Wedding part 2

This past weekend, we traveled to Long Island NY for a luncheon thrown in our honor by Andrew's parents to celebrate our nuptials. We have been planning this for a while and couldn't believe it came so quickly. Friends and family from all over (and as far as California!) joined us for an afternoon of good Italian food, lots of wine and great conversation. It was a terrific way to celebrate as there were only 9 people at our wedding. The four hours blew past and felt like a whirl wind of hugging, kissing and accepting lots and lots of congratulations. I can't imagine what a real wedding would be like! It was just a perfect way for all of our friends and family to come together and celebrate! The only downside is that my brother and his family couldn't make it from Arizona, although they were there to celebrate with us in St John back in May. At some point we are sure my brother and his family will meet Andrew's sister and her family, who couldn't be in St John because baby Alex was born just a few weeks later! With all the craziness of the afternoon, neither one of us took any pictures with our camera but we posed for many! As soon as we get some, they will be on here. Thanks to all who came and helped us celebrate!!!

Something to make your blood boil

Sent to me my father...

How can it be that there are so many people who would vote for this guy?
Let's keep our fingers crossed..

"Same old River..."

Every summer for the past 3 years we head up north and rent a canoe for the day and float along the Pemigiwasset. This summer, we almost didn't make it as every day off we had together (with no other commitments) it was either raining or had just finished raining for 3 days and the river would be like a class 5 rapid (anyone who knows about our experience a few years ago white water rafting knows why we avoid the river when it's really high...). But last Sunday, we had the day off and no plans...we woke up and it was a beautiful late summer day. We called our friend Earl

at Pemi-Barker River adventures and set it up to take a canoe out on our favorite 14 mile trip. Earl is great and has a pretty cool set up. He drops you off at one end of the river and sets a time to pick you up however many hours later you want. Other times we have done the trip we have taken hours... stopping to swim along the way in the clear river water or to have lunch on a beach along the side. This trip was a quick ones as we started later in the day than we wanted and the river was so quick, we barely needed to paddle and the weather turned crappy the further north we drove, although it did clear up and became beautiful again towards the end. We even missed our favorite beach to stop and have lunch so we ended up eating in the boat while floating in circles. Here's some pictures of us on this trip and a few more from other years...

Andrew ruined the nice picture...

Why do I let him lead? It's amazing we made it back...

First signs of Fall...

Picture from last year, our beach we missed this year...

A couple of years ago, we went with Jon, Carolyn and their dog Abby...oh hi Abby...yes, Earl is so cool, he had life jackets for dogs...

Yes We Can!!!!

On saturday morning Barack Obama spoke in Manchester at a public rally. I decided that this was something I needed to attend. He was not expected to speak until 10:30but they were opening up the gates at 8:30... I walked down to the park at 7:45 and when I arrived at the park the line was already blocks long. I found the end of the line and began chatting it up with the people around me. It was like going to a concert. People selling buttons, shirts, etc.. While we stood on line we watched literally thousands of people trying to find the end of the line. At 8:30 the line finally started to move... It took about 40 minutes to get into the park. This involved going through security that rivaled any airport in the days after 9/11...Metal Detectors, No bottles, no food... cell phones and cameras open and turned on etc...
Getting there that early ensured me a spot pretty close to the stage...
Here is the stage pre-speech...

Here is a picture of the crowd 7,000+ strong

At around 10:15 there were a number of introductory speeches including Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter and Governor John Lynch. Finally at around 10:40 Obama's bus (and entourage of security vehicles arrived) The crowd (which was estimated between 7-8 thousand people) went absolutely nuts...

The man of the hour had arrived....
Obama gave a great speech that lasted about 35-40 minutes... The crowd had some much energy and reacted to everything he said...
here he is...

Needless to say...Hearing Obama speak in person was amazing... It's one thing to see him on TV but to see it in person was special.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed....

P.S... If you are so inclined..and have 35 minutes to spare..here is a youtube video of the speech I saw..Such powerful words.....

Dave and Nina's Wedding

Ok....
So it's been almost two weeks now but I thought I'd start catching up on things.
We were in Milwaukee for my best friend Dave's wedding.
Dave and Nina got married at a country club in Milwaukee.
There was a whole weekend of festivities starting with the rehearsal dinner at a very cool place called Historic Turner Hall.
Here are the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner

The wedding was the following day (Sunday). It was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful setting. The ceremony took place outside on the golf course....
Here I am during the procession...

The bride and groom after the "I do's"


The party moved inside and it became a wild one (even though it was a completely vegetarian wedding)...complete with not one, but two rousing, wild and crazy horas..
Here I am with Nina (the bride) during one of them

Denise also did a great job of taking pictures of me during my finest moments..
Check out my face..Yikes....


We had a great time and wish Dave and Nina a lifetime of happiness....

A quick update

Well it's certainly been a busy couple of weeks.
Just a quick recap with more detailed updates to follow.
We returned from Milwaukee last monday and I immediately had to go to work...
School started on wednesday for me...It was a short two day week but an exhausting one...Ninety-three tenth graders will do that to you....

On friday we headed north to Vermont for Daniel and Audrey's wedding.
The rehearsal dinner was friday evening.
Saturday Denise and I took Rachel for a quick spin upto Burlington, then we spent the afternoon setting up the tent for the wedding.
The wedding was great (more on that later)
we had breakfast sunday morning and headed home.
We had a nice visit with cousin Brooke and her boyfriend Andrew.
Monday was spent catching up on our lives and getting ready for the weekly grind.

More to follow....

Happy 3rd Birthday Griffin!!!