Ottawa and More!

So much news!

We’ll have to take a break from explaining ourselves and what we do to explain where we have been for the past couple of weeks.First off, we went to visit my great-aunt, who is doing a magnificent job battling cancer. Spending a weekend with her was not enough, and we may try and visit her for Thanksgiving.

When we got back we had to hit the ground running. The annual American Fisheries Society conference started the subsequent week and Jon and I had to kick butt to get our presentations together. About mid week, I got good news; I was the recipient of the AIFRB travel award! It certainly made the work I had to do a lot easier to swallow ;-)

Me accepting my award at the conference

The next 8 days were a blur. They started with an eleven hour drive to Ottawa for the conference. Then we rubbed elbows with all sorts of interesting fisheries people, listened to some great talks, explored Ottawa, and spent buku-bucks on liquor at night! If anyone is thinking about visiting Ottawa soon, be aware that things cost a good deal more up there.

Jon takes on all of AFS...

he probably could have eaten half of 'em

Around the time we were preparing for the 11 hour trip back home I got a message from a venue Jon and I had visited and become smitten with. Another couple wanted our date and location! I immediately went into research mode, trying to figure out how many places could visit before the venue decision deadline (which was only a few days away!). Armed with my list, we made our way back to the US….

A sneak peak...

More to come on the venue search!

Pretty girls; awesome sunset!

We had one of those days of work that leaves you feeling, well, unsatisfied. So we came home, changed and took the dog for a job. When we got to the beach we looked out to a flat bay and said to each other: "why aren't we out on the boat?" So we went out and things just kept getting crazier.Buzzards Bay is known more for its afternoon chop then afternoon calm. So we were fairly excited to head out on near-glass. The air was cool, the breeze mellow, and the light perfect.
We headed out of the harbor into the bay and turned up towards Marion. We really didn't have anything much on our minds and I simply set a course, pegged the throttle, watched Talia's hair flowing in the breeze, the dog shivering and uncomfortable, it was great.

After awhile we decided to head back, and Talia wanted to drive, so I gave her the helm. She is really good with a boat but still a bit unfamiliar with the upper bay. As we headed down we spotted all of the navigational markers, discussed the rules of the road, and simply enjoyed the sunset. I tired to take some photos of Talia at the Helm but none of them came out so well (between the low light and rocking boat).

Just as we crossed back into Mattapoisett harbor things got crazy. The colors spectrum cascaded from orange to deep blue.
Then just as we pulled up to the mooring it really started to peak!
I was exceptionally happy to be out with my girls!
Talia and I hope to have the venue figured out soon. We should have a great post on the venue search, we saw some awesome place in New Hampshire!

ps. and then she made pie!

Most Important of All

Before a couple gets married, they ought to have a good idea that they can work through issues and problems together. It is SO easy to get wrapped up in the fun and festivities of planning a wedding and ignore the issues and problems. You can’t forget what getting married really means: you are going to spend the rest of your lives together! Therefore last night Jon and I went to a relationship counselor, because all this wedding talk has reminded us that we want to get along better so that “the rest of our lives” together can be better. (Photo Credit: Michelle Bachman)

The counselor we were going to see was a male, and so therefore I was expecting to spend an hour with Dr. Frasier Crane, of “Cheers” and “Frasier” fame.

Frasier is the one in the middle (Wikipedia.com)

The entire ride to his office I kept thinking that no matter what he looked like, he was going to remind me of Frasier; be he bald, tall, short, round, skinny... I thought up some pretty hilarious fake older men on that ride. Ahh, the things the brain does when you are a bit nervous.

As it turns out, the second we started talking all TV and movie thoughts left my head. This guy was going to help us work through communication problems and underlying issues in our relationship. I knew I liked him when he mentioned that often, one or the other partner will keep pursuing an issue and the other will put up a wall (that would be my forte), so the issue often goes unresolved. That issue doesn’t go away, however.

He told us to imagine that our brains are like a doll houses, and every time an issue gets dropped it gets shoved into one of the little rooms in our head. There may be several rooms, but eventually, if you have so many issues locked away, at some point there won’t be an open room to shove the issue in. And then it will blow up, in your face, hard.

His goal, as he explained it, was to help us open those rooms, and resolve the issues in a safe environment. It will need to be us doing the work, he can’t solve the problems for us. But he can give us better ways to talk about them and work through them. Has anyone else been to a therapist and found them helpful at unlocking doors or doing something else?