutely hilarious. Today we took an all-day bus tour which went all around the city, where you could hop on-off anytime to further explore the places. Got some great pictures from the excellent vantage point of the top of a double decker bus. We took a walking tour of Jack the Ripper, which was spooky and fascinating.

We've just returned from our first West End performance - Wicked, which was a beautiful and very entertaining performance - who knew rooting for the wicked witch (and against the very annoying Glinda) could be so much fun?

Tomorrow I am off to attempt to get some genealogical research done in some London archives, and then we are seeing SPAMALOT (by the way, as a note especially for Dad, at the very beginning of our vacation, on our first night at dinner with Matt's brother, I made a "huge tracts of land" joke that just about made soda come out of Tim's nose - apparently he is a big Monty Python fan too!)

Last Day in Yorkshire

Tomorrow we head off on the train to London! On Thursday we spent the day with Matt's nephews (who are just a bit younger than us) We took an interesting brewery took of the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham, and then took a hike up Almscliff Crag (pictured above), which overlooks a long distance, with gorgeous views of the countryside.

We then moved down the road to Rudding Gates, a luxury apartment for two nights which we were upgraded to from the cozy cottages we have spent the week in. It's been wonderful living the high life for an evening!

Matt and I spent another day in Knaresborough, had a guided tour of the castle and got to go into the underground sallyport (the escape route out of the castle), had afternoon tea, and then went to Harewood House, which had huge gardens and a little zoo which bred endangered bird breeds. Yesterday Cindy's girls left for vacation in Spain, and today we explored Follifoot and went to one of the pubs there for lunch, then spent a lazy afternoon reading in the apartment since it was downpouring - the only heavy rain of our vacation!

Today's Greta and Brian's wedding - Congratulations!!!!! =)

Exploring Yorkshire

Just have a few minutes to update! We've been wandering Yorkshire for the past few days, exploring around the county. On Monday we went to Harlow Carr, which had beautiful gardens and the famous Betty's teashop, on Tuesday we spent the day in York. Matt & I took a tour of York Minster and the underground crypt and treasure room, along with a guided tour of the foundations of its predecessors, a Norman cathedral and a Roman fortress. We then wandered the streets of York, went down the Shambles, and went to Jorvik, a recreation of the Viking town at York which had lots of neat archaeological information and artifacts.

Today we went with Tim to Fountains Abbey, which was built in the 1132 and destroyed by Henry VIII when he dissolved the powerful churches of the time. We had a fascinating time exploring the ruins, and then took a lovely drive through the Yorkshire Dales! The landscape is stunning, and incredibly there has been almost no rain.

In other news, Suzannah has just had her baby, a beautiful girl named Lydia Marie! Congratulations, Suzannah and Ben!!

Knaresborough and Ripley

We went into Knaresborough, where Matt's brother Tim lives and Chris used to live, and explored the castle ruins along a beautiful sweep of the River Nidd, looking over to the Knaresborough viaduct. We then wandered to the first graveyard of the journey (I'll post more on my graveyard explorations when I return in my history blog!) at the old St. John's Church in Knaresborough. We have settled into our two cottages at Rudding http://www.rudding.com/cottages/claro.htm

Literally right across from the cottage is a field of sheep and a field of cows, who are very curious!

Today we ventured to Cindy's because both of the girls returned home, then we ventured over to the town of Ripley where we went to a huge old church and graveyard (the older site sunk into the ground and is called the sinking chapel!) and saw Ripley castle.. then ate the World Famous ice cream from Ripley (which I had never heard of... but it sure was delicious!) I think Uncle Scott Ripley said once that he thinks his family may have come from this town, if that is who it was named for! More genealogical adventures later...

Then off to Cindy's parents home (its her dad's birthday), a renovated priory mill directly on the River Nidd, about half a mile down from the Knaresborough castle. Cindy's dad did the work himself over the past decade, and it was absolutely stunning... both inside and out!

and Matt's suitcase has literally just come to the door! Huzzah!!!!!

Greetings from England!

We arrived at 11 PM instead of 7 AM, and Matt's luggage has been lost, but we have arrived in Harrogate in one piece. We've picked up a new set of clothes for Matt (who we shall pray will wish to travel in the future after our misadventures!), and explored a bit of downtown Harrogate this morning - amazing how beautiful and old all of the buildings are. We are visiting Cindy and Tim - the girls arrive tomorrow from Germany - and we were treated to a lovely tea and Cindy's scones. Off now to explore the house and garden, then onto wander Knaresborough and dinner!

England!

I am off to hike the dales of Yorkshire and stroll the cemeteries of London! Postings of our adventures to follow if we can finagle internet access!

Highlights of the week

Grabbing lunch and canoeing with Maria (chatting for so long that there's a sunburn to prove it!), picking plants with Mom at the garden sale, seeing Louise in her element (her kind demeanor combined with an in-chargedness factor of the gardening world!), watching Sex and the City and having Tex-Cajun food with Greta (although sadly no guacamole because of the tomato ban!), setting up my new office at work with Natyra, spending a lazy summer afternoon in Holly's pool, receiving long-anticipated vital records from London in the mail (its like Christmas - with historical records!), buying new clothes with Matt for our upcoming England trip, opening the blinds and shutting off all the lights to snuggle and watch and listen to last night's rainy thunderstorm...

here's to a lovely week!