Boston Brass

2012_05_25_brass_mosaic
These guys are part of the Boston BID Summer Street (link opens PDF) events in and around Downtown Crossing – a strolling brass trio/quartet (depending on the day)! I love these guys. Even when I’m having a particularly horrible day I smile when I hear them – which is often before I’ve spotted them. Sometimes they’re hanging out in a nook at the building across the street from my office, sometimes they’re lined up on a traffic median in the middle of the street, or sometimes they’re playing in one of the small park-like areas outside an office building in the area. They are almost always playing a song that makes my heart happy – a song I remember playing myself in high school marching band or just a song I love, like last week when I heard Under the Sea coming from around the corner when I walked out of the building for lunch. If your local, I hope you come across these guys sometime this summer/fall and they make you smile, too.

…and then July happened…

June was so busy that I think we subconsciously kept July a little less planned and more relaxed…and yet we still managed to have a lot of fun.

OpSail Tall Ships were in town the first week of July and I spent a Sunday afternoon wandering along the HarborWalk and checking out some of the festivities.

My creation

The Fourth had us hanging out with friends to grill and enjoy the weather. Oh…and there was some slip and slide action from the kiddos.

7.4.2012_fourth20

The following weekend, I spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon kayaking on the Charles with friends. I love kayaking like you wouldn’t believe (if anyone wants to buy me a kayak for my birthday or Christmas, you will rocket to #1 on my list of Favorite People in the Entire World…and I’ll let you use it occasionally), and I’m not entirely convinced that there’s a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the city. Even if there is blue-green algae on the water which may lead to a rash…or possibly death.

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You’re probably curious what the cats have been up to throughout the summer. Let me sum that up for you in this one picture of Barley:

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On July 13th, Pete and I celebrated our eight anniversary. Remember on our third anniversary when I bought Pete one piece of gum for every day we had been dating (I’m actually not sure I ever blogged about that)? I think he liked this gift better: one bottle of beer for every year we’ve been together. For someone who chooses beers based entirely on aesthetics, all reports indicate that I picked good ones. Also, if you’re curious, the beer only cost $10 more than the gum.
7.13.2012_beer_trip

All of the remaining photographic evidence from July is courtesy of my phone – which is to say, not abundant or of great quality. There’s a new ice cream place in Quincy – Molly Moo’s. It’s conveniently located halfway between our house and the beach, so on one particularly nice Saturday afternoon we got some ice cream and then wandered down to the beach to enjoy it. This was our view. Every once in a while I forget that there are parts of Quincy that are downright beautiful, and then I go for a run or a walk along the beach and find myself amazed by how pretty it is.

squantum yacht club

The next weekend was pretty awesome, actually, but the pictures that prove that are crap as they were (again) taken on the phone and it was very dark. We went to see the Summerland tour. Pete and I were in college for the same four years, but the music that each of us remembers from that time is very different…this tour? It was my college years, rolled into one awesome concert – Marcy Playground, Lit, Sugar Ray, Everclear. I’ve never enjoyed watching 40+ year old men run around on stage acting like they were 20-something so much!

And that? That brings us to August!

So…June happened…

Umm, you guys? Are you still there? I would apologize for the lack of time I’ve spent here, only I’m not sorry! This summer has been flying by, and between some stressful work stuff and a lot of really fun personal stuff…well, there hasn’t been much in the way of pictures or blog stuff. I’m slowly catching up with the pictures, so I thought I’d catch you all up here, as well! When I started writing this post it included everything since my last post here…and then I realized it was way too much for one post, so here’s our June!

(This may take a while, you should maybe grab a beverage and get comfy.)

Back before even the unofficial start of summer, we bought a picnic table. There’s been a fair amount of this going on all summer long:

2012_05_26_PicnicTable

Sometimes there are neighbors involved, sometimes there are movies being watched on laptops, and sometimes there are guitars being played.

In early June, I ran a 5-mile race. This is what I look like when I’m running…although I’m sure if there’s no camera pointed at me, I look less happy about it:

Squirrel Run 3 crop

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures to prove it, but the night after that race I went to see Lana in La Boheme, and it was awesome! I do have pictures of the following day, however, when I went to the (poorly executed) Food Truck Festival at UMass Boston with a few friends. We overcame the event’s poor execution with a divide-and-conquer plan, which led to lots of tasty treats and slightly less standing in line than most people experienced. It also led to me discovering the amazing corn salad in the photo, which I have since managed to recreate twice and am obsessed with. A beautiful day on the waterfront with good company and lots of good food…can’t really complain!

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The following weekend, Pete ran eight miles from our house to the Harpoon Brewery with our running club, while I drank sangria and celebrated this little one’s third birthday. I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the deal on that one! ;)

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Our last weekend in June was a long one, and we flew out to Wisconsin to see Pete’s family and celebrate his cousin Mitch’s high school graduation. We flew into Milwaukee and spent a few hours exploring downtown before we headed to Pete’s parents. We had fun in our short wander, and found more cool stuff than we anticipated. We spent a lot of our time wandering noticing all the differences between Boston and Milwaukee: one month of parking in downtown MKE = one and a half days of parking in downtown BOS. Real Estate is clearly not a premium in MKE, as evidenced by the abundance of above ground parking lots and lack of parking garages. All of the sidewalks in MKE are stamped with the year they poured (and often who poured them), while in BOS our sidewalks are only sometimes stamped, and only with the company that poured them. When it comes to the waterfront, you can see through the clear, blue water in MKE and well…you definitely can’t say that about the water in BOS! The rest of our weekend was spent catching up with Pete’s family and relaxing, which was much needed.

Wis Mosaic

Upon returning, we celebrated this guy’s birthday with our running club. Our running club is pretty amazing, and I really need to spend a separate post talking about that some time.

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And then? It was July.

Summer 2012: To Do

Summer summer summertime! Time to sit back and unwind.

 …or time to get cracking on my latest to do list! You can see how I did on my Spring list here – not too bad! I’m going to carry over the two things I didn’t get around to, because I’ve got a start on both of them and really want to see them through to the end.

  1. Watch a Movie By Moonlight and/or Free Friday Flick while eating a picnic dinner (pizza & wine qualify as a picnic dinner)
  2. Tour The Graves Light on Little Brewster Island
  3. Take an architectural tour of Boston…from the water
  4. Visit the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum
  5. Attend a vintage baseball game on George’s Island
  6. See Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge at the Peabody Essex Museum
  7. Rearrange and decorate the bedroom
  8. Look into (and start?) volunteering at the Quincy Animal Shelter

 What are you To Do-ing this summer?

Looking for some inspiration for your own seasonal to do list? Check out some of my past lists!

Spring 2012

Winter 2012

Fall 2011

Summer 2011

Spring 2011

Right Field Roof

My creation
Pete was given tickets to Sunday’s Red Sox game by one of his coworkers, and we lucked out with perfect weather. The “seats” were actually for standing room up on the right field roof, which is one of the few sections of the park that we haven’t been in before. I wasn’t sure that I would like standing for an entire game, but I would do it again! It’s much more comfortable up on the roof – you’re not packed into the small seats and there’s a constant breeze and plenty of room to move around. We were there early enough to snag a pretty sweet spot right along the small counter at the front of the space (overlooking the right field roof tables, which would also be awesome but are three times the cost), so we had somewhere to lean on and set our drinks. Maybe the best part of the right field roof is that the bathrooms are restricted so that only folks with the right field roof tickets can use them – there were never more than two women in line the entire game!