Birthday party: Candids

I liked this picture of Lara, but I really liked the shadow behind her.
Kyle and Sarah:
Is he playing Rock Band or plotting your demise? You decide:
Mandy's Jello mold. It's hard to see in this picture but she made a lamb, an owl, and a heart. Everyone was impressed.
Candice, Peter, Tiffany, and Jim, all smiles:

Birthday party: Rock Band Idol Winners

At the party, Jay ran a game called "Rock Band Idol". It was basically American Idol with wildly better prizes that the real Idol, which were: a package of fake mustaches, an inflatable globe, and something else that I can't remember. Here are the four finalists. You can probably see who won first place: it's either Dastardly Dan or Josh. Second place was Sarah, who won major Song Choice points over Rob (who apparently should stick to Journey and Boston), and bringing up the rear was Tony.

Birthday party: Erin and Nate

I know I said that birthday party pics were coming a long time ago, but I'm just now getting around to it (lots of grading, what can I say?). Plus, someone (and you know who you are) took a bunch of great pictures and has yet to give them to me (slacker). Anyway, file this series under "they'll probably hate me for this," and they're not even great pictures (fuzzy), but they made me laugh. Here are Erin and Nate laughing heartily at one another:
Oh, Nate! You're so funny!
Gosh darn it people, sit still so Jay can take your picture!

Erin's new endeavor

I mentioned recently that I made a quilt for my mom for Christmas. The process was helped along considerably by my college roommates, Erin and Lauren, both of whom had made several quilts. Well, Erin has decided to take her quilting to the big time. She's started a website to sell her beautiful baby quilts. Check it out: www.ducklingdesigns.com .

This one is my favorite (picture is a little grainy because I suck at computers):
I'm totally impressed by her quilting prowess, especially now that I know how much work quilting is.

Jay's Birthday Party

Saturday night was Jay's 30th birthday party. It was a rousing success. You know you've thrown a good party when you were having too much fun to take pictures. I managed to snap exactly one:
This is a prime example of why you should never indulge in rum-induced photography. Note that no one's entire head is visible and the focus of the picture seems to be the floor.

Jen managed a few more than I did, including these two pictures of the parents playing Rock Band:
Mom Caissie was a hit on the drums (oh no, she didn't just make that pun!). People kept coming up to me, saying, "your mom rocks at drums!" As you can see in the above photo, rocking at drums takes a lot of concentration. Sadly, only one photo of Jay from his own party has turned up so far, and in it, he is displaying some inappropriately doctored cupcakes, so you won't be seeing that photo here.

The cat made a spectacular appearance late in the evening. Anyone who has ever caught a glimpse of our cat knows that she is extremely skittish around strangers and prefers to hide under the bed rather than socialize. Well, apparently she was behind the couch when guests started arriving, and must have sat there paralyzed with fear for many hours. Around midnight she decided to make a break for it and took off at a full run through the living room and dining room towards the bedroom. Once she hit the linoleum in the kitchen, it was all over. She careened into several cabinets and, in a blind panic, ineffectively pumped her legs like she was on a treadmill gone haywire. That was the last we saw of her that night.

It was a fun time. Lots of people came and we managed to wipe out over a hundred bottles of beer and several bottles each of rum and whiskey. There were many fights over the musical worthiness of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and an embarassing photo of Jay as a child surfaced. Thanks to everyone for coming!

My first outdoor climb

Yesterday I went on my first outdoor rock climb. I'd saved for weeks to buy rock shoes and finally had enough money last week. With the nice days fading fast, it was definitely time to get out of the gym and onto some real rock.

My climbing friend Dylan and I went to Quincy Quarries, which is an old granite quarry directly off of route 93. It's billed as Boston's premiere urban climbing experience. Apparently, it used to be deep and filled with water at the bottom, but a lot of people died cliff-jumping. Then someone got the brilliant idea to put old street signs and telephone poles at the bottom to discourage people from jumping in, and the death toll multiplied from people jumping in anyway and hitting the poles on the way down. They filled it in with Big Dig dirt about ten years ago and it's become popular among climbers. Now there are anchors all over the tops of the rock to attach top-ropes to.

Dylan set us up a top-rope at an easy-looking corner. Alas, I forgot my camera, which was a crying shame considering the views of Boston and the ocean from the top of one of the rocks. I had to snatch these pictures off of the internet, but you can see our first climb in this one. It's the corner in the middle of the picture, right where the rocks step up a little.
I made Dylan go first. Then it was my turn. I was pretty freaked out going up, and I had a hard time with some of the moves. By the time I got to the top, I thought very clearly, "I'm terrified. This is not fun. I'm never doing this again." Then I had to let go and be lowered, and I froze. I honestly thought I was not going to be able to move off of the rock to get down. Once I touched the ground, my knees were knocking. Then, of course, I went right back up it again. How quickly we forget! It was much easier the second time and my sense of impending doom was squelched.

