Well, the first post has come and gone. And now 3 months later I’m getting around to posting again. It’s probably a bad sign that I needed to ask Jeff what my website address and Word Press username and password are.

Anyhow, breaking the recent silence… the summer has flown by. I’ve highlighted some of the notable events here for your reading pleasure.

The 4th of July fell on a Saturday this year, but we got the Friday before off which made it the perfect opportunity to take the extra vacation day and do something very American. So we went camping with Mike and Amy in southern New Hampshire. We had a great time visiting together and enjoying the great outdoor weather. Our trip was complete with a tent dance, canoeing excursion and of course – some great photo-taking spots.

Mid-July Jeff and I headed out to Minnesota for a  family reunion. We all had a great time at a lakeside cabin in Northern Minnesota. Essentially, that meant a lot of tubing, water skiing, grilling, and chatting. It was a whirlwind weekend, but such a fun and surprisingly relaxing trip. We saw the majority of my family (less a few cousins) and I think Jeff has now met all of my Dad’s siblings and their offspring. It was quite a “welcome-to-the-family” experience .  Here are some photos I snagged from Jeff.

August marked the beginning of the “Month of Martell”. We headed out to Amherst the first weekend in August to help Mike and Amy move in to their new apartment. Being Mike and Amy, the majority of the move had been done before we got there, leaving plenty of time for us to spend time together relaxing and hanging out in their new place. Two weeks later, Jeff threw a bachelor party for Mike which took both he and Mike up to Booth Bay Harbor for a day of sailing. Perhaps photos will follow shortly on one of their blogs…

Of course, the culmination of the Month of Martell was the Martell-McCollum wedding (which coincidentally happens to be one month ago from today’s post). The weather was windy and rainy for most of the weekend which didn’t bode well for the outdoor wedding that was planned. However, the only two hours of warm and sunny weather that happened that weekend occurred during the exact window of time needed to allow the ceremony proceed outside as originally planned. Regardless of weather, the wedding (and the Month of Martell) was a success with Mike and Amy ending up married (to each other, thankfully)!

Soon after Mike and Amy’s wedding, the first week in September marked the one year anniversary of our wedding, making us old married people! We had a fabulous dinner at the Melting Pot and actually still have a chocolate fondue dessert to claim there… After our crazy summer of travel and work and work-travel, we decided to not go anywhere and pay off loans as our anniversary gift to ourselves. It was marvelous.

After successfully not going anywhere the past three weeks, we’ll be trekking out to Amherst this weekend to visit the newlyweds and to take in Fall in the Berkshires. Apparently quite the agenda has been planned (though truthfully, I could expect nothing less from the Martells ). I hope to have photos to post soon after our trip.