Back in August, Aaron and I spent a weekend on the Cape with his family. We were thrilled to learn that the annual Cape Top Chef event had been planned for during our visit. For those of you who are not familiar with Top Chef, it’s a television show on which successful chefs compete in a variety of cooking challenges. Molly, Emily and Andrew are all fans of the show and so a couple of years back they decided to have their own version of the competition. They do it along with two other families they are friends with. All the kids cook (10 in total, divided into 2 teams) and the parents get to eat and judge. Sounds pretty good, right? Now you understand why Aaron and I were so excited to be there this year as guest judges (which means we got in on the eating). It was really quite remarkable – the food was great and in an effort to be a thorough judge those of you familiar with my “selective eating” may be surprised to hear I tried both the shrimp and the lamb dishes. Admittedly though, I passed on the banana dessert – I just couldn’t do it. It was a great evening – check out the photos. (Note: some of the photos are a bit grainy as they were taken without a flash)

In June, Aaron and I joined Amy, Justin, Brian and Mom for a visit to the Strawberry Festival. It’s a local get together – a craft fair with games, music, farm equipment and of course, strawberry shortcake. We spent a few hours walking around. Justin enjoyed the tractors and trucks. In fact he and Uncle (Aaron) plowed an entire imaginary field together. Aaron rode shotgun of course. Click on the image above to see the rest of the photos from the festival.

The day after Christmas, Aaron and I hosted the whole family, plus our good friends Bonney and Patrick for a post holiday brunch. We made most of the food ourselves – muffins, latkes, tomatoes stuffed with sausage and cheese, egg casserole – and I’d have to say, things went pretty well. And it was great to have the time with everyone – one of my favorite things about the holidays.

You never know what’s going to happen when you pull your camera out. Back in November, Aaron and I made our usual trip down to DC to celebrate Thanksgiving with Aaron’s family. And keeping with tradition, we sat down to make centerpieces for the big table out of pizza dough. The girls and I were making cornucopias and Aaron and Andrew decided to do penguins this year. So, I took my camera out to take some photos and it turned into a serious photo shoot. My favorite shot is above – but make sure to check out the album which includes some other fun images from Thanksgiving, as well as pictures of the finished centerpieces.

Early in the summer Rita came up for a weekend to visit. Amy and Joe and Justin joined us for a lobster dinner one night over the weekend. Actually, half of us had lobsters and the other half had delicious panini. Justin was fascinated with the lobsters, but kept a safe distance – and as you can see above, he kept the shell crackers handy.

At the end of March Aaron’s Mom came up to visit us for a weekend. While she was in town, we caught up with Leah, a cousin of Aaron’s who we were surprised to learn lives in Brighton. The four of us met at Wu Chon House, a Korean restaurant, for dinner. Aaron estimates that he was about 13 years old the last time he saw Leah and I of course had never met her, so it was really great for us all to be able to have dinner together.

For Aaron’s birthday this year, I took him to New York City for the weekend. The initial inspiration for our trip was Will Ferrell’s Broadway show, You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush . I bought us tickets to see that show and then planned the weekend around it. We ate lot’s of interesting and good food: Turkish Friday night at Ali Baba, Saturday lunch at Katz’s deli (where Aaron had the biggest pastrami sandwich I have ever seen), Saturday dinner we had Korean barbecue at Madangsui and finally a crazy brunch (huge portions – way too much food) at Norma’s. We walked the city a bit, explored some neighborhoods and stayed pretty low key. We had a very relaxing weekend away – a successful celebration if I do say so myself.

Andrew and Rita came up from the Cape to spend the weekend of July fourth with us. We had a cookout on Friday night and Mom, Amy, Joe and Justin joined us. Andrew and Justin were fast friends and it was fun for the rest of us to watch Justin run around the house saying “Andy coming” which is his way of saying ‘come on.’ For the rest of the weekend Andrew and Aaron played video games, watched movies and ran a few errands while Rita and I kept busy in the garden. It’s nice for us to finally have a place where people can come and stay comfortably. On Monday, before Rita and Andrew headed back, we had sundaes at Putnam Pantry, a local candy and ice cream parlor that features a smorgasbord sundae bar. The above picture of Aaron and Andrew enjoying (?) their ice cream was taken there. Click on the photo to see the album from the weekend.

If Aaron needed any further confirmation that the house we bought last fall is the right place for us, he got it in June when a Chipotle, Aaron’s favorite chain restaurant, opened less than 3 miles, and less than a 10 minute car ride, from our house. They don’t recognize him as a regular yet, but I think they will soon. And I’ll even admit that the food is pretty good.

Back at the end of May, Bonney and Emily came east for the second annual Girls Weekend. Last year they came and stayed with me in Salem and we had so much fun, we decided to do it again, but this time to go somewhere new – so the three of us ventured north, to Ogunquit Maine. We rented a 2 bedroom cottage at The Dunes, which was perfectly lovely. It was nothing fancy, but had a small full kitchen, living room with fire place and TV, bathroom, 2 bedrooms, screened in porch and some Adirondack chairs outside from which you could see the ocean. It was pretty sweet. We got pedicures, watched movies, shopped, chartered a sailboat, took a walk along the shore, lounged outside, read books and ate lots of yummy food. Here were some of our favorites:
- The Silver Lining – the sail boat we charted – it was great to be out on the water and we had the boat to ourselves, minus the crew.
- Harbor Candy Shop – an amazing home made candy store – Emily in particular was thrilled to find some candy called divinity? And Aaron did enjoy the fruit slices I brought home for him.
- Caffe Prego – casual pizza/salad/gelato place – we had dinner there one night. Good pizza.
- Barnacle Billy’s – dive fish fry place on the water with outdoor seating. Bonney must have eaten 4 or 5 lobster rolls over the long weekend and claimed theirs was the best.
- MC Perkins Cove – pricey, but good food, beautiful views, nice ambiance.

We had a great time. Next year Girls Weekend might be extended to Girls Week :) Click on the above photo (sorry the colors a little off) to see the album of photos from our trip.