Bikejoring

Dove's "Evolution"

This Dove commercial reveals how popular media has created impossible beauty ideals for women and girls to live up to. No wonder why women resort to extreme measures to rid themselves of blemishes and wrinkles. It is definitely refreshing to see an ad campaign that discloses the tricks used by the trade.

First Attempt

My first attempt at making a crochet hat was unsuccessful. It was not my intention for it to take the shape of an African kufi hat, but that's what it looks like. Here are a few pictures of it.

Doggie Park

Doggie Park

Transformation

What a difference a new layer of paint makes! Since our master bath doesn't have proper ventiliation, the walls had become quite grimy with mildew. David picked out a nice shade of blue and I got to work on painting the bathroom. I am finally done, all I have left is to hang the shower curtain and replace the toilet seat. I didn't think to do a before picture, but will post pictures of the completed project later this week.

What a way to start the week...

The monotony of my daily commute from Forge Park to Boston came to a startling halt today when about 4 minutes into the train ride there was a loud noise and large impact. The train came to an immediate stop and the power was cut in the train. My whole body jerked forward into the seat in front, it was obvious the train hit something, but I wasn’t sure what. No one appeared hurt in the car I was in, just shaken up. Most of us got off the train and walked along the train towards the front. The first car of the train was derailed and slanted at a 45 degree angle; the rest of the cars appeared slightly tipped. Franklin PD and FD were at the scene quickly, and school buses were provided to transport passengers either back to Forge Park or to Franklin Dean where a replacement train was waiting to proceed to Boston. Fortunately there weren’t any serious injuries. What a scary morning in Franklin!! Click here to read the story on Boston.com.

The following photo is from Boston.com

Finished!

So, I finally finished the blanket I was working on. I made it with the diagonal box stich and finished it with a simple border. I think it turned out great and my sister loved it. I was anxious for her to have it, so I gave it to her last weekend before taking photos of it. I just received these photos that she took of it.

My first blanket

Here are a couple of pictures of the first blanket I ever made. I used the double stitch, which was the one stich my grandmother taught me.

Crochet

My grandmother taught me to crochet with one stitch, and the one thing I've ever made out of crochet was a blue and white blanket that took me forever to make. I really wanted to learn to do more creative and colorful stitching, so I bought myself a book and have been practicing granny squares, circles, etc. I am currently working on a diagonal afghan with three colors. The color combination of blue, purple and green surprisingly looks really nice together. Hopefully this one wont take as long!

Flower Bed

We have a little garden area in the front of our house which was ugly and always overgrown with weeds. Our first year there I planted tulip bulbs which came up nicely in the spring, but since I haven't been able to get anything to grow. I am building a flower bed out of bricks and will put fertilizer down, hopefully next spring we'll have a lush garden.

Honeymoon

Our three weeks in Australia were absolutely amazing! It has been really hard coming back to reality; we are just now finally getting around to posting pictures. Due to a mistake that Liz made with her camera, we lost over 250 pictures from Sydney, Cairns, and climb of Uluru.

Sydney

Our hotel was located in an area known as The Rocks. It is the oldest part of Sydney and is situated in Sydney’s city centre. The Rocks area is nestled at the foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and offers fabulous views of Circular Quay. There are a number of alleyways with cafes, pubs & restaurants and shops which give it an old world feel. After checking in to our hotel, the first thing we did was walk the 1km to the Sydney Opera House to get a tour. It is more breathtaking and spectacular than we had imagined. Some quick facts about the opera house:
• It has over 1 million ceramic tiles on the roof which were imported from Sweden.
• It was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon.
• It has 5 theatres; the Concert Hall and Opera Theatre are the largest venues and are contained in the largest shells. The small separate shell is actually a restaurant.
• The final cost of building the Opera House was $102 million, only a mere $95 million over budget!