Next we set up on a slabby wall (I couldn't find a picture of that one). It basically looked like it had no holds whatsoever, plus it had a lot of graffiti that made it slick. I made Dylan go first again. He made it up, but since he climbs several grades higher than me, that was no indication of my success. I couldn't even get three feet off of the ground. I ended up climbing a little off to the side of Dylan's route, but it was really hard, and about 3/4 of the way up, I panicked again. After getting to the bottom I gave it another go and made it up. I was kind of proud of that. I even managed a sort-of mantle (mantling is sort of like the motion you make when you hoist yourself over the side of a pool), which I have yet to pull off in the gym. I scraped up my leg doing it, but I did it!

We set up one more rope on the biggest formation--you can see the spot above along the streak of white. Sadly, we were running out of time, since I had a gig that afternoon, so I let Dylan go up. I didn't get to try this one, but it was probably for the best, since it was the tallest and hardest of anything we'd done. Maybe next time. Hopefully we will get some more climbing in before the weather turns.

For those about to rock...

I salute you.
However, the rockingness of this crew is definitely in question. Apparently the only rock signal known among this crowd is the sign of the devil.

Random shots

Here are a couple more random shots from camping. This was a spiderweb at our campsite that looked perfect:Before heading home on Sunday, we stopped at the Flume. Here, Peter and Candice experience the joys of nature discovery! Quite, someone use this picture to apply for a grant.
Jay took this one of me. I like it because it looks like I've been photoshopped in. All it needs now is a giant kitten terrorizing the scene.
OMG bears!
Self-portrait.

Mount Washington II

We got to the top of the ravine around four hours after setting out. We figured, the end must be near! Alas, it was a mirage. After the lovely but steep and tiring ravine was another forty-five minutes up a hill of semi-loose rock with little vegetation and no real trail. It was just, go up until you can't go up any more, and don't fall off the mountain. This is Peter's picture of that section:
I'd held up remarkably well until about twenty minutes from the end, when I started sagging a little. Jay caught a second wind and breezed up the last hill. Peter and Candice may have contemplated throwing us off the mountain for ever having thought up the whole hiking scheme. Finally, Jay turned around and said, "I see a car!" I thought he was kidding until someone hiking down informed me that he wasn't just joshing, the top was up ahead.

Topping out to a parking lot was a little weird, but no one really cared at that point. The actual summit was up a staircase, and we had to wait in line to stand on it. A nice lady took this picture of us.
We found Matt at the top. Since his feet are size 15, he couldn't find hiking boots to fit. He ended up with a pair of super sexy imitation Crocs (later, he noted that the Crocs "really are pretty comfy!" So cliche, Matt!). He wasn't quite gutsy enough to wear his new shoes around all the hard-core hikers though, and saved them for the privacy of our campsite.
Because of the Crocs, he wasn't able to hike down. Peter and Candice weren't up for it, Jay's knee was bothering him, and I didn't want to hike alone, so I couldn't hike down either. I would have liked to, but it was okay--we did the hard part, anyway. We ate a slice of pizza each--it tasted much better than it should have, by the looks of it--and hung out on the observation deck for a while.
I wasn't sure about my poor little car making it down the mountain holding all of us without spontaneously combusting, so Peter and Candice kindly took a hiker's shuttle back to the bottom. My car's brakes thank them. Matt, Jay and I got into the car for the trip down, which was much more harrowing than the hike up. The road was narrow and the drop-offs were steep. We had to pull over a couple of times when the brakes started to smell like burning. But we made it down okay.

Now we can say, we did it! We climbed the highest mountain in the northeast. Where to next? Rainier? Denali? Get your crampons ready!

Mount Washington

Saturday morning was a perfect day for hiking. We got a bit of a late start, having accidentally taken a small detour into Maine. We got on the trail around 9am. The hike is supposed to take around 4 hours up, 2-3 back down, so there wasn't a moment to spare.

At the beginning, we were so happy and naive:
We hiked the Tuckerman's Ravine trail, which is the standard trail that offers the best views. It followed a riverbed up most of the mountain, so there were a lot of rocks to climb over, and there was none of that "nice walk through the woods" that usually accompanies the start of New England hikes. We certainly walked through the woods, but it was steep most of the way. This was the longest flat section and boy, were we glad to see it.
About two hours in, we reached the Hermit Lake Huts, where Matt discovered that his hiking boots were in trouble. The sole of one boot had come almost completely off. He tried to duct tape it together, but he didn't deem it safe enough to continue up. Matt definitely wins the Sportsmanship award, because I probably would have said, "oh well" and continued up. But he definitely made the right choice, as we found out later. He headed back down with the car keys, thinking that if he could buy a new pair of boots in town, he'd drive up the auto road and hike down with me and Jay, and Candice and Peter could take the car down.

The four of us set off from the huts, having voted the strongest hiker off the island, so to speak. From the huts, the trail got serious fast. We saw this view from the huts and thought, "wait. We have to climb up that? Where's the escalator?"
The next two hours were rough, but had the most beautiful views. The best part of the hike was near the top of the ravine, where the trail followed a stream that cascaded down dramatic cliffs. It was incredibly steep but rewarding.
The view down the mountain from the same spot:
To be continued..... (dun dun dahhh!!)

