Spotted in Gowanus...

Sunday, August 15, 2010.

Heading to the Bysterious Beyond!

My sister, Hillary, and I started a new family tradition last year: Camping at Clearwater State Park in western Pennsylvania.

Last year it was just Hillary, Spencer, Wyatt, Seth and me. This year TWO new additions joined in on the family fun--my brother-in-law, Dan, and brand new nephew, Jesse.

The whole trip was great fun, but my favorite part was heading back into the "Bysterious Beyond."

Finding more cool rocks to climb on...

...and more mushrooms to photograph for Spencer's collection. That's Spencer's finger, for scale.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:

1) Tubing. My camera battery died, so I didn't get any pictures--in the water, that is. (Hill, if you're reading this, you'll have to e-mail me a few photos to post here! Oh, and thanks so much for the awesome wedding gift. Seth and I love our new big blue inflatable "wedding rings.")

2) Friday night dinner featuring Hillary and Dan's chicken and veggie kebabs with tzatziki sauce. Delicious, colorful, and artfully arranged on the grill!

3) The Corbett Road sign Dan found while running errands. (Dan actually took photos of the Corbett sisters--aka Hill and me--standing in front of the sign but I was having a really bad hair day/bad T-shirt day and am too embarrassed to post the pics here. Note to self: face cleanser is NOT a good substitute for shampoo and the Cats T-shirt was cool in high school, but it's not so hot now.):

4) Discovering that Jesse can sleep anywhere, in any position. Too funny!

5) Chilly evenings at our cozy campsite. Check out more photos here at flickr!

Another peephole...

...this one at Observatory:

June/early-July Redux - PART 3

Here's an email from my dad a couple weeks ago. He wrote, "Most scholars use a system that has BCE and AD, with BCE meaning before common era and AD meaning anno domini. For most people we are in the year 2010 AD, but for your mom and I we are in week three aTp. In our life we have before THE party and after THE party as our current time landmarks. I pretty sure this way of counting time will recede into the background sometime during 2011 AD." By THE party he means Seth and my wedding reception. I guess that's life when planning an important event. Ever since around Christmas, when we decided to throw a shindig to celebrate us getting eloped, I've been marking time this way as well, but I didn't have a handy name for it. Here's life bTp and aTp:

bTp

Exploring Green-wood Cemetery, one tiny peephole at a time:

Checking out the brand spanking new Luna Park...

...with everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) and their mothers. There was such a mob scene at the Stillwell Ave. subway stop when we decided to head home that I'm surprised no one got trampled. Other than that, though, it was--as always--a fun day at Coney Island.
Arranging hundreds of tea roses into lovely centerpieces for THE party:

aTp

Chillaxin' with friends at Bridget and Kyle's beautiful home in St. Louis (and celebrating Bryan's b-day):

Gravity chairs! So much more comfortable than your ordinary lawn chairs. Seth and I are in the market for a new couch, but we might fill our living room with these babies instead.
What a ham!

Enjoying the sights and sounds (especially of the frogs--croaking to each other) at the Watershed Nature Center in Edwardsville, IL:

Back in NYC--window shopping at Bergdorf Goodman--and trying to re-acclimate to life after THE party.

Spotted in Red Hook...

Street art:

More street art. (The one on the right is made out of tiny, intricate paper cuts. It's pretty neat):Bob Diamond's trolly cars:

A distant view of Lady Liberty:

Bright lights in the big city:

June/early-July Redux - PART 2

One of the great things about traveling with my mother-in-law, Shirley, is that she loves taking in the sights by car, whether we're in L.A., Portland, OR, or NYC. Here are some of the highlights from our driving tour of St. Louis. First stop, the Jewel Box, an Art Deco-style structure built in 1936 in Forest Park:

This is a snapshot of the Carl Milles' Fountain and Union Station:

Just north of Union Station is White Knight Diner, the sandwich shop Susan Sarandon made famous in White Palace. I ate there way too much when I worked downtown. They serve a mean grilled cheese on rye...

...but we opted for lunch at Schlafly's instead. According to their Web site, it's Missouri's first brewpub.

The chauffer, aka Seth, aka Mr. Rachel Corbett

Back in the car...this is the old Kiel Opera House, which barely escaped the wrecking ball when the Scotttrade Center arena was built. Glad it did. I saw the Pixies here when they opened for Love and Rockets way back when. It was a great show!

No trip to St. Louis is complete without seeing the arch. For your viewing pleasure, the Gateway to the West as seen looking east:

June/early-July Redux - PART 1

It seems a little rain would cool things down a bit. Not so. This must be what hanging out inside a mouth feels like. Baby, it's hot outside and I don't want to do nuthin', except maybe go to the movies (Toy Story 3 really is as good as the critics say it is!), lounge in front of the a.c. with a good book and watch a stupid amount of Bones episodes on Netflix. So what's new? A wedding reception in the midwest. After Seth and I eloped in November my folks asked if they could throw us a party. YES, PLEASE!!!! So, we headed to Illinois to celebrate with my hometown friends and family on June 10.

It really couldn't have been more fun. Seth and I got to hang out with family and friends, meet my brand-new nephew for the first time (and he's so cute), get a special marriage blessing from my dad (aka Deacon Dan), listen to a jazz band that was so good they just knocked my socks off, and eat yummy, yummy cake...German chocolate, carrot, pina colada, Italian cream, chocolate raspberry, each flavor better than the last:

Thanks for the party, Mom and Dad--and thanks for the memories. It was so good to see everyone. (If you're reading this and you were at the party--I miss you and wish I could see you more often!) Check out the slideshow on my flickr account for more (many, many more) snapshots. Also my cousin Emily wrote a fun post about the party on her blog, too. Thanks, Em! It was great to see you.