The Concert Hall was the most impressive of all the theatres because of the high vaulted ceiling, the beautifully carved white timber and its grand organ. We were fortunate to experience the acoustics in the concert hall because during our tour we stumbled onto a rather large group of Australian children practicing for their annual concert. There were probably over 300 kids playing Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair on recorder. After the tour, we figured we should try to see a performance and we were able to get tickets to opening night of the opera Lakmé! Lakmé was composed by Delibes (a French composer) and is mostly known for the Flower Duet and Bell Song. Too bad we were both extremely jet lagged, by the end of the second act even Liz (who loves the opera) was starting to doze.

Some other highlights from our stay in Sydney:
We took the ½ hour ferry ride from Sydney to Manly. Manly is a suburb on the other side of the harbor. It was pleasant ride; we had perfect views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. In Manly we went to Oceanworld; they have scheduled shark feedings every day and we actually arrived just in time to see a feeding. It was interesting to find out that the handlers have to keep to the same feeding ritual to keep order in the tank. They feed the stingrays first, then the turtles, then some smaller fish and finally the sharks. The day before our visit to Oceanworld, a Grey Nurse shark gave birth to a male pup. He was in a separate tank and was really cute, he looked like the adult sharks but very very small. We also rode the bus to Quarantine Station and drove past a gorgeous gothic-style chapel on a hilltop overlooking the ocean, which is where Nicole Kidman was married on June 25th.

Australians are known for being great sport fans, so we really wanted to go to a sporting event. We attended a footy match (AFL or australian rules football). The match we saw was the Sydney Swans versus the Fremantle Dockers. Neither one of us knew the rules of Footy, but it was clear that the ball is not thrown in footy, it can be propelled by foot or by a clenched fist. Players are awarded a free kick for making a clean catch of a ball that’s been kicked a certain distance. There are 4 vertical posts at each end of the field; the 2 middle posts are the goal posts and the 2 shorter posts on either side of the goal posts are the behind posts. The fans were really into the game (the Swans fans outfitted in red and white and Fremantle fans in purple and green) and there was a lot of trash talk back and forth and A LOT of beer drinking.

One thing we did not do was climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. David thought that the price for walking up the bridge was exorbitant (Why pay to walk on the arch, when you can walk across the bridge for free?), so instead we walked up one of the bridge’s pylons. The bridge has two pairs of granite pylons at each end; they don’t structurally support the bridge and were in fact added to the bridge’s design simply for their aesthetic value. The southeastern pylon houses a museum and tourist centre which has a number of stories and artifacts from the bridge’s construction process. At the top of the pylon you can go outside to a lookout, with great views of the harbor.

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Taronga Zoo

Taronga Zoo was nice; its location is quite magnificent. It has to be one of the best locations for a zoo in the world. Located on the north shore of the harbour, it’s only a short 15 minute ferry ride from Circular Quay. Too bad the zoo’s inhabitants can’t appreciate the great views of the city, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Once one disembarks from the ferry, there are two ways to get to the entrance of the zoo (which is at the top of a hill); catch a bus to the top or take the sky safari cable car (we chose the latter). Given the zoo’s hillside location, its layout has many twists and turns, we wound our way through most of the animal exhibits but were most interested in the indigenous animals (wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, emus, platypus, and crocodiles). Taronga Zoo offers what they call “Animal Encounters”; we opted for a koala encounter. Our koala encounter meant we could have our photo taken near a Koala. Much to Liz’s dismay, we were not allowed to pat the cute creatures (they’re very shy & nervous).

Bondi Beach

We took the bus from Sydney to Bondi Beach and wandered along the shore, followed the paved walkway along the coast line through a number of coves that make up the coast line, the walkway leads to Coogee Beach, there are actually a number of beaches along the way (Tamarama and Bronte). It was a really charming walk, with gorgeous views of the ocean. It was definitely too chilly for swimming but there were a good number of surfers out, it was fun watching them sitting on their boards out in the surf waiting for the next perfect wave. On our walk we stumbled past the Bondi Icebergs Club which is a winter swim club featuring a cold saltwater 8 lane 50-meter pool. The swimming pool is actually built into the rocks and is level with the ocean, so when the surf crashes the water goes right into the pool. Would love to return in the summer!!

