As many of you know, my Aunt Becki and I went globetrotting again at the end of April. This time we started in Barcelona, Spain. After a few days in Barcelona we hopped on a cruise ship and sailed to other parts of Spain, the Canary Islands and Morocco. We had a wonderful time. This is the first batch of photos. It has taken me a while to get these up, as I went a little crazy with the picture taking this time around…but I will continue to post them in batches as I make progress.

We loved Barcelona. It was vivid and clean and a great city to explore. We visited several of Antonio Gaudí’s buildings including Sagrada Família (pictured above) which has been under construction since 1882 and is currently slated to be completed in 2026 (after our visit, we’re a little skeptical if they’ll make it). We also loved Gaudí’s rooftop sculptures at La Pedrera. We walked La Rambla and did a little shopping, visited Barcelona Cathedral and the Picasso Museum and of course ate tapas. We packed a lot into our few days in Barcelona, and then boarded our ship, the Brilliance of the Seas and set sail. Click on the image above to see my photos from Barcelona.

Its official, we’re all married off.

I am happy to report on April 18th, James and Chrissy got married. We all traveled down to Connecticut for a weekend long celebration. The rehearsal was Friday afternoon and many of us had a part to play - Peter was the best man, Aaron and Joe were groomsmen, Justin was the ring bearer, Amy and I did readings and Maria was the gift bearer. After the rehearsal we headed off to the country club for the rehearsal dinner. This was the same country club that my parents had their rehearsal dinner at almost 30 years ago! We had a nice evening of eating and socializing, but the highlight was the presentation of the video that Peter and some of James’ groomsmen and friends put together of a revised version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. I wrote a post previously about the video with photos from when Peter, Aaron and Joe recorded their portion. James’ friend Justin who put the video together posted it on his site:
Ode to James and Chrissy
(You may want to press play, then pause and let it fully load before pressing play again to watch it).
Aaron’s part is towards the end of the video, and is definitely worth waiting for :)

Saturday was the wedding ceremony, which went well and included a few minor vow blunders by Jamesy - just enough to keep everyone laughing which seems right for James and Chrissy. The reception was held at The Riverview - a banquet facility in Simsbury, CT. We ate, danced and socialized. Peter gave a sweet toast to James and Chrissy…and then the guests were treated to the now famous Apache dance - put on by all the groomsmen. It was pretty funny. James’ friend Justin videotaped it and although he was too close to get everyone in the frame - you can get a good idea: Groomsmen Apache dance
The dancing went on into the night and we all had a really great time. Congratulations to James and Chrissy!

Click on the photo above to see my pictures from the wedding weekend.

At the end of March Aaron’s Mom came up to visit us for a weekend. While she was in town, we caught up with Leah, a cousin of Aaron’s who we were surprised to learn lives in Brighton. The four of us met at Wu Chon House, a Korean restaurant, for dinner. Aaron estimates that he was about 13 years old the last time he saw Leah and I of course had never met her, so it was really great for us all to be able to have dinner together.

In late March the whole family got together at Amy and Joe’s newly renovated house to celebrate James, Peter and Aaron’s birthdays. It was nice to be all-together and we were all excited to see Amy and Joe’s completed construction project. We had dinner out together and then went back to Amy and Joe’s for presents and dessert. There were of course many great presents, but I would be remiss not to mention Dad’s gifts: Goonies themed treasure chests for James and Peter and a Lord of the Rings prop and cast photos for Aaron. Have I mentioned my father has discovered the wonder of eBay? Click on the photo above to see the album of photos from the party.

I’ve been dying to post these photos since last fall, but I had to wait, as it was a surprise for James and Chrissy. So, this past weekend, my brother James and his girlfriend Chrissy got married (yeah! - you’ll see those photos at some point). As a part of the celebration, Peter wanted to put together something entertaining for their rehearsal dinner. He came up with the idea of re-writing one of James’ favorite songs with personalized lyrics. Peter and Maria worked on that together and re-wrote Don’t Stop Believing by Journey as a song about James and Chrissy. Then Peter came up with the brilliant idea of getting as many of James’ groomsmen as possible together to make a video of the song. Peter with the help of James’ good friend Justin, recorded his version of the song and then had each of the groomsmen dress in costume and perform portions of the video. I am hoping the full video ends up on Youtube - if it does, I will certainly post the link. In the meantime, please enjoy this album of photos of Aaron, Joe and Peter in costume from the filming their portions of the video. You will laugh.

In March Mom took her annual trip to Florida with Nonnie. With Justin’s favorite sitter out of town, Aaron and I volunteered to watch him for a day. We had a great time doing some of Justin’s favorite things, which currently include searching for and watching windmill videos online, reading books, building with blocks or cardboard boxes and playing picnic - complete with a blanket on the floor and plastic food. He has an incredible amount of energy and lots to say - he is definitely not a baby anymore - but he’s so much fun to be around. Click on the photo of us above to see the album of photos from our day together.

For Aaron’s birthday this year, I took him to New York City for the weekend. The initial inspiration for our trip was Will Ferrell’s Broadway show, You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush . I bought us tickets to see that show and then planned the weekend around it. We ate lot’s of interesting and good food: Turkish Friday night at Ali Baba, Saturday lunch at Katz’s deli (where Aaron had the biggest pastrami sandwich I have ever seen), Saturday dinner we had Korean barbecue at Madangsui and finally a crazy brunch (huge portions - way too much food) at Norma’s. We walked the city a bit, explored some neighborhoods and stayed pretty low key. We had a very relaxing weekend away - a successful celebration if I do say so myself.

At the end of February, Amy and Joe and Justin moved back into their house after bunking with our parents for a few months while they were doing some construction. While unpacking they accumulated a large number of empty boxes, which Justin thought were great to use as giant building blocks. He and Joe used some of them to create a big box tower bridge. Later Justin and Aaron created a wall with a window. Eventually Amy and Joe actually wanted to use the room and fill it with furniture, so they recycled the boxes - but it was fun while it lasted. Click on the photo above to see the album of photos.

At the end of January Mom, Amy and I traveled to Sturbridge to help celebrate Chrissy’s bridal shower. We met up with a bunch of our family (Chrissy of course, Maria, Nonnie, Aunt Becki, Tia and Aunt Martha) and many of Chrissy’s family members and friends as well. James and Peter were there too, but went off to a local pub with some of Chrissy’s guy relatives to hang out. Meanwhile the ladies had brunch, chatted and watched Chrissy open a bunch of gifts ranging from the practical to the humorous. It was nice to meet some of Chrissy’s family and it’s clear everyone is looking forward to Chrissy and James getting married. Click on the picture of the happy couple above to see the photos from the shower.

Back in late January we had a little family party at Mom and Dad’s house to celebrate both Mom’s birthday and my birthday. We had dinner at Not Your Average Joe’s and then had ice cream sundaes and presents back at home. Justin was very helpful and did a great job of trying out each present that was opened. He was especially fond of a trowel that I got from James and Chrissy. He proceeded to demonstrate for us how to dig in the sand, on Mom and Dad’s sand colored carpet. I think he might be ready for spring. Above is a photo of him modeling Mom’s new sweater. Click on the photo to see the small collection of pictures.