It is Tuesday June Second 2009 and I welcome you all back. May was a small month for the blog, and besides we have been really busy. Work alone was buzzing, and we have be doing home projects like I have never done before. I will take some pics and post them here. My ability to work around the house has skyrocketed with the weight loss. I am building paver patios, mowing grass by hand, moving stone, cutting and splitting wood, building fire pits, building new walls to enclose the decks, designing woodland scenes, and all kinds of other projects! That might not sound all that impressive, but these were completed all in the last two weeks! Yesterday I went home, after working all day and cut and trimmed 30 8 foot by 12 inch by 1 inch pieces of lumber, and constructed the supports for the deck enclosure! That would have been unheard of last year. I think I want to take my hand at building a fishpond and perhaps a waterfall. That would be nice! Anyway, I broke my plateau on the 1st and was down to 262. I wrestled with between 265 and 270 for most of April and all of May. And although I was stagnant at that point, I still have been dropping shirt/pants sizes. So all is not lost.
Holiday Inn Randolph, MA
Where we stayed.
The bride (Joan) and her father
Joan and Eric, a lovely couple
Staircase at Lumbardo's where the reception was held.
Ellen looking hot in her LBD!
Ellen and her Cousins; (From left) Patty, Kathy, Ellen, Linda, and Lori. Ellen is very proud of the fact that she is no larger than they are!
Ellen's Mom and Dad are buried here. This is the flower arrangement we planted at the gravesite.
My truck in the really nice
Edgehill Grove Cemetery
It is Saturday June 6th 2009 and I am at a wedding!
So here is the situation. Ellen for whatever reason lost touch with her family in Massachusetts for like 10 years. She received an invitation to her second cousins son's Wedding. She decided it was time to mend some fences and we went. I have known they young man Eric for about 20 years and he was a great and brilliant child and he has grown into a fine young man. Joan, his bride is a stunning young lady who is in law enforcement. Eric, (who I did not get a chance to catch up to in depth) is an executive with a cable company or something. With Ellen's weight loss we needed to find the perfect WOW outfit, and in her current size she was ready to acquire the wardrobe staple that all women should own at least one of, I speak of the Little Black Dress or LBD.
First we went to a
nearby good sized city to look and we went to Allentown. This was fine
and at the Lehigh Valley Mall we found one. All women will know of
what I speak here: There are some dresses that you love, and some that
love you. This one Ellen really was in serious like, but it did not
love her. Don't get me wrong, it was ok, it just was not it. We
bought it anyway and went on our way. The Tuesday before we were to depart,
we found at Dress Barn, the LBD that you see in the pictures. This dress
loved her, and she it. It was perfect. We also picked up the pearl
necklace, and a bling watch for her to wear to go along with the outfit.
The next day I was scheduled for a haircut at 5:00 and at 4:30 my phone was
ringing for me to come to our local men's store to meet her. Heart in hand
I went, and she had picked out a new suit for me to wear in a kind of Prince
Of Wales Check pattern. It looked good on me so I went for it. The next
night I went to The Crossings, our local fashion outlet mall to help my
niece pick out some white dresses for her Eastern Star meetings. That takes
me to a sub point.
