my baby brother jake and his lovely wife erika are expecting their second baby boy in november, so of course the kid needs a quilt from his future favorite aunt. once erika and jake settled on the name barrett, complete with all the bear related nicknames imaginable (bear, little bear, brother bear, baby bear, bearbear….), […]
family
the remainder of july

before i begin this post, can we just take a minute to acknowledge that i am about to complete that task of getting this blog entirely caught up, 20 posts covering the past two months, just in time for derek and i to depart for an epic adventure (which will necessitate a plethora of new […]
2023 summer road trip. week one. batavia.

summer in north carolina is super dumb. hot. humid. and dumb. this year, we escaped much of said dumbness by heading north for most of july. our first stop on the road trip took us to my homeland of batavia, new york. we piled into the subaru, which feels smaller and smaller each summer, but […]
a ridiculously long post about april ’23.

well. you would think a post about april would be super short, considering we spent the first week on spring break, and all of that was detailed in previous posts. but, alas, sometimes when there’s not much excitement going on, these miscellaneous monthly posts get a lot more attention. or so it is in this […]
january.2023.

ok. so here’s the stuff that happened in january, excluding spontaneous trips to western new york to watch the bills playoff game vs. the dolphins, isaac’s 16th birthday festivities, and the one cake i made. spoiler alert. the rest is sort of boring. but here goes. lets begin with some happenings while i was away […]
whirlwind solo adventure to WNY.

with a pair of tickets to the bills game in hand (or saved to my phone using cyber space magic), i began preparing for my trek north for the big adventure. there was some debate about the entire family heading up for the weekend, but that would require missing school and a lot of logistical […]
bills v. dolphins, the playoffs.best ever makeup birthday gift.

in november, i was supposed to attend the bills-browns game for my birthday gift. then, a massive snowstorm struck the area the day before the game, and it was moved to detroit. we were issued a massive refund (140% of our original ticket prices), so when the bills first playoff game was scheduled for a […]
december of ’22 miscellany.

aaaaaand. here’s my obligatory post about the in between moments of the last month of the year twenty twenty two anno domini. firstly, anna’s basketball season continued on. the games are not all that exciting to watch. a lot of turnovers, jump balls, and fouling. not a lot of scoring. and anna doesn’t play much, […]
august in western new york.

usually, we head up to western new york for our annual summer pilgrimage in june or maybe early july. but this year, my baby brother’s wedding was set to take place in august, so we planned our excursion around the wedding date. we arrived the weekend before the wedding, so we could get in some […]
july things.

as i look at the photos from july, i am realizing it was pretty uneventful, outside of our trip to the beach. so, this will be quick. i promise. firstly. there was the fourth of july. my pal stephanie has neighbors who hail from the great city of buffalo (or, well, like me, near buffalo). […]