Maritime Museum

Sydney’s National Maritime Museum, located in Darling Harbour, is a great FREE museum to visit. It gave us a good understanding of Australia’s nautical history and convict roots. On site there are also a number of decommissioned ships, we opted to tour the destroyer HMAS Vampire (the last large destroyer built in Australia) and submarine HMAS Onslow. We made our way through all the rooms and corridors below the main deck and even got to sit in the captain’s chair. The tour was really informative as it was given by a retired naval officer. The submarine tour was also a lot of fun; it is amazing how much stuff (torpedos, navigation instruments, etc.) is crammed into such a small space.

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Cairns

Liz at Great Barrier Reef  
Liz and Turtle Great Barrier Reef
The second stop on our Australian adventure was Cairns (pronounced “cans”). We woke up really early to catch our flight out of Sydney. We really didn’t do much in Cairns, we spent time on the beach (which was across the street) from the apartment that we rented on Trinity Beach and after eating all of our meals out in Sydney it was good to be able to cook for ourselves. We only spent 2 days in Cairns, so we were up at the crack of dawn on our 2nd day so as to catch a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef. Since we didn’t pre-book an excursion we were placed on a standby list and finally made it on to a tour. We took a huge catamaran out to a pontoon at Moore Reef, and enjoyed our day snorkeling; we also took both the glass bottom boat and semi sub tours offered. It is winter in Australia, so Liz was hesitant to go in the water because she expected it to be freezing; she was pleasantly surprised to find that the water was actually a perfect temperature. Needless to say, the snorkeling was incredible, and we were lucky to have the best weather possible, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the visibility underwater was really clear. The colors of the coral were just amazing, there were giant clams, turtles and brightly colored different species of fish (which we didn’t learn the names of). There were so many gorgeous colors and wildlife to see that we really should have gotten one of those disposable underwater camera’s.

Uluru & Kata Tjuta

The third leg of our trip was Uluru (Ayers Rock). After landing at Ayers Rock Airport, we took the free Ayers Rock Resort shuttle to The Lost Camel Hotel and booked a bus to take us to the rock, we were lucky that Uluru was open to climbers because it is closed 200 days out of the year because of poor visibility and high winds. We expected that there would be a number of aborigines at the base of Uluru talking people out of climbing their sacred ground and staring down those who proceed with the climb anyway, but there weren’t any. So we began the climb. The first half of the climb is really steep and arduous; Liz seemed daunted by the initial steep ascent and David doubted she could proceed with the climb, asking her several times, “are you sure you want to do this?” With Liz’s propensity for accidents, David was actually more worried about her falling off the damn rock than doubtful of her ability to climb it. Once one gets past the part of the climb that has a chain link rail to hold on to, it is quite easy to proceed to the top. The views from the top were great, in the distance you can see a large formation of rocks (which we later learned was Kata Tjuta). We were both struck by the fact that there were some shrubs and grass sprouting on different parts of the rock. The ascent took us a little over an hour but the descent was fun and fast, David was actually running up and down some of the rolling hills near the summit. After descending we walked around a portion of the base to a water hole; the rock is really quite enormous when you’re right next to it and there are huge valleys in it giving it great depth in certain spots, creating very striking shadows and color. We then walked the 2 kilometers over to the Cultural Center and looked through the exhibits and over priced aboriginal arts and crafts in the shop.

Our second day at Ayers Rock, we ventured over to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) for a 7.5km walk through the Valley of the Winds. Kata Tjuta is a group of mammoth round masses of rock (rounded and smoothed by the wind) rising out of the desert, its aboriginal name means many heads. There are some rocks that are closely bunched together with narrow precipitous crevices between them, other rocks are more spaced apart. The hike took us through this impressive geological formation, giving us different perspectives of Kata Tjuta thoughout our walk. We were surprised that it isn’t as well known as Uluru; it was definitely more impressive than Uluru itself. After our hike through Kata Tjuta, we headed over to the Uluru sunset viewing area. The rock takes on so many different shades of red and orange as the sun sets, it was really beautiful. After the sunset, we headed over to a cook your own bbq restaurant and watched a rugby match with the Aussies. It was a fantastic day.

