Family and friends celebrate Daisy's 1st birthday

Dozens of family members, neighbors and friends gathered to celebrate Daisy's first birthday. Her parents, Shanna and Rick, hosted the gathering at the Rockland Gaelic Athletic Association on June 8. Here, the guest of honor poses with her big sister Lucy and her parents, Shanna and Rick - plus Shanna's parents and brother, Kevin (above) and Rick's parents and sister, Stephanie (below).

Daisy, whose actual birthday was May 31, was presented with a "smash cake" - which, after a few tentative pokes and licks, she dove into wholeheartedly.

Click here to see an album with MANY more photos!

Dan and Julie visit Dublin

Dan and Julie combined their trip to Scotland with a few days in Dublin.

Arriving Sunday and departing Thursday (Dan's birthday), they managed to catch a sold-out concert by popular Irish singer Mary Black...

 

...tour Dublin castle, see two cathedrals, visit the National Museum of Ireland...

...and hike along the Irish Sea coast at Howth.

They also saw a bit of Dublin's rock-and-roll history and caught live music at pubs in the Temple Bar nightlife district.

Click here to see a collection of photos from the trip!

Many have captions, which you can see when you click on the individual photos. You might also need to click the info icon (i).

Visiting Scotland for curling and more

As Rebecca and her teammates competed in the World Mixed Curling competition in Aberdeen, Scotland, eight members of her family traveled to cheer on Team USA and see other sights in the British Isles.

Rebecca's parents, Doug and Lisa, toured other Scottish cities before and after the competition, as did her Aunt Cathy and cousins Chrstopher and Stephanie. Her Aunt Julie and Uncle Dan combined a week in Aberdeen with four days in Dublin, Ireland. And sister Liz visited London, joined the group in Aberdeen and then toured extensively in Northern Scotland.

The Team USA foursome of Caitlin, Jeff, Rebecca and Jason were proud and happy to represent the Rochester Curling Club and Curling USA. On the ice at Curl Aberdeen, they enjoyed the competition and camraderie that characterize the sport. The team played hard and smart, ending with a won-loss record of 3-4 in the round-robin, short of the cutoff for the playoffs. In a Facebook post, Rebecca thanked "the most amazing teammates in the world. I can't think of better folks on and off the ice to have shared this experience with."

 

The trip provided a great opportunity for family members to get together as spectators and tourists. Just a few highlights: 

Dan, Julie, Cathy, Chris and Steph went on a small-group tour of the Highlands, including a boat ride on Loch Ness. 

Urquhart Castle alongside Loch Ness

On a rare sunny day, Doug, Lisa, Dan and Julie took a long walk through downtown Aberdeen to the beach on the North Sea. 

Castlegate Square in downtown Aberdeen

Touching the North Sea

And the whole family group joined Rebecca's teammates and their families and friends to watch Aberdeen Football Club defeat Partick Thistle in a Scottish League Cup quarter-final match.

Pre-game dinner

We had great seats!

Individually and together, clan members packed their trips with experiences all over the Scottish landscape - too many to list here. A big collection of photos taken by various family members is being compiled in a Google album.

Click here for a visual travelogue of the trip!

Jupiter visits our neighborhood

Jupiter's orbit has brought it closer to earth than it's been in 70 years. On Sept. 26, it was a mere 367,000,000 miles away. The following night, from his front yard in New Jersey, Dan managed to capture this image of the planet and three of its moons - (l to r) Europa, Io and Calisto. It's blurry, taken with a 250mm zoom lens, a 0.10-second exposure, and without a tripod. If you have a good camera, binoculars or telescope, check it out on any clear night soon! You'll likely see a different arrangement of moons.

Dan and Julie visit Christine, Jamie and Dan in California

Dan and Julie traveled to California in early May and had a wonderful time visiting Christine and Jamie in Los Angeles, and then Dan in Santa Cruz.

This was D&J’s first opportunity to see the apartment where Christine, Jamie and their cats have settled in since their cross-country move in late November. It’s in a quiet residential neighborhood in West LA, close to the Santa Monica city line and just two miles from Jamie’s office at Riot Games.

Over the next couple of days, the quartet visited the Santa Monica beach and pier; Griffith Park, in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the LA sprawl; and a botanical garden on the UCLA campus.

Following their weekend in LA, Dan and Julie took a short flight to San Jose, rented a car and drove to Santa Cruz, meeting the younger Dan at his apartment just a half-block from the beach on Monterrey Bay.

The trio visited the Santa Cruz pier, where they looked down at the sea lions and out over the bay toward the Big Sur mountains in the distance. They paid a brief visit to a small lighthouse just up the coast, where they could see more sea lions sunning on a rock and surfers riding low, long waves.

Then they drove several miles inland and uphill to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, where they walked a loop trail through a forest of towering Coastal Redwood and Douglas Fir trees. 

“Although it was a quick visit, we packed a lot in, and it was great to catch up,” said Dan.

For a full report on the trip - plus albums of photos - click here.

Andy, Wren and a week in the Arizona desert

Andy, Wren and Wren’s father, Rich, spent a week in the Phoenix area visiting with Rich’s mother and other family members.

In addition to family activities, Andy and Wren explored local hiking trails, the Phoenix Zoo, the Desert Botanical Garden, Fountain Park and the Musical Instrument Museum.

They were staying in the suburb of Fountain Hills, northeast of downtown. The town's Fountain Park features, yes, a fountain, which sprays as high as 560 feet for 15 minutes each hour, like a man-made geyser. (Click photos for larger view.)

Here's a sampling of Wren and Andy's photos from their trip.

Fountain Hills, Arizona

Hiking trails

(We assume this was in the zoo, not on a trail)

Musical Instruments Museum

Desert landscape

Sunset along the road

The colors of October in New Jersey

Trees reflected in Speedwell Lake

Dan writes: A favorite activity of mine around my birthday is to spend a day driving and walking through woods, to take in the autumn colors. This year, that day was dreary, but the next was beautiful, and Julie and I took a short drive to my original hometown of Morristown. We stopped first at Speedwell Lake Park for a pleasant stroll amid the trees at the water's edge. 

We then revisited Frelinghuysen Arboretum, where we've gone several times in different seasons.

The wide variety of trees there made for a wide variety of colors.

Back at home, I prepared a couple of pumpkins to serve as our Halloween decorations, incorporating squirrels' bites into the design.