Wonders never cease.

It's good to be home after spending the majority of last week visiting Boston. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos to share this time. We did spend some time in Seaport, an area of the city that's being revitalized with trendy new hotels and restaurants. I would have easily have found something to photograph, but the winds coming off the ocean were extremely high the day we were there, making it an effort to stand let alone take a picture.

Speaking of the sea, I should probably explain the photo at the top. I took this photo at the end of May, but I never uploaded it. You see, Lauren's first grade glass raised guppies as a science project. Near the end of the school year, they were allowed to take one home to keep as their own, with parental permission of course. Even though Lauren already has a goldfish that she pretty much ignores, we caved in and gave the okay. Lauren was very excited and insisted that her fish was a pregnant female.

When I took this photo, I had thought delivery was imminent. The black spot on her side is called a gravis spot, and is supposed to be an indicator that the guppy is pregnant. Since their gestation period is only 28 days, I thought that she was going to drop her load any day. However, days went by with no fry, and then weeks. Soon, we just forgot about it, figuring that Lauren must have been mistaken about the fish's condition.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was putting some clothes away when Mark came into Lauren's room. He had just cleaned out the fish's bowl earlier that day and started to complain about how much longer the fish would be around. It was then that I went over to check on her and said, "Uh oh." Then he said, "What? Is she dead?" I laughed and said, "No, worse. She had babies!" Sure enough, there were seven or eight teeny tiny fish swimming in the bowl. There would have been more, but Mark may have flushed a few when he cleaned the bowl earlier. Oops.

Apparently, female guppies are able to store sperm for at least three months. So I guess the offer noted on my sign still stands after all!

Ten years ago.

 

Today was our tenth wedding anniversary. A lot has changed in the last 10 years. Why, there weren't even any iPads back then!



And look! m+m didn't quite equal to l yet. By the way, those tin cases still contain m&m's candies, so that hasn't changed. Nonetheless...ick.



I went a little overboard on the wedding favors. Ten years ago, brides were just starting to take advantage of the creative new ways to personalize their weddings. Now, the wedding industry has exploded with this kind of stuff.



We both took vacation so that we could spend the day together. I only had two requests - 1.) I wanted photos. 2.) I wanted hibachi for lunch. Mark sweetly complied with both.

A note about the veil. This is actually not the veil that I wore on our wedding day (although I did wear the tiara). I originally ordered this one, but later changed my mind and got a chapel length one. Both of them were handmade, and very, very cheap. Speaking of veils, I don't think I've ever wrote about the veil disaster. Leading up to our wedding day, I hung my dress and veil in our spare bedroom for safe keeping. I was always very careful to keep the door closed, so our cats, Beavis and Spud, wouldn't disturb them. One morning before work, I went in the room to get something, and I forgot to shut the door. Spud snuck in, and when I shooed him out, he somehow managed to rip the veil. This was quite a feat, considering Beavis was declawed on all four feet, and Spud was declawed on his front feat. This happened THREE DAYS before the wedding. Thankfully, the nice lady who made the veil whipped up another one and overnighted it to me.



So here's to us. I'm going to need another ten years to think of how I can top these.

Two Marks are better than one.

Just a quick post to share some photos that I took of Mark and Marcus. Today's photo challenge was "mark," so I couldn't resist.



Heading to Boston tomorrow for my annual business trip. We're going into the city this year, so hopefully I'll come back with some photos!

Second graders are twice as nice.

 

A week later, we're still trying to get used to the new school routine. The evenings are much shorter now, and with that comes a sense of having a lot less time to do things. Due to one of my regularly scheduled creative slumps, I haven't been shooting at all over the last couple of weeks, but yesterday I had the rare opportunity to take photos of Lauren. She pretty much loathes to have her photo taken these days (Totally my fault, of course.). However, last night she was very proud of the fact that she could climb up on our fence all by herself. I noticed how nice the light was hitting her, so I took a chance and asked to if I could take her picture. To my surprise, she said "Okay."



We spent the next several minutes just talking and being generally silly while I clicked away. I kept asking her about her classmates, and if she went to Hogwarts, how they would be sorted into the different houses (For the record, Lauren considers herself a Ravenclaw.).



Her idea of "working the camera."



Sometimes I wonder what's going on in that mind of hers. A lot, I bet.




Looking ahead (Get it?) to the rest of the week...soccer, a birthday party, and playing with friends.

Second to none.

Just a quick post to commemorate the first day of second grade. I wasn't there this morning to see her off, so poor Mark had to coax her into posing for photos.



Lauren summarized the day as follows:  We had Popsicles, and then we watched a movie and had crackers. Sounds like second grade is off to a great start.