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Cradle Mountain, Tasmania

Tassie as it is affectionately known to Australians, was absolutely beautiful. The island is filled with national parks, many of them designated as World Heritage Sites. We spent three days in Cradle Mountain National Park, three days in Freycinet and one in Hobart. After landing in Hobart, we picked up our rental and drove to Cradle Mountain (they drive on the left side over in Australia). We saw a lot of cows, sheep, and horses. The rolling hills reminded David of Ireland. Other parts looked a lot like wine country in California (in fact there are many vineyards in Tassie). There was plenty of wildlife to see: Pademelons, Wallabees, colorful parrots and other species of birds. Our accomodations in Cradle Mountain were quite fancy, complete with jacuzzi tub. Unfortunately, we did very little hiking in Cradle Mountain because the days were so dreary, cloudy and rainy. David was also fighting off a horrible cough which kept him up every night. So we took it easy, we went to a photograph exhibit, a honey tasting and did a short hike to a lake and boathouse and visited Waldheim Chalet.

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Freycinet, Tasmania

In Freycinet, we stayed at a beach house in Coles Bay that sleeps 10 people. It was weird having such an enormous house all to ourselves. The house had the most gorgeous views of oyster bay and was right down the road from the entrance to Freycinet National Park. We arrived late afternoon and it wasn’t raining so we went on a short hike to the Wineglass Bay Lookout and decided to leave the longer hike to Wineglass Bay for the next day. Unfortunately, the dreary weather continued, so we never did make it to Wineglass Bay. We were in full vacation mode at this point and did a lot of nothing, much deserved R&R.

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Tasmanian Devils

We went to a Tasmanian Devil Sanctuary for an after dark feeding tour where we saw the devils devour a wallabee carcass and learned all about the creatures and DFTD (Devil Facial Tumour Disease), a fatal condition that is plaguing the devils and may lead to their extinction. DFTD is characterized by cankerous tumors on the face of a devil (around the jaws), it is directly transmissible from devil to devil. We were both pretty disgusted by the photographs of devils with this disease. Tasmanian Devils are carnivorous marsupials and are the size of a small dog, they weigh anywhere from 15 to 22 pounds. They're black in color and have asymmetrical white markings on the base of their tails, flank and chest. Some devils don’t have the markings; of the devils with markings, not two are alike. It’s easy to understand why the early European settlers called this animal The Devil. Its screeches are really loud and can be described as spine-chilling, they have large heads and very powerful jaws, they look incredibly fierce with their jaws agape. Devils are gorge eaters, they can eat something like 40% of their body weight in minutes and eat until they’ve had their fill. It was really impressive to listen to the vocalizations they can make and watch them socialize. The devils devoured the wallabee carcass really quickly and consumed all parts of it, the fur, even the bones. When they were finished eating, the handler picked one up so we could see one up close. It actually looked really cute in the handler's arms and its fur felt no different than patting a wet dog (it was wet because of the rain).
*Tasmanian devil photo is from Devils@Cradle website.

Port Arthur

Port Arthur was a penal settlement established in 1830. We toured the military barracks, guard tower, officers' quarters, as well as the prisoners' area.

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Hobart

Hobart is the capital of Tasmania; it is a charming and scenic city. We walked around the docks and Salamanca Place, which has many shops, cafes and pubs bustling with tourists and locals. We stopped for a pint of Tasmanian beer before heading to dinner at Mures, for fresh seafood.

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Melbourne

We spent the last day of our honeymoon walking about Melbourne, there aren't too many pictures because we wanted to make the most of our limited time in this city.

Reception at Stonehurst

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More from the reception

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Ceremony - June 23, 2006

We were married at Saint Mary of the Assumption Church in Brookline, it is the church that Liz went to as a kid.

More from our ceremony

St. Mary's, pre-ceremony

More pre-ceremony

Our unity candle and tapers