Wedding Cocktail Hour Slideshow

We've just finished uploading the slideshow that was playing during the cocktail hour at our wedding. You can find it here on Facebook. Don't worry, you don't have to be a member to see the photos.

Enjoy!

Frances Swerdel's 90th Birthday Bash

We had a great time celebrating Frances' 90th birthday. After the fishing trip on Tuesday, the party preparations began in earnest. By Friday, most of the preparation was finished, and Frances treated 12 of us to a home-cooked meal at her place.



On Saturday, everyone had his or her own job: Jeff did an amazing job with the beef tenderloin.

Ellen's dog Bow didn't do much cooking, but was very useful in helping us to appreciate the size of the gigantic leeks.
Ellen's cousin's Jerry and Paul Langer came early on Saturday to help out with the vegetable skewers:


The dining room was a magnificent space, from the delicate, tall orchids to the backlit waterfall on the other side of the room.
Many of Frances' friends and family were there to help celebrate:

Abby and Lee
Aunt Sylvia, Ellen, and Emily Taylor Ellen and Steve and Emily Taylor
Elizabeth Gast and her daughter, Jane Kantrow
Mimi and Ruth

Roxanne, Jane, Peter, and the birthday girl, herself!

It was an elegant, warm, celebration of a woman who is an inspiration for all of her family and friends. Happy Birthday, Frances!

Fishin with Frances

After Atlanta, we headed to Florida to celebrate Peter's Grandma Frances' 90th birthday. On the Tuesday before her birthday, we went deep-sea fishing in Fort Lauderdale.

On the way out of the harbor, we passed by the horrifyingly gigantic Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world.

People make jokes, but don't let them mislead you. Fishing is hard work. Well, in our case, the one minute each of us had to reel in the fish was hard.

Below is a short clip of the first fish we caught...

Atlanta: More Princesses

In Atlanta, Peter had his first day of work at the CDC. Later in the week he actually packed himself a brown bag lunch, too. While the weather was generally crappy, we had a few moments of sunshine. Since the leaves had not yet fallen completely, we had some beautiful fall colors right in our hotel parking lot. This was the week of daughters. On Wednesday, we headed out to see Jonathan and Laurel in Athens, Georgia, where we took a short hike through the woods with their twin toddler girls and later hung out with their eldest daughter, Maddie. On Friday, we visited our friends, Steve and Stef, and meet their two-year old, Zoe.

On Saturday, we spent a great afternoon and evening with Peter's cousin Nancy, her husband John, and their daughter, Julia.


After hanging out with these girls, and with Sophie in Chicago, we were amazed by the high degree of their princess-expertise. And not just any princess. Disney Princesses. To be fair, not every girl mentioned either a princess character or her princess Halloween outfit, but the ones that did were very serious about the whole thing. It was sort of funny (and scary) to watch our friends and family try to limit the princess-quotient in their daughters' lives.

Later in our trip, while his three-year-old daughter was playing nearby, one of our friends used a age-old parent trick and said, "For Halloween, she really wanted to be a P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S." Apparently even uttering the word could cause too much trouble...

The other major highlight of our Atlanta trip was a short visit to Stone Mountain Park. The "mountain" is 825 feet tall, and and 1,683 feet above sea level. More importantly, it features a gigantic memorial to the Confederacy, a carving of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.

We thought it was a State Park, so were somewhat confused by the somewhat expensive ($10/car) entry fee. When we later saw all the signs for tickets and Christmas shows and snow tubing and cable cars and mini-golf...we realized we were wrong. The "attractions" were a bit cheesy for us - we struggled, actually to escape the piped-in Christmas carols - but the hike was fantastic.

A tiny bit of business to finish up......and then we were off!

Although I, hailing from the land of Lincoln, was somewhat suspicious about a park that might be glorifying the Confederacy, I found the park to be pretty un-offensive, in general. We were pleasantly surprised to see lots and lots of minorities hiking the mountain. It was only today, while researching the park online, that I read about its ties to a certain racist, white-hooded secret society. Maybe for the hikers, ignorance is bliss?

