Category Archives: Occasions

When Rebecca met Sally

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On January 10th 1770 a baby girl was born in Boston Massachusetts. Her folks named her Sally Foster and were pleased to have the new addition to their Loyalist family. Despite their loyalty to King George III in England the family remained in Boston throughout the impending Revolutionary War. The young Sally grew up and was trained in all the subjects and manners that a young woman should be.

As a young woman she met a fellow named Harrison. They fell in love and eventually were married. Sally was known for her hostess skills and her ability to charm everyone she met. After six years of marriage Harry and Sally were able to build their first house together. The house was a beautiful Federal creation designed by Charles Bullfinch. The Otises moved their family into 141 Cambridge Street, Boston in the Spring of 1797.

**fast forward 200ish years**

January 10, 2005- Rebecca Wood celebrates her 26th birthday. She spends her week days split between the ***North Shore YMCA|http://www.northshoreymca.org*** and the ***Harrison Gray Otis House|http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm***. Although Rebecca has never met Sally, she feels a special connection with her. It is almost as if they are sharing a house, two hundred years separated.

So, Happy Birthday, Sally. Thanks for letting me pretend to live in your house!

Hope Natalie Mattina

On Christmas Day, 2004, my co-worker Chris “Win” Mattina* and his wife Jill* delivered a baby girl, who they named Hope Natalie. Hope was due to be born in March of 2005, so this delivery by emergency C-Section came as a bit of a surprise. Even more of a surprise to those of us here at work, since Win had not yet made an announcement that they were expecting a baby.

The Mattinas have set up a ***website|http://www.hopenatalie.com/*** with a photo gallery and a blog in order to share their experience with others. If you have a moment, stop on over and send your prayers, congratulations, and well wishes. I’ve turned off comments and pings for this post, in hopes that I can direct all of the goodwill over there.

As of the ***last update|http://www.hopenatalie.com/?postid=7***, Hope Natalie is doing well and it sounds like she is receiving the best in medical care. Please pray for the Mattinas and let them know that you’re thinking of them by way of the comments on their website.

* For those who don’t know, Chris and Jill are fellow ***Gordon College|http://www.gordon.edu/*** alumni, and Chris was in Gordon’s bell choir with Becky during her freshman year at Gordon.

Happy New Year! (Updated)

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Here’s a run-down of the events of New Year’s Eve.

Friday morning, Becky and I drove in to Boston and parked at the ***Otis House|http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm*** (yay for free city parking!). Becky had to work that evening from 5 to 9, since the Otis House was doing free tours as a part of First Night. As a bonus, Becky got two free First Night pins!

Our first trip was over to the ***New England Aquarium|http://www.neaq.org/***, which was giving away admission to First Night button-wearers (normally $15.95). We explored the exhibit halls, and saw lots of cool sea life such as penguins, jellies (the ‘proper’ name for jellyfish), giant sea turtles, and ***leafy sea dragons|http://www.divegallery.com/Leafy_Sea_Dragon.htm***.

After the aquarium, we walked over to the ***Common|http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/bostoncommon.asp*** to see some ice sculptures. They weren’t entirely complete yet, and some of them had started melting. In fact, the end of the ice dragon’s tail had fallen off! Nonetheless, they were pretty impressive. From the Common we walked to Copley Square and saw a few ice sculptures there, including one that said “CIRCUS”. You’ll hear more about that one later… ***Fire and Ice|http://www.fire-ice.com/*** was just a few blocks away, so we went there for their $7.95 lunch. Yum.

Our next destination was the ***Christian Science|http://www.tfccs.com/*** Mother Church. Christian Science is headquartered in Boston, and among other activities they were sponsoring for First Night was a free tour of the church. The inside of the church is quite impressive, with Byzantine-Renaissance architecture, and one of the world’s largest Aeolian-Skinner pipe organs.

At this point, Becky and I had to part ways, since she had to get over to the Otis House for work. I headed over to the ***Hynes Convention Center|http://www.mccahome.com/hynes/default.aspx***, where many of First Night’s family activities were taking place. I saw some spiffy trampoline acrobatics by ***The Skyriders|http://www.theskyriders.com/intro.htm*** and a display of juggling feats by Dan Foley and Joel Harris, the ***Airborne Comedians|http://www.airbornecomedians.com/***. At around the time these were finished, the “Grand Procession” was forming up just outside of the Hynes. I went outside to check it out. Though there were a lot of people involved, and there was a lot of noise and spirit, I didn’t get too much out of it. It was just too dark to see much of anything, and unless a float had its own illumination, you couldn’t really see what it was. So I walked up and down Boylston street for a while. At one point, I returned to Copley Square to see how the ice sculptures were doing. As I had mentioned earlier, one of the sculptures was a big top that said “CIRCUS” on top. Well, just as I was walking up to it, a big gust of wind picked up and blew over half of the sculpture! The half that was left standing said simply, “CUS”. Hah! Just a few minutes after it blew over, a news crew was on the scene, sure to have an amusing piece for the next day’s news.