Camping

Last weekend, Jay and I loaded up the car and met Peter, Candice, and Matt in the good old White Mountains for a few days of camping. Matt and I had talked about climbing Mount Washington a while back, and though we didn't get a chance to do many "conditioning hikes" in advance, we decided to bite the bullet and do the Mt. Washington hike anyway. I figured this was the make-or-break point in my mountaineering career--if I couldn't do this, I suppose I'd never make it to Everest. (Don't worry Mom, I'm not thinking about going to Everest. Not much, at least.)

We went to Moose Brook State Park in Gorham, which was a great place. Peter went a little crazy in the Bass Pro Shop and bought a machete for the low, low price of 19.99. It was ever-so-useful for hacking our way through the knotted underbrush and menacing neighbors.
Jay had a psychotic break when the machete came into his hands:
If there's anything that can distract a man from weapons, it's fire:
Jay also made us S'mores using his special technique. He assembles the cold ingredients, wraps them in tinfoil, and puts the foil packet in the fire. I even broke my vegetarianism for a night to have them.
Tomorrow: the hike.

Candice and Peter's Wedding

On Saturday, Peter and Candice got married. It was a wonderful night. Candice looked so beautiful walking across the grass to Peter, I got a little teary. We didn't get a lot of great pictures because a) I'm not the best photographer, and b) we were taping the ceremony and first dance for Peter's relatives back in Wales on another camera.

Cutting the cake:
And now begins another episode of Unintentional Headwear. Jay has a speaker coming out of his head in this one:
And Peter has a bulbous growth on his head here:
I stole this one from Matt, to show our intentional headwear. I got many compliments on my hat, which came to me courtesy of the parents. Jay was also really excited about his, which Peter and Candice gave to him in appreciation for DJing the band's breaks.
This one I stole from Tiffany. I like it because it looks like they are giggling a little. I remember that feeling during our ceremony--laugh, cry, laugh, cry. Theirs was a wonderful ceremony, and you could tell how much they were loved by the looks on everyone's faces.
Congratulations Peter and Candice! We had a wonderful time. Here's to a lifetime of happiness!

"Bullets and Barbeque"

Last night we hosted a murder mystery dinner party. This was the first time I've ever improvised recipes, and they turned out okay. Our menu included ribs for the meaties, red beans and rice, stuffed peppers and asparagus.

Red beans and rice:
I modified this recipe. I used canned beans (2 cans) and took all the meat out, including the Worcestershire sauce (which usually isn't vegetarian). We didn't have celery, or I would have used that. I also was too lazy to cook it for 2-3 hours, so I just added a cup of veggie broth and let it reduce down to a nice sauce. We mixed it with the cooked rice instead of spooning it over the top. The original recipe:

• 1 pound red kidney beans, dry
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 5 ribs celery, chopped
• As much garlic as you like, minced (I like lots, 5 or 6 cloves)
• 1 large smoked ham hock, 3/4 pound of Creole-style pickle meat (pickled pork), or 3/4 lb. smoked ham, diced, for seasoning
• 1 to 1-1/2 pounds mild or hot smoked sausage or andouille, sliced on the bias
• 1/2 to 1 tsp. dried thyme leaves, crushed
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• As many dashes Crystal hot sauce or Tabasco as you like, to taste
• A few dashes Worcestershire sauce
• Creole seasoning blend, to taste; OR,
  • red pepper and black pepper to taste
• Salt to taste

The peppers were a real experiment. They were good, but I would have changed a few things. I used:

• 6 red peppers, halved and scooped
• 1 can of artichoke hearts, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• Several handfuls of baby carrots, chopped
• 1 small zucchini, cut into small pieces
• Mexican cheese
• Plain bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Parsley
• Garlic

I sauteed the garlic, onions, and carrots until softened, then added the zucchini. After the zucchini softened, I added the artichoke hearts for a minute until they were slightly browned. Add the salt, pepper, and cayenne (don't overdo this or you'll regret it). Stuff the peppers and top with cheese, then breadcrumbs and a sprinkle of parsley. Bake at 350 for an hour in an oiled baking dish.

If I do this again, I'll mix the cheese in with the vegetables. By putting the cheese on top and the breadcrumbs over it, it made the cheese crusty. I like hot melty cheese better, and this didn't have any.

Dessert was J.P. Licks ice cream with hot fudge, caramel, and whipped cream.

For entertainment, we did a murder mystery called "Bullets and Barbeque." Peter was hilarious as Juan Bandito, the meanest Mexican bandit in Drygulch. Candice was a close-runner up as Sally Forth, the Sheriff's mail-order bride with a mysterious mutating accent. Fritz was Rowdy Azell, a sweet-talking gambler and Ricki was Bibi Gunn, lady of the night. Jay and I rounded the group out as the town's drunk doctor and Miss Patience, the innocent schoolteacher. It was lots of fun and a lot better than watching Peter murder "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on Guitar Hero.