Monday, November 26, 2007

boy band (a movie)

the boys get down with miss marcie in the kitchen

seaweed toss (a movie)

noah has fun throwing goober-seaweed on the beach in rockport.  

Friday, November 16, 2007

lantern song (a movie)

practicing the lantern song before our candlelit walk through the neighborhood on martinmas.

Monday, November 12, 2007

the new england history tour of 2007

we've decided that we want a big part of our time here to involve learning about this area (or reminding ourselves what we already know about this area). there are so many resources in new england for learning about history, including the houses we live in, the bumpy brick sidewalks we stroll over and the crumbling gravestones we pass by. aaron and i are really trying to notice what is around us, and to learn about how it came to be and how it used to be.

so far, we've explored a bit of the south shore of boston, including the coast guard heritage museum in barstable, the herreshoff marine museum in bristol, the new bedford whaling museum and a few boatyards on the cape. we walked a bit of the minuteman bikeway in lexington and had dinner in the old rail station downtown. we've gone to the maritime heritage center in gloucester and of course the essex shipbuilding museum. last weekend we drove out to the northampton area and visited the historic northampton museum and the williamsburg general store. on the way home we stopped at walden pond in concord and walked around it "deliberately."

while aaron focuses more on the history in and of these places, i focus more on the gift shops. in particular, on the notecards in the giftshops. i'm building up a nice collection, though most of them will likely be mailed off to some of you in the near future. at the walden pond gift shop i saw some beautiful prints with thoreau quotes and block prints by artist michael mccurdy. this is my favorite:
he also has a series of animal notecards, which are really fun. here is the fox:

and at the gloucester maritime museum, we found this awesome book:

this british shipwright and artist, james dodds, set some of his boat linocuts to the words of a kipling poem. it's beautiful! and after snooping around on his website, i saw another of his books, "alphabet of boats," which has a cool boat linocut for each letter of the alphabet. here's the ark:

i can't wait for our new england gift shop tour to continue!

Friday, November 09, 2007

the great iphoto fiasco of 2007

the other day peter tried to upload some of his pictures onto our computer, but our computer rejected him because it didn't have enough hard drive space. so pete suggested i delete some things and burn some things onto cd, in particular pictures and music, to free up some space. so i did. i deleted lots of music, and then i started backing up all our photos, burning them onto cd. after i'd burned a few cds, i put those photos into the trash. then i emptied the trash. then i suddenly had a TON of space on my hard drive and NO pictures in my iphoto library.

i don't know how, but somehow i deleted my entire iphoto library. sad, sad day. i took the computer to a "mac genius" at the mall but he wasn't genius enough to undo whatever i did. so most of our pictures are gone. what a lesson in impermanence!

we do still have access to the pictures i've posted on here and on flickr, and the few cds i burned before the fiasco, so not all is lost. but i imagine some of you have pictures from our lives on your own computers or in your email folders, or backed up in some responsible place. would you email those to us? in particular, if any of you have photos of things that aaron has made, we'd love to rebuild his portfolio. or maybe you could take pictures of things he's made and we'll add them in. hopefully one of these days he'll have his own flickr page dedicated to the things he's crafted.

we've learned our lesson, i swear. i'm only human. the computers win!

ups and downs (or, so many stairs!)

finally, an update from the east. it's quick to post little movies but harder to find time to write words. we left bellingham almost four weeks ago now. crazy!
in that time:
~we visited grandma and grandpa wedell and aunts joan and karin in fond du lac, wisconson.
~we visited the oldenburgs and the scott-brandts in grand rapids, michigan.
~aaron met with a professor and a filmmaker about the great lakes fishing history project.
~we sat in an airplane on the chicago runway for a few hours in a windstorm.
~we were welcomed overwhelmingly to our cozy new third-floor room at the julian house, full of lovely art, a bulletin board, nice-smelling soaps and lotions, pretty file folders and note cards, and a beautiful little crib for noah.
~we spent a few lovely days in lexington celebrating alan and cara's wedding, including family contra-dancing in a beautiful barn.
~we spent another few lovely days in barnstable, on cape cod, with our friends sarah, matt and avry ross, and with matt's grandma, aunts and cousin. noah played on the beach with avry, aaron went boat-scoping, and sarah made us lots of yummy food. we had a nice birthday breakfast for aaron at their house, including bacon, pastries and the new modest mouse cd.
~we have been partying quite a bit--at jesse walsh's 30th birthday party, a harvest party with margie and ian and other friends, benny's 7th birthday party and rosemary's 30th birthday party.
~we went to see the new wes anderson movie, "the darjeeling limited," trading childcare with the wassells.
~aaron bought a little beetlecat boat from harold burnham and is fixing it up in the julian house garage. he's already had help on the project from peter, scott, andrew, benny, eli and jude.
~we dressed noah up in an old wassell dragon costume and trick-or-treated around the neighborhood with all the little boys. noah got lots of candy for me and aaron to eat.
~we've walked around town a lot, frequenting the atomic cafe for coffee and cassis bakery for treats.
~aaron attended a lecture at gordon about "public history" and documentary filmmaking, which has gotten his wheels turning. (ask him!)
~we've cooked a few meals for the house, and eaten lots of yummy food (including a few cannolis).
~noah and i met my old roommate tanya's new baby harrison, who is just three weeks old. he's tiny!
~noah has fallen down quite a few stairs in this three-story house, but i think he's figured out the height dynamics at this point.
~noah has chased and been chased by tons of little boys. they have taught him a few things, including how to build and knock down block towers and how to knead bread. he also loves stealing benny and eli's "lord of the rings" swords and asher and jude's pacifiers.

yet to come:
~a trip to western mass to visit caleb, kirsten and anise and go to the massachusetts museum of contemporary art.
~a trip to vermont to see my family, with a stop in putney to see sarah bates' parents.
~boston day, and lots of riding around on trains and subways.
~a trip to connecticut to see more of my family.
~a trip to new york city when jennye's baby is born.
~a trip to portsmouth, new hampshire, to visit heidi and check out the waterfront.
~a big crafting event involving quilting, freezer-paper stenciling, gocco-printing, needle-felting and more!
~aaron's stool-making class for new hope christian school kids.
~and lots of fun hang-out time with chris, scott, benny, eli, jude, asher, henry, andrew, sarah and other friends.

more pictures soon to come on flickr. keep sending pictures of yourselves and your families and all the west-coast, mid-west and southern fun we're missing. love to you all!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

benny's birthday blow-out (a movie)

benny blows out the candles on his awesome dragon cake to celebrate his seventh year.

dane street beach (a movie)

on benny's birthday aaron and i took noah and the wassell boys for a low-tide adventure.  noah got super muddy but had a lot of fun.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

donuts on a string (a movie)

at the harvest party, all the kids try to eat their donuts on strings without using their hands.  except noah, who used his hands.

faerie treasure (a movie)

christina tells the kids a story of how shiny golden faerie treasures came to be in the haypile at pete and pilar's harvest party...