Becky's photoblog

A few of us got together to celebrate Melissa’s birthday earlier this week, and they brought her an incredibly delicious dessert with four spoons!

We had a lovely dinner with Courtney and Brendan … married for only 6 days! They introduced us to a food tradition popular in Brendan’s family, and I’m convinced that many many more people should be doing this. Grilling delicious food right on the dinner table, then pouring amazing melted raclette cheese (which had been melting below the grill) right over your food. I didn’t get any great photos of this because I was too busy stuffing my face.

Other than their ‘official’ first bite, they didn’t get the chance to eat their own wedding cake. They treated us to a slice from their cake-topper and it was delicious!!

Many thanks to Aaron for capturing this moment during Brendan and Courtney’s wedding reception. I had the enormous of honor of declaring two dear friends husband and wife … this is me signing their marriage certificate!

Our dear friends Courtney and Brendan had an incredibly fun and beautiful wedding! I knew that their amazing photographer (and dear friend) Maureen Cotton would have gorgeous photos from the whole wedding so I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, but I did manage to capture a few moments.

Jen’s in town, and we got to hang out with her daughters for the second time this summer! Liz and Lee came over with their twin girls and it was a perfectly pleasant afternoon 🙂

I had an all-day work meeting in the same town that our cousins live in, so we spent a lovely summer evening with them … sipping iced tea on the patio, playing guitar and swinging on the swings at a lake-side playground. So perfect!

We were out of town for Hannah’s grandfather’s funeral, but we were able to visit them a few days later and play with the baby. Sorry for the quality of these photos … it’s a little tricky to get a good photo of a squirmy baby in low light.

Several months ago, when we booked our trip to San Jose for Sean and Clif’s wedding, we decided to make a whole week out of it by adding on  a few days in Los Angeles. Brian hadn’t been to LA since he lived there for a few months 10 years ago, and it would give us a chance to visit my brother and his girlfriend, and to see the house they bought last summer.

Those two crazy kids got married in private in April, so it turned out that this was also our first time seeing my brother and his wife since they got married! When we arrived in LA, we headed straight to their house. We got a tour of their beautiful new home, and caught up over take-out. I realize now that I forgot to take a picture of them (they probably don’t mind) … I was too busy taking pictures of my niece and nephew: their cats, Ivy and Mosby.

We left San Francisco, crossed the bay and headed over to Berkeley for dinner with our cousins. They treated us to an amazing backyard barbeque in their gorgeous backyard garden. They got married less than two months after we did, so the conversation naturally turned to how awesome our respective weddings were.

Same as that afternoon, our time together was over all too soon, but it was much better to spend three hours with them than none at all.

After saying our goodbyes to the grooms in Campbell, we headed up to San Francisco. There’s never enough time to explore such a great city … last year when we were in town for Lou and Jonathan’s wedding, we got to drive through San Francisco for less than an hour, mostly at night. This time, we had about four hours. I’ve been out to San Francisco five or six times before to visit my dear Lou, and spending four hours with her was definitely better than none at all.

We met up with Lou and Jonathan in her old neighborhood, where I stayed with her in 2006 and 2007, and we walked a very familiar route a few blocks down to the ocean at the Cliff House and Sutro Baths. It feels like the end of the earth there since it’s essentially the northwest corner of San Francisco, and there’s an incredibly wide vista (see video below) … nothing but ocean until you reach Japan. I used to take walks down there every day, so it was great to be back!

Then, we headed over to the Legion of Honor (a museum and park) for amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the South Bay and the Marin Headlands. We drove around a bit so we could see some more of San Francisco, and then after a stop for coffee and ice cream, our time together was over all too soon.

Saturday morning, we headed to Hellyer County Park for another dance rehearsal before the wedding, and helped out with some of the set up. We left and came back to the park a few hours later and enjoyed an amazing afternoon for Sean and Clif’s wedding. They did an incredible job of bringing their own style to their day, so of course everything was fun and games. They hand-made awesome games for their guests, so we hung out with their friends and family over jumbo jenga, scrabble, tic tac toe, horse racing, skee-ball, you name it. Wonderful to see my old friend so happy 🙂

Friday night, we headed to Jen’s house in San Jose for a lovely Shabbat dinner with her and her kids, who love playing with Brian 🙂

It had been too long since Melissa had an excuse to make her absolutely amazing orange and cranberry scones, so she and I decided to host a super fancy girls-only tea party while the boys were away for a bachelor party weekend.