I have a couple of unique gifts. None of which have ever made me any money
what so ever. I am very talented at:
1. Pumpkin Carving
2. Deck Design
2. Roofing Birdhouses
4. Dressing Women
Anyway I am one of those men that knows weather your hair needs warm color
makeup and clothing or cool, The difference between an A line skirt, a
straight leg, or trumpet, and which one looks better on what body type. I
just have a knack for it. When my nieces want new clothes they tow Uncle
George along to help them pick out their clothing. This is why I was at the
Crossings. Anyway I had some time to kill and wondered into the Brooks
Brothers store. Now, for the well groomed and dressed man in the United
States, Brooks Brothers is our Meca. If in England we could go over to
Saville Row and have a Bespoke Suit made for us within a couple of months,
but here for the most part Brooks Brothers is it. Finally now that I am
down to a 17.5 to 18 shirt, and a size 50 suit, I CAN FIT IN BROOKS
BROTHERS! I wanted to go wild and shout to the rooftops! I was ready to
buy 5 new suits, shirts, ties, and the like, but Ellen came in and calmed me
down. We purchased my first Brooks Brothers shirt, tie, cuff knots, and I
looked fantastic. I was great arm candy for Ellen and I finally looked like
my title: "Vice President of Information Technology"
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Brooks Brothers Factory Outlet |
Prince of Wales Check pattern |
Me in my new Prince of Wales Check pattern suit, Brooks Brothers tie, cuff knots, and shirt |
So after taking care of some medical stuff we left Friday morning to go to Massachusetts. We were supposed to go to Cambridge and pick up a copy of Ellen's divorce decree so she could get some Social Security stuff figured out, but we did not make it on time. Instead we arrived early, and get settled in to the hotel, and went on a romantic journey into Boston. We took the train in from Quincy to city hall. The new silver line is neat. Electric trolley buses run underground on this line. We walked around the city to view the green space that was created by the Big Dig when the Central Artery was replaced by a system of tunneling. The green space was nice, but the air had a chill to it so we went to find Ellen's favorite food; Lobster. We went to a place named The Barking Crab. Ellen got a 2 pound lobster and had a really tough time eating it. I got the shrimp and was fine with that. This guy next to us was in to visit the Children's Museum. Their prices drop after 5pm so he was killing time until then. he ordered crawdads and was trying to get me to eat them. They were tasty but not much to them. I preferred my shrimp. After dinner we had to walk some more as we needed to walk off some dinner. Then we took the train back to Quincy and drove back to the hotel with a stop at Dunkin Doughnuts, for a cup of tea.
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The Barking Crab Restaurant, Boston Mass |
The next morning we got up late,
and went yard sale searching. we found some neat stuff, went back to the
hotel, took a nap and got ready for the wedding.
The wedding itself was nice, and we conducted ourselves well, took the
appropriate pictures saw, some cousins we had not seen in quite a while,
Danced, and had a great time. These two are a great pair, and I hope they
find all the happiness they seek. To think at all started (According to
Dave) with a stolen duck. The duck was returned in a glass box to
which I affixed a note: The Duck Stops Here, and signed it Harry S.
Truman. (ha! ha!) I kill me.
It was held at a church that had burned down in 1995 and rebuilt to what appears to be its original footprint. So you had a real pretty old fashioned church with all the modern conveniences like central air, elevators and such. The music was nice and the people wonderful. We got to visit a bit with Linda and Patty before the ceremony. Linda had always kind of amazed me. I had always thought the resembled Princess Dianna 10 years ago, and she looks better and better every time I see her. She has a sparkling personality, and a joy to be around. Her husband Wally is an awesome down to earth guy, Lori (Linda's sister) is more serious and a great person. I love to talk Civil War with her husband Chuck. They are Eric's (The groom) parents. Allen and Kathy are fun folks and I enjoyed talking to Allen all night at the reception. Patty (The groom's grandmother) is the matriarch of the family and she is just wonderful to be with. All in all great people, great time, Great Wedding.
Sunday we got up from a good nights rest and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant with Ellen's family. After saying our goodbyes we traveled to Framingham, and visited riverside greenhouses and picked up the prerequisite flowers for the grave there. Here are buried Ellen's mom and Dad. They were great great people and had a huge impact on my life. They were nice folks who cared what a kid had to say. The picture here is how we left the grave with the planter red white and blue flowers. Here is also a picture of my truck in the cemetery. I love this cemetery, I think it is really nice and it reminds me of a campground.
We stopped in Connecticut for lunch Sunday at
Denny's and had an average lunch with too much to eat.
After a long ride home, we arrived safe and sound home in PA. A good time
had by all.
