It’s hard to believe that Josh and I have already been dating for a year now (!!!). I remember introducing him to you guys via post last summer:

His name is Josh, and he knows about my blog and my blog friends. So everyone say hi and be nice! He’ll be making appearances here and there as we do fun things that I’ll write about…

Catching Up Over Coffee: July 2021

I told him early on that I had a blog, and once we were official, I asked him what he was comfortable with me sharing about him on here. It’s one thing to write about myself personally and share my own photos but it’s another thing to write about someone else, so I wanted to make sure he was comfortable. He was pretty open to anything, so it’s been fun to share all of our adventures.

Our actual anniversary was July 20, and he came over after work for us to exchange gifts. I took this past week off from work, and Josh has Thursdays and Fridays off from work anyway, so we planned afternoon trips for both of those days. Unfortunately, the activities would be indoor activities as it’s been over 90 degrees and humid every single day this week.

Thursday

This exhibit is called “Melodies of Certain Damage” and includes guitars that were smashed and then put back together on the floor, based on how male rock ‘n’ roll artists have smashed guitars on stage during performances. The one cool thing is that you could actually pluck the guitar strings, which I’m doing in the first picture, and it echoed throughout the room.

This was another piece I really liked. At first, we were like, “It’s just painted blue” but once you read the little info plaque next to it, the piece is actually the same color blue as the Colt Armory dome, part of the Armory building in Hartford. If you looked really closely at the blue, you could see faint gold stars, which are on the dome itself.

This room. The pictures don’t do it justice, considering I had to take them at 0.5x to try to get everything in the shot. The pieces were MASSIVE, and the frames were insane—like there’s no way you get those framed at Michael’s. The works are from the 16th-19th centuries, and even though it was hard to tell what some were depicting, they were still incredibly impressive.

These were just a few other pieces I liked as we walked through the museum. It has three floors, and it’s super deceiving from the outside. We were there from about 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and we took a quick stop in the gift shop. I bought a Monet print of water lilies that I think I’ll hang up in my living room—the closest thing I’ll ever have to fancy art.

For dinner, we went to Thomas Hooker Brewery at Colt, which was also in downtown Hartford. We got there a little before 5:00 p.m. and it was already pretty busy inside.

Josh and I both got flights, split an order of pretzel bites, and both got cheeseburger sliders. Unfortunately, I think we got the wrong sliders because they had mushrooms on them, and Josh and I would never willingly order something with mushrooms—it’s the food we both hate the most. We picked them off, and the sliders were fine, though.

Friday

Our main destination for the day was Tree House Brewing in Charlton, MA. We actually went there last summer the day before we made it official, so we thought it would be fitting to go back. Our original plan was to go Thursday, but the food truck, Say Cheese, on Friday was a lot better, so we switched the days.

For our first round, I got Greensicile and Josh got Heat Wave Mango, and I got the pickleback grilled cheese and Josh got the wedge. For our second round, I got Trail Simcoe and Josh got Rover. At first, we sat outside under a big pavilion but it was still a bit warm, so we moved inside. Our main activity was dog watching and spotting any new dogs who arrived.

We got back to my condo after 5:00 p.m. and hung out a bit before making dinner. Our go-to has been making our own pizza and side salads. After dinner, we watched a few episodes of Single Drunk Female before Josh went home (since he has to get up at 3:00 a.m. on the weekends for work).

I’m really happy with our little afternoon trip adventures, even if they had to be inside activities because of the weather. It’s nice to have someone who likes to go on these adventures and explore the surrounding areas. And it gives us the ability to have some quality time together, which was a great way to celebrate our one year anniversary.