theparkerfamily.org

Naebody in Particular podcast cover: a collage of old family photographs, handwritten letters, a magnifying glass and a fountain pen

Naebody in Particular

You won't find them on a shortbread tin, but our ancestors live on so long as we keep telling their stories. Scots, Yanks, Canucks and the Auld Enemy. Newest posts are the ancestors, but scroll for the living.

  • Wedding: “Peacock” wins, again …

    [screenshot]Boy, was I silly … and thankfully I have bridesmaids to straighten me out when I get off track.

    Instead of trying to match the blog’s look and feel to the save-the-date stuff, I should have been trying to make the blog work with to the bridesmaids dresses — which are a glorious color of Peacock. Rule number one of marriage: the world revolves around women’s clothing.

    With this lesson in mind, I have come up with a special, limited-edition “Peacock” design for our marital blog. All you need to do to experience this beauty is to click on this special peacock link and viola! Peacocks galore … (you might have to click the link twice)

    If for some reason you would prefer to *not* match with our bridesmaid dresses — you renegage — click here be awash in flowers once again.

  • Wedding: Ch-ch-ch-changes (launch, v9)

    [screenshot]Well, if you are one of our three loyal readers, you will notice we have changed things up a bit. The big impetus is that we have to get “save the date” notes out to our adoring masses, and being a good marketer I want to (a) have everything looking pretty when people are looking, and (b) want to have continuity between what you get on the web and what you get in the mail.

    Of course, the funny thing here isn’t that I am a slave to online engagement best-practices, but that we have *so* much done … but haven’t done the guest list, which is usually a pre-requisit to both save-the-date cards and, well, wedding planning. We have a church, a reception, a hotel, a dress, attendants, bridesmaids dresses, a band, a photographer, as well as solid leads on a florist, a cake, an after-party, a honeymoon and the rehearsal dinner … but don’t know who is going to see any of it.

    In other news, over the weekend we did our very first cake testing. We went up to Custom Cake Designs (in Gaithersburg, Maryland) who did the cake for our foodie-friends Sue and Jeremy’s wedding. It was about what you would expect — histrionic brides as far as the eye could see — but it was interesting to talk about cake decoration as if it were an art form up there with “ballet” and “lying to White House reporters.”

  • Wedding: Honeymoon in Belize?

    Courtesy Google Maps

    Courtesy Perry-Castañeda Library

    Well, we have been bouncing all over the place, but we may finally have a honeymoon.

    We went into the wedding with three thoughts on the honeymoon: (1) international — or someplace we can’t go with 5 kids in tow; (2) someplace neither of us had been too before; (3) someplace were we would NOT felt like we had an agenda, or had to get up early every mourning to “tour.”

    We started out thinking about Costa Rica, but The Lady Sparkler had already been. We then toyed with St. John’s and the US & British Virgin Islands, but that fell through at the last minute. We think we have now settled on Belize, a small, Central American country once known as British Hondouras.

    A friend of a friend of a co-worker thrice removed (or something like that) recommended we talk with Timothy Burke of Burke Travel out of Kansas City, Missouri. Always suckers for recommendations, we called him up and have had great luck. Very helpful with ideas.

    I mentioned earlier that the only “remorse” of our married friends was not spending enough on photography, and that is mostly true. The “other” remorse seems to be (a) leaving for the honeymoon too quick, and (b) not taking enough time off for the wedding and honeymoon. So, it looks like we aren’t going to leave until three days after the wedding, and will be gone for a little under 10 days.

    For those in the Belize “know,” we haven’t finalized anything yet, but we are looking at the Turtle Inn in Placentia, and Chaa Creek Lodge outside of San Ignacio.

  • Photos: Yorktown, Virginia

    Main Battlefield

    Explore the Flickr Photoset:
    Yorktown Battlefield, Yorktown, Virginia

  • hike: washington monument state park

    [ The Washington Monument, Washington Monument State Park, Boonsboro, Maryland ]
    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    Washington Monument State Park, Boonsboro, Maryland

  • Photos: Antietam, Maryland

    Landscape

    Explore the Flickr Photoset:
    Antietam National Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland

  • Photos: Snowfall in Arlington

    Snowfall

    Explore the Flickr Photoset:
    Snowfall in Arlington, Virginia

  • photos: fort foote

    Rodman Cannon

    Explore the Flickr Photoset:
    Fort Foote National Park, Maryland

  • photos: Fort Washington

    Tunnel to Rear Formation

    Explore the Flickr Photoset:
    Fort Washington National Park, Maryland

  • Photos: There and Back Again

    As I have complained before, it’s been a little cold for photography … and it’s even snowed several times in the last two weeks (which almost scandalous for Washington, DC).

    While I am enough of a New Englander to not complain about 4 inches of snow, I am enough of a DC’er to allow the snow to suck out my will to leave the house.

    I have spent the last couple of weeks playing around with the camera in my cell phone (an LG-VX8300) which is somewhat shocking in that it has the same resolution as my three year old Canon PowerShot A60.

    Over the space of about 8 days, I took some snaps documenting the way to and from work, and below are a sample of what it produced.