Happy Father's Day

I had a nice well-rounded father's day today. It started with a nice note from Joey that brought Jen and I to near tears. Then Jen and I went to Portsmouth where we had lunch and beer near the water.

Afterward I met Bret and the grandkids at the park.

Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) would have approved.

"If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all."
Mitch laid it on thick in this book, but he hit this note perfectly.

Happy Birthday Laura!

It's Laura's birthday today so we had girl's night out with her friend Janet from California. Laura is sporting her new top from our afternoon of birthday treat shopping.

Bill is also sporting a purchase from today. Nerd glasses.

What a positive influence...

Having Lauren come over pays major dividends. First Joey cleaned his room .... and we never told him to. Then when it came time to get the pizza he and Lauren went and picked it up.

Lauren brought us strawberries too.

We're all better when Lauren is here!

Do we look 100 years old??

Last night was my employer's 100th anniversary. I was part of a planning team to arrange the party at the Museum of Science. I was amazed how many people showed up in jeans and t-shirts. Of course, Beth and I were appropriately dressed for the occasion.

On an unrelated side note...Bill ran some blog stats today. They were a little disturbing. We have a post that has had 169 hits! The title was "Fat Nudist Playing Euphonium with Hairy Pits". Which word was the big draw? Nudist? Hairy Pits? Euphonium??? We probably disappointed all 169 people when they got the site and found a picture of Joey.

Get it on, Bruins!

Vacation in your own home town

Laura's friend Janet and her 5 year old twins, Iris and Satchel, are visiting so they rented a house on Plum Island. I went over tonight for dinner. The place didn't look like much from the outside but turned out to be very nice inside with a gorgeous view of the ocean. It did make me realize why people in Newburyport might want to have property on PI. As soon as I got there I felt like I was on vacation. The glass of wine (seen on table) didn't hurt either.

Strangely enough, I was the mechanical whiz of the evening figuring out how to work both the gas grill and the dvd player. I would have been the hero but I was overshadowed by someone who didn't even come over. I had to listen to two little voices asking "Where's Bill??" throughout the evening.

We capped the night with this gorgeous full moon. This was the view from the back deck. A lovely end to my 3 hour mini-break.

I won a major award!

As previously mentioned in the blog, I am the recipient of a book from two of my favorite podcasters, Mark & Jon. I finally picked up my major award. No, not a leg lamp, my book from the Enthusiasticast! They had it prepaid and gift wrapped at Jabberwocky bookshop.

I was going to link to a You Tube video of Ralphie's dad singing "a major award...a major award". There are a surprising number of home videos of people and their leg lamps. I got sick of wading through them all. You all know what I'm taking about.

Side note - good to see that comments are working again. Talk to us!!

If Jen were a sportscaster.....

"Hi Sportsfans. Our Boston Bruins are kicking Canuck a** tonight. Why don't you stupid Canadians go back to your igloos and drink some Molson and eat some poutine, eh? Losers. OK, now here's Scott Montminy with the traffic."

DoppleJoey

Brenda and Keith hosted Joey's graduation party at their house today. For a day we were all Joey.

It was a nice day. Burgers and dogs, family and friends and bunch of wild dogs.

Joey's haunted t-shirt

I could have sworn that Joey's t-shirt was legible, that the letters actually spelled out the words correctly  And yet, in this photo, they are backwards!! Is this the work of the devil?  This reminds me of listening to Beatles albums backwards on my mother's turntable.  "Paul is a dead man, miss him, miss him...."

As a side note, Barbara Streisand came up in conversation so Bill asked Joey if he knew who she was.  "Of course - she's the mother in Meet the Fockers."  How proud she must be.