Adventuremoon Part 3: Toronto

On the way to Toronto, we stopped at Niagara-on-the-Lake a cute little town on Lake Ontario. The main strip in town featured retail shops selling what seems to be the standard selection of North American tourist-desires: fudge; knick knacks (keychains, magnets, etc. featuring thousands of first names, never including mine); and mustards/dressings/sauces, sold by a store with dozens of sample stations and seemingly no actual customers. I would say that the street was typical New England, but does that apply to Canada?

We also tasted wines at Stoney Ridge Estate Winery, one of the Niagara region's numerous wineries. We especially loved the regional specialty, ice wine.

In Toronto, we hung out with Rachel and her awesome dog, Grendel, at their home near the hipster-heavy Ossington Avenue. Grendel, who is not small, sometimes thinks and acts like a lap dog. Hilarity ensues.

I was thrilled to give Rachel my various books and magazines to help her with preparations for her wedding in April. I'd lugged those books from Philadelphia to Liberia to Morocco to Illinois and now to Toronto - and now I am free!!!

On Sunday, we went on a quick driving tour of Toronto (like New York, but cleaner) and admired the large construction equipment by her apartment.

And with that, Part 3 of the adventuremoon had come to a close.

Adventuremoon Part 3: Niagara Falls (or, Just Like Pam and Jim)

Since we already live overseas and have either been to and/or will be going to many popular honeymoon spots for vacations or long weekends, we decided to skip the usual suspects - Italy, Zanzibar, Hawaii - and go for the truly glamorous for Part 3 of our adventure:

Niagara Falls.

When we told friends and family, many of them reacted with, "Just like Jim and Pam!" Apparently, a month before we arrived in Niagara, Jim and Pam from The Office tied the knot at what apparently used to be one of America's most popular honeymoon destinations. In general, we were impressed with the falls, which are on the Niagara River, which forms part of the US - Canadian border. The frequent rainbows make for lots of silly but entertaining photography (see above). The land on the US side is a State Park, and has some pleasant walking trails, but is a bit misty and not particularly good for admiring the falls.

Most hotels (including ours) are on the Canadian side of the river. No visit to Niagara would be complete without a "romantic" set, so we checked into a room on the 14th floor of the Oakes Hotel. Because hotel's websites are not always crystal clear about the amenities included in the rooms, Peter had to be very clear with the reservationist when he called:

P: Just one question. Does this room have a whirlpool?

R: Yes, sir.

P: What, um, shape is the whirlpool?

R: It's a heart, sir.

P: Ok, good. Just making sure.
Tub, view and swan-shaped-towels notwithstanding, we only stayed there one night, and the second day we had an unusually warm and sunny morning for walking around.
Soon, though, we were in the car on our way to the next stop...

Adventuremoon Part 2: Chicago and the Giant Bean

In Chicago we dined with our friends, Corey and Beth at Graham Elliot. The portions were a bit small for my taste, but we loved the white-truffle-Parmesan-popcorn that was served gratis with our drinks, so we ate another basketful when we were still hungry after dessert. I love interesting food, and I love eating at restaurants where the chef has designed the food very, very carefully - from the ingredients to the methods to the presentation - but I just wasn't into this place. Or maybe the (very interesting) cocktails weren't strong enough.

We had heard lots about Millenium Park, so we met our friends Beth (a different one) and Cody there. My favorite thing at the park was a
gigantic metal sculpture that the Chicagoans call The Bean.
At my friend Susie's house, we met her adorable kids, Ben and Sophie.


Their family hadn't been able to come to our wedding, so they surprised us with a cake designed just for us. In fact, we had had no cake at our wedding (we chose to have various pies and apple desserts instead), so we took this opportunity to feed each other some cake.


Susie had made us a delicious homecooked meal of pot roast, roasted butternut squash, and rice - and after so much restaurant eating of late, we were thrilled.

At brunch the next morning, we tried to do a girls vs. boys crossword competition, but the two Sunday puzzles we had were just too much. After saying goodbye to our wonderful hosts, Corey and Ashlee, we were on the road again...