Violette

The other half of the photoshoot I posted yesterday (well, the day before yesterday). Midori was hogging up the camera!

Midori on the docks

A bunch of photos of my Acchi Kocchi. They're probably a little too similar to each other, but I like them all!
More photos from this set (with my Sumire, Violette) tomorrow...
(and yes, I'm really original naming my green-eyed girl Midori and my Sumire Violette. But I can't have brilliant ideas for them all! There's just too many of 'em Cap'n!)

Miriam with flowers

Why does she look so peeved in that last picture? Did she find a bee?

Tea Tasting!

Over the weekend we went to Harney & Sons "tasting room". Harney & Sons is a tea company, with a pretty wide variety of loose tea in all kinds of variety and flavors. At the tasting room, you can get an explanation of all the different sorts of flavors that Harney & Sons carries, and you can ask for recommendations. You can also smell any of the teas you are interested in, and you can even get them to brew you a cup to taste! If you love tea, this is quite a lot of fun. You can also buy every variety Harney & Sons carries, which is nice because then you don't have to pay shipping if your favorite flavor isn't around at any local stores. And for the more exotic flavors, this is quite possible. The tasting room is located just over the CT border in a little town called Hamilton. It's a cute little town that seems like it might be hoping for tourists. I'm not sure what else is out there tho besides the tea place and a glass blowing company. Is that enough to be a tourist destination? I'm not sure, but I did have fun, so if you get out that way, try to stop by!

Here's Midori looking at all the teas you can sample:



And here she is posing with some elegant tea cups:



Midori and Violette were both feeling a little put out that I didn't dress them up nicer for this trip, but what can I say? I just didn't think ahead! They should just feel lucky they are finally getting their "star turn" I suppose, since I haven't photographed them much in the past, and I still have a bunch of photos of them to post tomorrow (looking more in their element in those outfits and a more appropriate background!).

Here's another shot of the interior, with the "wedding tea" display. That tea smelled quite nice, but I didn't buy any... I had already selected too much, and well, I have no weddings coming up!



The tea flavors I eventually selected were "Paris" (which I highly recommend, it's been a long time favorite of mine - it's a black tea with a fruit flavor... I think it has grenadine in it? It probably won't appeal if you don't like sweet tea, but if you do, it's very nice!), "Valentine" (chocolate and rose!), Hot Cinnamon (which is black tea with actual pieces of cinnamon bark - it tastes a lot like a fireball) and "Brigitte's Blend" (which is a mix of ceylon and assam - so much more straightforward than my other choices!). I do like other sorts of tea than black tea, but for this trip I wanted all black tea because I had a lot of green, white and red teas already, but was running out of black.

And if you don't drink tea, you may not really care about all of that, so here is Violette posing in front of the florist next door:



And Midori posing with some cute red flowers in a garden (at a highway rest stop!):

Suu's Birthday - Anime Boston!

I'm late posting this here, but a few weeks ago was Anime Boston. I got my very first Pinky - Suu - at Anime Boston last year. So it follows that Anime Boston must be Suu's birthday!!

So to celebrate, Suu came along with me to Anime Boston. She brought along her best friend Arisu (who came from Otakon, so she knows all about conventions!) and her 'kinda' boyfriend Agito, who arrived via mail order and was therefore new to the convention scene...









(That should really say "favorite Japanese restaurant... But that's ok, it's still definitely one of my favorite restaurants! (Even if I never remember the name... I think it is Men Tei? )



After a long weekend at the show, everyone headed home to rest...



...and, of course, show off the new purchases!







But Suu was surprised to find out that Agito had one more special Birthday event in mind for the weekend...



Sorry there aren't more pictures actually AT the convention... It's kind of hard to take pictures in there... its very dark! And crowded - not the best for Pinky-style macro shots...

p.s. If anyone is interested, here are a couple of shots of Pinkys for sale at the show!

A Visit to the Garden Center!

Another story with Sacchin... She's not being quite so evil here (tho she's still a bit vain) - that's Tamae's job this time!