Finally I decided to attend an Organ Recital at the Christian Science Mother church. Their organist wasn’t the most impressive talent I’ve ever heard, but the organ itself was quite a thing to behold. Some of the notes in the lowest registers caused my seat to rumble!

After the recital, I picked up some ***Krispy Kreme|http://www.krispykreme.com/*** donuts at the ***Prudential Center|http://www.prudentialcenter.com/*** and headed over to the Otis House to meet Becky when she got out of work. The day was a success for the Otis House, with over 300 visitors in total! We decided to go to a swing dance party at the ***Boston Park Plaza Castle|http://www.bostonparkplaza.com/default.asp?sID=banqu&pID=cast***. It was a good idea in theory, and it was fun to do a little bit of dancing, but the floor was very, very crowded, there was no live music (just canned recordings), and it was just getting late. So we called it a night at around 11. We headed home and the stroke of midnight found us in our car just as we were entering Beverly!

All in all a very full and fun day, and a good way to ring in the new year!

Photos of the day are available online ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/first_night_boston_2005***.

Update
Added captions to the photo gallery.

Update
News coverage in the ***Boston Globe|http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/01/01/first_night_draws_1_million*** and the ***Boston Herald|http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=61304***.

Update
Linked to the Airborne Comedians and Skyriders from within the blog entry.

Christmas Unwrapped

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So the Christmas holiday gatherings are finally over. My parents, along with Mark and Kirsten escaped the Ohio storms and power outages and came up to visit us in Beverly Monday night and Tuesday morning. They were here for less than 24 hours, but we still had a ***great time|http://gallery.prwdot.org/christmas_beverly_2004***. Going backwards, Christmas Day was ***spent in Townsend|http://gallery.prwdot.org/christmas_townsend_2004*** with the Lowes. And Christmas Eve was spent in Shrewsbury with the Quitadamos (photos available in the Family album). All in all we had a great Christmas with our families. We gave some great gifts, got some great gifts, had some good food, and had lots of fun. Next up, ***First Night Boston|http://www.firstnight.org/***!

Merry Christmas!

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Dear World Wide Wood Readers,

Merry Christmas to you and yours from the proprietors of World Wide Wood. We hope that you are able to spend the holiday with your loved ones. We are presently out in Townsend, Massachusetts with Ken, Dianne, and Corey, enjoying a relaxed and wonderful Christmas Day. We’ll be back later this weekend and we’ll have the family photo albums online, as well as a selection of photos for you non-family folks.

Love,

Peter and Rebecca Wood

Why I love the Mall at Christmas

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Since Peter is gone for the evening, I decided I’d hit the mall. Here are some reasons I love the Mall at Christmas:

1. Dads and other men shopping all by themselves. It is so great to see them try to figure out the women’s sizing code… and trying to guess what color their wives/daughters/girlfriends will like.

2. Dads shopping with their pre-teen daughters. Maybe it is just because I remember doing that myself with Dad… it is just cute.

3. Santa. and the cute little boys in reindeer sweaters that run up to him.

4. ***The Northshoremen|http://www.harmonize.com/northshoremen/index.htm*** performing in the food court. I could have stayed there all night listening to them. The singing was great, but I loved the audience. There were the expected 60’s and 70’s crowd and families of the singers, but there was also a group of high school football players with their eyes glued to the group. Mom’s and their kids who stopped and watched for a song or two, and some babes and toddlers in strollers who (amazingly) quieted down when they rolled near the singers. It was really lovely.

5. Kids shopping for their siblings and parents. Who never know exactly what to get. I saw one brother and sister in a few shops who were particularly cute.

{in the spirit of the season I will not post the companion post, “why I hate the mall at Christmas”. You can probably write that one yourself.}

Baby G’s Birthday

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“What does God want with a starship?” That is the eternal question which I have pondered with Bob. Bob was friends with Jeremy before I met them, and we all roomed together our senior year at ***Gordon|http://www.gordon.edu/***. The three of us took ***Dr. Green’s|http://www.gordon.edu/academics/biblical/faculty.htm*** Christian Doctrine class together Bob was also in our wedding, as well as in Jeremy’s wedding.

ppp| |ppp

Happy Birthday! Live Long and Prosper, Bob.

Incidentally, Bob, Jeremy, and I are getting together this weekend, along with our spouses, in ***Mystic, CT|http://www.mystic.ct.us/***. Should be fun! Of course I’ll have photos up once we get back. 🙂