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.

Sweet escape.

Last week, Lauren and I took a two day trip to Hershey, PA with Grandma and Pappy Bruno. Mark opted out of this one, so Daisy, Marcus and Coconut could have company.



Unfortunately, I didn't get to take a lot of photos because I was very busy shuttling Lauren from ride to ride. Of course, we started our adventure with a visit to Chocolate World, and the can't miss chocolate factory tour ride. After the ride, Lauren hit me up for a Reese's stuffed frog and a personalized Kiss magnet from the gift shop.



Then, we headed to Hershey Park. I don't believe I've visited to Hershey Park since I was about 5 year old, but there were a couple of things that stuck in my mind that I couldn't wait to see.



The first was the Kissing Tower, my favorite ride. You sit inside a large disc that slowly rotates to the top of the tower so you can see all around the area.



And who wouldn't love looking out of Kiss shaped windows? We rode it twice.



The Sooper Dooper Looper is a looping roller coaster that's been around for almost as long as I have. I always associate it with a plastic cup that Mark's brother Mike always used to drink out of when they still lived at home. Believe it or not, I could have taken Lauren on it. Hershey's ride guidelines seem a lot more looser than what we have at our local amusement park, Kennywood.



I feel terrible that I didn't take a photo of Lauren's favorite ride, The Flying Falcon, but hopefully this video will give you the idea. Pappy suggested that we try it out because the line was rather short. As we were waiting, I almost bailed. I've gotten less daring in my old age, I don't like sustained heights and my stomach can't handle being spun in circles over and over again. But I was brave, and good thing too because she absolutely loved it. We rode it twice too - once during the day, and once during the night.



I'm amassing quite a collection of photos of every Music Express ride in existence. It is one of my favorites, after all.



The famous Hershey Park ferris wheel.



And lastly, Lauren and Pappy (Grandma is camera shy).

And that's it! We're caught up to date. Now we can move on to Labor Day happenings and the first day of second grade!

A grand celebration.

On the weekend of August 18th, the City of Pittsburgh recognized 100 years of Girl Scouts with a Grand Celebration. About a third of our troop participated in Saturday's parade, which featured scouts of all ages from all around Western Pennsylvania.




Lauren will be bridging to Brownies this year. Check out all the cool things she did as a Daisy!



Here's a similar look at one our Brownie's sashes.



A Junior troop from our area of town marched behind us. They were really festive!



There were some Cadettes and Seniors in front of us who did a recycling theme. Check out her dress - it's made entirely of neckties!!



But wait - it gets better. This girl made a skirt entirely out of Girl Scout cookie boxes. How cool is that?!



Lauren waiting patiently for the parade to begin.



Of course, you can't have a parade without a marching band.



Or a double decker bus?!



Celebrating the scouts of the '60s era.



Waving to their adoring fans.



I don't think this man and his dinosaur friend knew what to make of us.



Cookie float.



Golden girls (The Gold Award is the highest honor you can earn in Girl Scouts.).




I call this, "Looking forward to the next 100 years."



Another version. I couldn't decide which one of these I liked better, so I'm posting both. I love the first one because of the uniformity of the girls standing in line, but I love the second one because the one girl is breaking the pattern and smiling for the camera.

Village people.

On August 4th, we made our annual trek to Ohio for the Zoar Harvest Festival. I've blogged about The Village of Zoar several times through the years. As I reported last year, the village is in danger of either being destroyed or moved. It's protected by a levee that was built in the 1930's. The levee is in great disrepair and would cost a lot of money to fix. So other alternatives are being considered, such as moving the buildings or removing the levee entirely. The latter option would destroy 80% of the town.

The plight of Zoar is getting national attention, and has been placed on The National Historic Trust's top 11 most endangered places, right along side the hospital at Ellis Island, Princeton Battlefield and Joe Frazier's gym.

You can read more about the plight of Zoar here and here.



We took a different route this year, where we traveled briefly through West Virginia to get to Ohio. This very cool bridge is in Steubenville.



I've already taken several photos of the buildings in Zoar, so this year, I focused on the little details.



Like birdhouses. There are loads of neat birdhouses in Zoar.







Here's a horse hitch for your...horse.



This old, repurposed bicycle is a fixture of Zoar. It's been leaning against the picket fence as long as I can remember.



We also saw a lot of sheep behinds as they were fleeing from their lives in the herding demonstration. We learned that boarder collie Gail is the same age as Daisy.



Gail almost got all three ducks in the pool this time.



I spotted this sapling growing along side it's mother outside of an antique shop.



And speaking of the antique shop, this kitty was lounging on its porch.



The town is always dressed up in red, white and blue for the festival.





Loved this old turquoise wheelbarrow leaning against the greenhouse in front of the famous Zoar garden.



The carriage in the Zoar garden is always a welcome sight.



In addition to antique dealers, there are also craft artisans at the festival. One booth had all kinds of neat handmade wooden toys. I couldn't resist getting a stick horse for Lauren.



As we walked through the festival, several people asked us where we got it.



Lauren was quite pleased with it.



Bonus photo #1:  I didn't even know she joined a union...





Bonus photo #2 - I took this on the way home. It's a railway bridge outside of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I thought made a brilliant back drop to the flowers planted by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (who did a beautiful job).