first snow

(taken from our living room window)

Pictures!

I have finally at long last managed to upload a bunch of pictures to a Picasa album. And more to come, when I get around to it. You can access them through clicking on the nifty slideshow on the right.

The most recent pictures are from our wonderful trip on Saturday up to Rockport. J and I take turns planning dates-- one month it's his turn, the next mine. It's really fun because we get to plan surprises, as well as receive them. He planned this month's date, and I really had no idea where we were going. We got on the train (one of the commuter rails) and went all the way to the end of the line, which ended up being Rockport, a beautiful little fishing village that is now a beautiful little tourist spot. Lots of art galleries and boutique shops. We ate hot dogs (see menu in the pictures!), got coffee, walked around in the sparkling sunny day, and enjoyed the beautiful ocean views all around. J bought a $4 kite which actually flew-- see pictures. It was a really great day.

our house

Mom, these are for you.

Thanksgiving with some very cool second cousins that I had never met until that day, and J's friend who was visiting from London.

(and because Thanksgiving is all about the food)

Our house, decorated for Christmas

Captain Hook on honeymoon

For months I have been meaning to post these pictures. Finally, on a day when everyone else (including my husband) is watching the Super Bowl, and I have a little time on my hands. (And someday I will get around to posting some wedding pictures, but considering that I have a couple thousand, that is a little daunting.)

Brian, these are for you.

For everyone else, as a way of explanation, my brother believes that what every just-married couple needs is a bunch of random junk in their getaway car. He bestowed upon us a bouquet of pinecones and twigs, lots of little plastic figurines and home "decorating" items clearly picked up from the junk bin at Goodwill, other things which I don't even remember, and some other things which I do remember but will not write about here. I guess we should have just thanked out lucky stars there wasn't a deer butt in there (inside joke). We threw all of it away, except for this little Captain Hook, who we thought we would take on honeymoon with us.

So here it is, Captain Hook (and J&A) on honeymoon:


We started off at a B&B in the gorgeous mountains east of Salem.
This is Captain Hook, on the steering wheel of our cool red Mustang.
After driving around Salem for a couple hours looking for a dry-cleaners at which to drop off my wedding dress (it was a Sunday morning, apparently not prime dry cleaning time), we and the cool red Mustang arrived at the airport too late to catch our flight to Vancouver Island, BC and had to wait a few hours for the next flight. (During which time we ran into one of J's friends who had flown out for the wedding!) J insisted on taking this picture of forlorn Allison at the airport. Actually, the wait wasn't that bad-- I mostly look like death warmed over because I was soooo tired. I don't remember ever having been that tired in my entire life. Weddings are exhausting.

Finally we did arrive at our destination, a fantastic B&B at which we ate food like this while gazing at views like this.
The B&B had some other, um, perks. The suite (really a self-contained apartment) we stayed in is occupied part of the year by the son and daughter-in-law of the inn-keepers, who live in Japan. So it had various Japanese gadgets, such as an only-the-Japanese-would-think-of-this heated toilet seat that also functioned as a bidet. In fact, it had so many choices for how it sprayed water that it required a remote control. Captain Hook is demonstrating.
We had a great time driving around the island...
Captain Hook looking all tough at high tea...
I love this picture of J, sitting on the beach, playing guitar.
Finally back to Boston, and the enormous pile of boxes we created as we unwrapped gifts. (Captain Hook is in there, if you look closely.)