Becky's photoblog

I had so much fun assisting Maureen Cotton, who is among many things an amazing wedding photographer, with a wedding shoot at the lovely Cambridge Boat Club. It’s a beautiful spot tucked away in a bend in the Charles River, and a great little spot for a festive party!

 

Today was quite a day, ending with a lovely walk along the Charles River with an old friend and her adorable dogs. Today, the Supreme Court of the United States made it legal for all couples to marry – something that should simply be ordinary rather than incredibly momentous, and yet, seemingly out of nowhere … a victory for common sense, a victory for decency, a victory for what never should have been illegal in the first place, a victory for love.

Today, one of my student’s slept through her final, and I helped her navigate a tricky situation. Today, another office gave us the rest of a delicious ice cream cake. Today, the president led an enormous group in singing Amazing Grace at the funeral of a victim of an unthinkable crime. It was a day for very small victories and very big victories.

Today also marks one year since the death of my father-in-law, and although we missed him very much yesterday and we will miss him very much tomorrow, today we stop and think about 525,600 minutes … what it means when a whole year has passed without him.

This was one of our incredibly rare free summer weekends, so we made the most of it with a day trip to Ogunquit with Brendan and Courtney. Ogunquit has an incredibly beautiful stretch of coastline, and it was so interesting to see how different it looks on a summer beach day in low tide compared to when we visited back in late December. We made it back to Boston in time to catch a beautiful Charlestown sunset!

We took a family day trip to Martha’s Vineyard (yes, yes we were just there 2 weeks ago) to celebrate our parents’ anniversary, and the weather simply could not have been better!

Another lovely Memorial Day Weekend filled with family, great views and delicious food!

Waking up on the beach is really not so bad …

We got up on our last morning, grabbed some breakfast to bring out on to the patio overlooking the ocean and read our books over pastries, oatmeal and coffee.

All too soon, it was time to pack up and go, but not before one last incredible meal of fried seafood at the Sandwich Marina.

Photos from our visit to the Sea Crest in May 2013 and September 2013

After a long day of wandering around Martha’s Vineyard, we came back to the hotel and headed straight to the pool! The timing was perfect because by the time we showered off and changed, it was just the right time to pull up a chair on the sand and settle in for the best show on earth: the sun setting on the ocean. Falmouth, MA is one of the rare places on the east coast where the beach faces west, and as we learned in September 2013, the sunsets over Old Silver Beach really are miraculous.

 

When we stayed at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel in May 2013, we ‘discovered’ a lovely church right near lots of cute shops and restaurants in Falmouth. Before dinner, we stopped by to visit this little gem again. We discovered that they recently added a labyrinth … yet another copy of the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, so of course I had to walk the labyrinth. It’s a bit smaller in scale than the one I walked just one week ago on the Greenway, but it was lovely and pleasant. We visited the church’s gorgeous little garden as the sun continued to set, then we settled in for a delicious dinner!

We arrived at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel on a pleasant cloudy day. We missed out on a perfect sunset because of the clouds, but that’s exactly why we planned to stay more than one day!

My birthday fell on a weekend for the first time in a while, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we spent the day wandering around Boston. We walked the entire length of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, starting in Chinatown and following it along past the new sculpture-thingy, and occasionally crossing the street over to the harbor near the Boston Harbor Hotel, Columbus Park, and Long Wharf, and ending at the North End. Then we walked up Hanover Street past Paul Revere Park, then over to Battery Wharf (one of my favorite views in the city), back around to Columbus Park, through Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market for some MUCH needed fried oysters. Then, we took the T back to our neighborhood to see the new Avengers movie, then walked home. A fantastic birthday!

A gorgeous view of Copley Square towards Old South Church from our sidewalk table at Bangkok Blue. If one must go to work on a gorgeous Friday, then why not take a long lunch with some girlfriends who also work nearby?!

After wandering through the galleries at the Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art, we popped in to the greenhouse next door for a truly wonderful treat! We were in desperate need of beautiful colors and incredible smells, and the greenhouse did not disappoint. It’s always amazing to see such an enormous variety of plants all in one place. We both took lots of pictures!

What to do after visiting a museum? How about another museum! We took a short drive from Nothampton to South Hadely and visited the art museum at Mount Holyoke College. I had been there before many years ago, and Brian had never been. It’s a lovely little museum with a handful of beautiful exhibits.

We needed to get out of town, so we took a little day trip out to the Berkshires to hang out in a town we both enjoy. Northampton has lots of cool shops, galleries and restaurants. We also revisited the Smith College Museum of Art which had recently redone some of it’s galleries.

It’s been a little tricky to get to work these days so I’ve been trying different routes. This morning’s route took me through Copley Square, so in between getting squished on a bus and getting squished on a train, I got to breath some fresh air and snap a few photos of some of my favorite snow-covered Boston landmarks before work. It’s refreshing to look up from massive filthy snow banks to see gorgeous buildings like Old South Church, trimmed in lacy snow.

 

 

On Sunday morning, we stepped outside to get a closer look at what Winter Storm Neptune brought us overnight. Another several inches of fresh white fluffy snow had coated the existing enormous snowbanks, and huge wind gusts were blowing the snow every which way. The snow banks are as tall as Brian now!

Major winter storm #3, day 2, 5th snow day of the semester … Mother Nature reminds us that there are colors other than white and gray …

Another foot+ of snow on top of the two feet that fell last week …

 

So, we got some snow …