Confirmation

On Saturday, May 17, we celebrated Rebecca's confirmation.

It was fun to share the event with family, which included Rebecca's sponsor, her grandmother.

We even dressed up...a bit!

No grandparent could resist getting a picture with Rebecca on her special day.

All in all, it was a very nice day. It was nice that so many relatives made the trip and the weather cooperated nicely. Congratulations Rebecca!

FENWAY REDUX!

Once again, we were fortunate enough to get two Red Sox tickets, which are almost impossible to get these days. This time, Steve and Erik went to the game featuring the Boston Red Sox against the Toronto Blue Jays.

We had great seats, 6 rows behind the Red Sox dugout on the first base line.
The starting lineups were announced...

...and then Erik's favorite player, Manny Ramirez, led the charge onto the field.

"Big Papi" David Ortiz had a couple of hits on the night and Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield was okay, but the Red Sox couldn't manage to score any runs, foiled a few times by hitting hard shots right at Blue Jay defenders.

Steve & Erik even put on their "rally caps" with the hope of drumming up a little offense, but it wasn't to be on this night.

A. J. Burnett and the Toronto Blue Jays were too much for the Red Sox and beat them 3-0. Toronto closer B. J. Ryan came in to close the game in the 9th inning and it was all over.

In spite of the final score, we had a great time in seats that were very close to the field. Who says you have to win to have fun?

It's Track Season!

Rebecca had another track meet today. She ran her favorite event...the mile.

"ON YOUR MARK..."

"...GET SET..."
"...GO!!!"
Beginning her second of four laps.
Cruising through the third lap.
Powering to the finish!
Crossing the finish line (red arrow) with a new personal best!

GUTTERS AND "GOING GREEN"

After all these years in our house (ALMOST 20!!!), we finally got gutters.

We're also taking advantage of those gutters and trying to do a little "green" stuff with them. We got a couple of rain barrels and have them set up so that when the rains come, we'll be saving water for watering out garden and other plants around the yard. Since the local Ipswich River is considered "endangered" since it tends to run too low sometimes, every little bit of conserved water helps!

Attached to one of our new downspouts is a diverter that allows us to divert water into the barrel on the right. Once that barrel is filled, the overflow feeds into the second barrel. When the second barrel is filled, the overflow from that runs off elsewere, safely away from our foundation.

UPDATE - The first rainfall produced enough water to fill both barrels. IT REALLY WORKED!

IT'S SPRING!

Signs of Spring, including temperatures and blooms, have finally arrived!

An April Day At Fenway

Thanks to a raffle where Anne works, Steve and Anne were able to take in the Boston Red Sox versus Texas Rangers game on Sunday, April 20 at Fenway park. There were all kinds of pre-game festivities, including many ceremonial first pitches, as well as Wally the Green Monster and dancing Red Sox.

Red Sox starting pitcher Tim Wakefield wasn't particularly sharp, giving up 5 earned runs in 8 innings, including a first inning leadoff homer to Ian Kinsler and a 3-run homer to Milton Bradley. Still, over eight innings, he only threw 86 pitches, 68 of them for strikes, which is uncharacteristic for a knuckleball pitcher.
Big Papi had a big game, going 2-4 and scoring two critical runs late in the game.

After purging a 5-0 deficit with 2 runs in the 7th inning and 4 more runs in the 8th, it was time to bring in closer Jonathan Papelbon in the top of the 9th inning. As the song "Wild Thing" blasted over the Fenway public address system, Papelbon left the bullpen, exchanged a now familar fist pump with the bullpen security guard...

...and then took the mound for his warmup throws.

Papelbon set the Rangers down one-two-three in the 9th inning for the save. Tim Wakefield was happy to congratulate everyone for bailing him out and getting him the win.

Here's the final numbers for the game:

A Griswold Perspective

As we plan another summer vacation, in this case, "Griswold 2008 - Griswolds Go To Washington", it's good to remember the kind of fun that can be had on these trips as well as some of the small obstacles that can occasionally present themselves. In the spirit of those obstacles, I present the following:

This cartoon has GRISWOLD written all over it!