we spent the whole weekend unpacking boxes that we haven’t touched since we moved a year ago. we figured that since we started unpacking the weekend after thanksgiving last year, we should try to finish up this thanksgiving weekend. we got pretty darn close, too! it is all out of boxes, (or sorted and repacked for safe long-term storage) but not everything has a home yet.
but the biggest accomplishment was getting our breezeway completely empty! if you have ever seen our entryway, you know how huge this is. if you haven’t, well, just know that it was bad. everything we didn’t want to deal with, or had to come in the house, or had to leave the house was in that room. it was so bad that i don’t even have a before picture. that would have meant admitting to what a nightmare it was.
so, since this is a picture-less post, check out these double-dutch puppies:
(abby and i are going to have to start working on this skill asap)
i love that the dog near the end is so excited to get in there that they have to hold her back!
thanks, laurie, for the link.
have i ever posted a picture of how abby and grendel travel when when we go on long car trips?
with two layers of cushiness and one blanket each, by hour two i start wishing i was sitting in the back seat.
the cozy back seat has made all of the difference in how long we can drive without stopping. they have both made it the full fours hours to nj. it is now their people who sometimes call for a break.
in that picture, they are both pretty annoyed with me for waking them up from their cuddly nap.
tom’s sister, jessica, her husband, mark and their little one, adam, came for a visit last week. for wanting a relaxing time, they sure did pack in quite a bit of action. we caught a few of the adventures on film.
we went to salem, ma:
went back to college to visit uncle will:
ignored mark’s protests and braved the butterfly conservatory:
(he looks thrilled, no?)
went apple picking in the rain:
where i taught jess that, to get the good apples, you have to ignore the wet and really get in there. note the differences between apple-picking student and teacher:
she still has much to learn.
and debated the question, “which are more fun, toys made for kids or toys made for dogs?”
a lovely, exhausting, time was had by all. and i have so far gotten two delicious pies out of our apple adventure.
psychically send a few good thoughts mark’s way, he left for iraq on saturday. we hope to see him safe, and home, soon.
for this week’s theme i get to show everyone jason!
jason was my dad’s bachelor dog, and so was already quite a few years old when i came along. jason was a siberian husky and my grandparents were reportedly terrified that he would somehow “hurt the baby.” quite the opposite. i loved this dog and this dog loved me. i have been told that i would give jason a share of whatever food i was carrying around, and that he would let me remove the tasty treat from his mouth with my little bare hands if i changed my mind. he was so gentle. and he had one brown eye and one blue eye.
here we are in a typical late-70s scene:
note the brownish-orangeish carpet, the album in my hand covered in the plastic that was standard when borrowing an LP from the library, and edith bunker on tv.
jeffy and eileen came up from nj to visit us this weekend!
they arrived late friday night so that we would have plenty of time on saturday for the 3 county fair:
a fair covering not one, not two, but three counties is bound to fill up an entire day, especially when it costs $10 per person to get in, right? apparently not so much. sure, we saw some cute animals:
and some award winning vegetables, both pickled:
and anthropomorphic:
but, in under an hour we had seen all there was to see and headed out of the fair gates, disappointed, to make a new plan for the rest of the day:
we wandered around the shops in town, had dinner and stopped by our garden:
to harvest tomatoes:
the day ended around a makeshift fire pit in the back yard:
each of us fighting over who would get to snuggle with the pups for warmth:
*okay, so we actually were going to completely cancel our cable…that is until we found out that since we were going to keep our internet access it would actually be much more expensive if we canceled our tv service. so, in the end, we stayed signed up for the $6.99 package, which kept us in a reasonable price range. sigh, foiled again.
but we are enjoying HD over-the-air and the blockbuster system is pretty darn handy.
