This Christmas, I asked Paul for one present – have our data recovered from our damaged external hard drive (the one thing broken in the move to Musselburgh).  Paul came through big time, with some help from both sets of parents.  We now have all our digital photos back, yay!!!!  So, better late than never – our photos from the trip home to Boston last May are now finally up on our flickr site which you can look at via the photos section on this blog.  The photo sets include Bethany and Jeff’s wedding day, visiting with Boston friends, being touristy in Boston and Paul’s random folk session in Cambridge.

Yay for happy memories – thank you Broon!

This summer was a busy one for Broon and I.  We started off in May going back to Boston for a visit to see a great friend of ours get married and to see loads of lovely people we miss in Boston.  We took sooo many pictures as it was our first big holiday with our new camera… and then when we got home, we uploaded those photos to the external hard-drive on the computer and deleted them from the camera to make more room for work photos I needed to take at the church that weekend.  Three weeks later we moved to Musselburgh.  The move was smooth and all went well…. except our hard-drive has gone bust so sadly, no Boston photos to share…. but plenty of Boston memories.

Thanks soooo much to Lisa, Matt, Melissa and Tommy for looking after us.  Thanks to Bethany and Jeff for including us in your big weekend!  (Paul had the chance to sing in Bethany’s wedding – a Rascal Flats song I love – it’s the same one Bethany sang for us at our wedding…)  We also loved celebrating Pentecost at the Watershed worship service at our friend Rob’s church in Waltham.  It was lovely to be home in Boston again and definitely confirmed for us that when we move back stateside – it will be back to Boston.

My favourite part of the flat

But in the meantime, Musselburgh has definitely become our home sweet home.  We moved here in June and have loved having a summer by the seaside.  This is our first place we rented on our own since we were married three years ago and it’s been so lovely to be in our own place.  We have a guest room which doubles as Paul’s music room.  He can quite happily be heard strumming the banjo there.  The living room is my favourite place to be – loads of light and now all of our books are no longer piled in cupboards.  We actually have bookcases!  Late in summer we had a flatwarming party which was lovely to share the new place with our friends and family here.  For a look at the flat and the nearby seaside/harbour – have a look in the photo gallery.

The end of summer brought even more change – I’ve got a new job! For the next year I’ll be the Youth and Children’s Officer for The Diocese of Edinburgh covering the maternity leave of a good friend. I started a couple weeks ago and it’s brilliant.  Loads of new challenges and new connections.  This job is part-time so I’ve left afterschool club and now work full time in ministry between the new job and my other job at the church.  It’s a real joy to get to use my degree more and have the opportunity to spend more time thinking about the theology of children’s ministry and youth ministry.

As fall is quickly approaching, we are discovering a new season by the seaside and are enjoying seeing the sunsets and walking along the blustery harbour. We’re very much looking forward to mom and dad’s upcoming visit in November.  There are times when the Atlantic Ocean seems bigger than before – now is definitely one of those times.  While I love living here, I continually miss my family.  Right now, my Aunt Barb is fighting cancer for the second time.  I would give anything to be back by her side in New Jersey as she goes through the treatments. I wish it were possible to live nearby both our families at all times.  For now we will appreciate every moment with the Browns whilst we live in Musselburgh and when the Fawcetts come over for a visit we will spend as much time as possible with them and we will save up to go home soon for a visit again.

Mish and I have just returned from our trip to Boston.  We had a great time reconnecting with our friends, seeing our old stomping grounds and even discovering some new ones.

This trip turned into a bit of a musical adventure.  Our friend Bethany had asked me to sing at her wedding (a favour I was happy to be able to repay as she had sung beautifully at ours in 2006).  Bethany is the Contemporary Music Director at Newton Presbyterian Church, where the wedding was to be.  She has assembled a talented bunch of musicians and it was great to be able to play in a band again.   After some rehearsal I managed to get through the song without messing up too much and the backing was great from the guys.

I had also dragged my banjo over the ocean with me. I don’t think I could stand being apart from it for a whole week so it was nice to be asked to sing a wee song at the reception in-between the sets from the Ceilidh band.

Before leaving, I had briefly looked for opportunities to play in Boston.  I had noticed a couple of open-mic nights and sessions but they just didn’t work with our schedule.  Our good friend Lisa, who we were staying with, had suggested we try the Cantab Lounge as it has a very well established open-mic night on Mondays.

By this point in the trip I must confess I was a little knackered.  We had been enjoying a nice dinner in Harvard Square with Lisa and Kelly who was visiting, so I wasn’t too bothered when time got away from us and we were quite late for the start of the open-mic.  I thought at this point it would be way too late to sign up and was actually relieved.

We decided to walk along to the bar anyway and check it out for next time.  On the walk over to Central Square we happened to walk passed a music shop called Sandy’s.  I remember buying guitar strings there when I lived in Boston for a short while in 2004.   I had to make a quick double take when I heard and saw a bunch of banjo, fiddle and cello players crammed in the shop and jamming away.

Unbelievably they were having an Old Time open jam session.  I plucked up the courage to ask if I could join them and they were more than welcoming, so I tuned up to the key of A and away we went.  I kept up with the playing as best as I could whilst Michelle, Lisa and Kelly managed to squeeze in to the shop and find a seat.

I shakily shared a couple of songs with the group and learned a good few more.  It was amazingly serendipitous to happen upon the session like that and I was thrilled to get the chance to  play with other clawhammer and traditional fiddle players.  It was interesting to hear the difference in styles between traditional American and Scottish traditional fiddle playing, particularly the cross-tunings and I learned a lot just by listening to what was going on.  I’ve made a good few mental notes of improvements I can make to my playing for the next time I accidentally come across a jam session.

Jon and Kathy, two of the musicians there,  have set up a nice website called planetbanjo.com where you can hear some soundclips of the type of music we were playing.

Here is a link to Sandy’s Music shop in Cambridge: www.sandysmusic.org You can find out more about their instruments,  services and regular jam sessions.

After a wee while we headed off to the Cantab but I was not overwhelmed by the place so decided to head home, my musical appetite already well and truly sated.

We’re in Boston, MA right now to go to a wedding and catch up with some friends. It’s nice to be back in the city and we’re acting like absolute tourists (we even bought mugs from the fake Cheers).

I’ll post more soon but in the meantime I’ll tweet when I get the chance.