This is a fire burning in a pit in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant near Mission Beach in San Diego. Jen had a brand new camera and we were messing with manual settings. We both have a few shots similar to this.

We appear to be back to reality now. One week after returning from the honeymoon, the laundry is done, the gifts are put away, the kitchen and bathroom are as clean as they were the day we moved in, the new grill has been used, the popcorn popper has been used, stuff that’s been out since weeks before the wedding has been put away, we went food shopping, we ate a dinner at home instead of at a restaurant.

Most of that was Jen’s doing. She reached the fed-up-with-our-messy-place limit a little bit before I did and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom while the kids and I tackled the mountains of laundry. Jen is awesome. There, I said it. Now you know why I married her.

Last week we watched Star Wars: Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith with the kids. It was their first time seeing it. They loved it even if a few parts scared them a little. Last night we exposed them to another all time great movie. Spaceballs. I knew a lot of the jokes were going to go over their head. I didn’t expect them all too. Or most of them at least. They liked it, but the howls of laughter we were hoping for never arrived.

Yesterday was my first Father’s Day as a step father. I’m torn on how to feel about it. I loved it, of course, but I felt unworthy of the attention. The kids have a father, they in fact made him breakfast in bed yesterday, and he isn’t me. I think I should get the Federal Government to officially designate a day in the summer as Step-Parents Day. That way we can remove all ambiguity. I think the second Sunday in August would work. Sure the overwhelming majority of families wouldn’t even know it’s there, but it could spread the warm and fuzzies for another day and we all know Hallmark would totally jump on the wagon. hehe Just a thought.

I still have a few days worth of Honeymoon pictures to sort through and we have over a thousand wedding pictures to look at too. Lots of work to do!

Does this work?

There are two things to celebrate today. First, Happy Father’s Day, where applicable. If you’re a Dad then enjoy your day. For everyone, happy first day of Summer. Summer officially began around 2:00am eastern time or so. something like that. We here in Eastern Massachusetts are celebrating this momentous event with rain. Lots of it.

Yippee for summer rain!

The "other" Kimball's. Carlisle, MA.

My wife received her first government letter with her new name on it.

I’ve added some more pictures to Flickr, including this one of my feet touching the Pacific Ocean. A first for me!

Remember earlier today when I said I wasn’t going to post anything to Flickr until i had it all sorted out?

Changed my mind.

Everything through 6/5/09 will be posted shortly.

I’m fickle with my flickr.

Here’s just a tiny bit of proof that I am indeed sorting through my honeymoon pictures. This was taken from the Lincoln Memorial during the first of our two days in Washington, DC.

I’m Working on It!

If you’re one of those people (okay, if you’re that person) who is itching to see the honeymoon pictures allow me to say this:

I’m working on it.

I have pictures from our day wandering around Vermont up on Flickr, but still no more yet. When I get into picture-taking-uber-nerd mode (as I was for the entire honeymoon) I used a burst function on my camera and take up to five shots of each thing I point at. The idea being if the light is low and the risk of blurriness is high then hopefully one of the five will look okay. The downside of that is I have five times as many pictures to sift through when pulling out the keepers.

I have five more days worth of photos sorted out now but I am going to wait until I have everything done before uploading any more. It’ll hopefully be done this weekend, but for now my caffeine addition is calling me… and I wanna go play with the kids. hehe

I’m working on it!