I inherited a gorgeous set of china dishes from my great-great-aunt, and they’ve been in storage at my parents’ house for many many years. When they moved, it was finally time for me to store the set in my own basement. I had only ever seen the china once before, when my parents’ basement flooded in 2010 and the dishes had to be dried out like everything else. So, we brought up the dishes and laid out a gorgeous table with little tea cups, a huge platter of scones, a plate of tiny little sandwiches, chocolate covered strawberries, blueberry coffee cake, English muffins, jam and tiny cupcakes. It was kinda perfect 🙂

We pitched in and helped Maureen and Rachel pack up the truck for their move to the north shore. We’ll miss having them so close, but I’m exciting to see their new house by the ocean!

Courtney’s mom and her bridesmaids hosted an amazing bridal shower, and we had a wonderful day celebrating Courtney and Brendan’s upcoming wedding. It was a great chance to get friends, moms, friends’ moms and aunts together, and it gave the guys a chance to catch up too! It was really wonderful to meet so many people close to our dear friends.

Our annual Greek Easter celebration … a great evening with family, especially our adorable little cousins! We were at a restaurant in Swampscott, which gave us a gorgeous view of the Boston skyline as the sun set.

I got a few photos of the girls opening their presents from Brian’s parents, and Brian’s dad reading to the girls, but the rest of these photos were taken by two rapidly improving little photographers!

Hannah was in town with her family for Easter and their son’s baptism, and we all used that as an excuse to have ice cream for dinner! Two of my oldest friends became mommies in the last few months, and they got to meet each other’s babies – it was great to get everyone together.

We didn’t know it at the time, but last year was our last Passover in the house I grew up in. After 26 years of two consecutive nights of Passover seders in our dining room in the old house, we made our old traditions brand new again in my parents’ new dining room in the new house. Quite predictably, it was strangely new and yet utterly familiar.

On Monday (the day of the first seder), I took the day off so that we could spend the day helping mom. We let the breeze in because it was absolutely gorgeous out, and the bright sunshine made our platters look lovely!

As always, we sat down to a delicious meal with family and friends, some who had joined us before and some for the first time, and we retold the familiar story of freedom.

Check out my other posts tagged ‘Passover‘

Last year, Brian and Brendan had so much fun at PAX East 2013 that they decided their significant others would also love a gigantic gaming conference. They bought us one-day passes, and on the day in between our first Open House (at work) and the first Passover seder (ie, a very long week), we spent 5 hours wandering around an enormous conference center with several thousand other video & board game enthusiasts. It was exactly as I expected … really overwhelming, really fun, and we ran into Jake!

I love surprise visits 🙂 Shayna was in town for Passover, and found herself not that far from our neighborhood, so she came by to introduce me to the newest member of her family!

New Hampshire isn’t THAT far away, but it feels like it when one of your oldest closest friends lives there and you still only see her once a year. We’ve been lucky in the last few months … happy occasions have given us the chance to get together a couple of times in the last few months. Sara was here just last weekend for the naming, and she and Eric were back in Boston last Friday to see the Book of Mormon.

We suggested two restaurants in the theater district … one with a fun theme and a fairly standard menu, and one with an excellent menu. These foodies saw ‘poutine with duck gravy’ and opted for the restaurant with the excellent menu. Excellent choice 🙂

After a long week, we sat down to a delicious meal and refreshing drinks at Stoddard’s Food and Ale. Twice that weekend, we had dinner with another couple … the girls both ordered the same dish  and the boys both ordered the same dish …  and this was the first of the two.

I gave a tour of the Gardner Museum to Courtney and a few of her friends who were in town for the weekend – I love meeting my friends’ friends because they are always, without fail, awesome people!

And, we got to see this year’s hanging nasturtiums in the courtyard … and they are truly gorgeous this year!

Liz and Lee brought their friends and family together at their synagogue for a Shabbat morning service, which included a ceremony to give their daughters their Hebrew names, and welcome them to the Jewish community … followed by a schmeer and schmooze!

We wanted to deliver a gift, so we visited Liz and Lee and spent the afternoon snuggling with their almost-three-week-old incredibly adorable twins.

I love this photo of my beautiful little cousins reading together after brunch this morning — what a treat to see them, and their parents, and their grandparents!!

Jen just became an aunt! Her twin sister just had twin daughters a few days ago, so she flew in from California to meet her nieces.

We met up in Boston to catch up over dinner, shopping and a delicious dessert – this is salted caramel pudding cups at California Pizza Kitchen … so good! And so good to spend time with a close friend of 22 years on such a special occasion.

Thanks for Mo and Rachel for getting a couple of us together for a delicious brunch, play time with the puppy, and a new puzzle! A perfect Sunday.