What a great vacation to Key West with the family.  This is the first time I had taken The Blockpack on an airplane and I loved it as my “personal” carry-on item.  We filled it with flip-flops and sandals on the flight down and it fit perfectly under the seat in front of us. It was great to have it down there, Jay and David used it for sandwiches and beverages on their tarpon charter and we filled it with cold beverages throughout the trip when we were on the go.  On the flight home we packed it with all of souvenirs so they didn’t get broken and everything arrived perfectly back in Boston.  When you are vacationing without a car, this is the item you want to have with you!

Who can believe this is really winter in New England?  So far this season we have had a quick 7 inches on January 21st and it was melted by January 23rd! 

BooLoo Bags love the snow!

I think this has been the warmest winter I can ever remember.  I guess that is a good thing for BooLoo Bags, we have had to use ours more this season than ever!  I learned years ago to grocery shop early in the morning before the gym and especially on game day so you don’t have to fight the deli and check-out lines before kick-off.  This year I tried Popsicles for 3 hours in the BooLoo Bag with no ice in 45 degree temps, they were perfect when I got home.  You can see the picture on our facebook page. 

Only half the family!

We had a great trip to Brettonwoods this year, the forecast called for sun all four days and we woke up to beautiful fresh powder the first morning.  We love it!  All the BooLoo Bags in my family had a nice reunion. We arrived Friday afternoon with a ton of food and a ton of BooLoo Bags; some had refrigerated stuff, some had frozen stuff, some even hot for dinner that night!  It was a great long weekend for all.

Family BooLoo Bag Reunion

New Year’s Eve 2011 – sitting in my office typing in the last blog for the year.  (of course I do have a freezing cold beer next to me )  December was a record month for BooLoo Bags, LLC- thank you to everyone who purchased one!  We would love to see some new faces in The Gallery on our website so if you are out traveling with a new BooLoo Bag send us a picture.  As always I welcome your feedback and am looking forward to 2012.

As a family, we all dragged our BooLoo Bags around the night before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the day after Christmas and we pinned them with beers, lasagna, macaroni & cheese, shrimp cocktail, seasoned tenderloin, wine, presents and a bunch of other stuff.  It’s been a great Holiday Season!  Happy New Year!  Leslie

What a beautiful day it turned out to be for us!  We headed out around 9:00 a.m. to meet up with the rest of the family at World’s End in Hingham for our annual walk.  The kids and dogs loved it, Midnight and Shadow even retrieved sticks in the ocean for a bit.  Each year we try to take lots of pictures and hope for a Christmas Card.  After spending a couples of hours hiking around we all headed back to our separate homes to grab our side dishes for Thanksgiving Dinner at Dad and Donna’s house.  (they were in charge of the bird and stuffing) So my list consisted of shrimp cocktail, mashed potatoes, cookies and brownies.  This year we decided to make things easy so we could enjoy the holiday visiting instead of cooking.   We purchased Reeser’s fresh yukon gold mashed potatoes from Sysco.  They came in a boil-in-the-bag which we did for like 10 or 15 minutes then shoved them in a BooLoo Bag for 5 hours while we hung out.  At dinner time we cut the bag open and put them in the casserole dish.  I don’t think you can see the steam in the picture, but they were steaming hot! It was so easy, no crowded kitchen and no mess.  They tasted homemade and everyone loved them!  I did peel and cook my own gulf white shrimp, but in our family that is a corner that can’t be cut.  We transported the shrimp in a separate cold Booloo Bag, they were gone as soon as we got there.  Another great holiday with the family and our BooLoo Bags!

I discovered early on in the start up of BooLoo Bags that photography, (and a bunch of other stuff) was not my thing.  Lucky for me I met Elena Gormley on a walk one day at Round Pond in Duxbury. It wasn’t until later on that I realized this was the “Photographer Elena” that shot tons of literally jaw dropping photos of my nieces and nephew.  The pictures are that good and that authentic that you could never pick just one or two – you would have to choose them all! I checked her website out and knew right away I wanted her to shoot for BooLoo Bags.  Elena has an extremely sharp eye and her work is unique to each shoot.  It doesn’t matter what your needs are for photography; business or pleasure, she does it all and her turn around time is unbelievably quick.  Elena’s outgoing and fun personality making working with her a pleasure.  You can check out more pictures on our Facebook fan page.

Elena can be reached at:  781-738-8063 or elena@elenagormley.com                 Elenagormleyphotography.com

p.s. the dog is the first photo is Elena’s “Tige”

It was one tough year getting the “Taking Time” in for Dad and Donna.  Shortly after their 30′ Catalina was put on their slip in Scituate Harbor it was struck by lightning.  Many other boats on the slip were also struck by lightning. The damage in the mast and all the electrical work took nearly 8 weeks to fix, most of the season around here. Finally, they were on their way to their annual month long cruise.  Usually they like to hit all the Islands; Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island and of course the coast of Maine.  A week or so into the trip Irene rolled in.  After they anchored the Taking Time down in Greenwich, Rhode Island, Donna packed clothes in the BooLoo Bag and they headed a shore for an interesting night in a “pinch” of a hotel.  Dad and Donna are always raving about their BooLoo Bag when they travel on the boat, they take it everywhere!  Once Irene passed, the sky opened up and they sailed over to Block Island and sent in these pictures.  Thanks Dad and Donna!  The “Taking Time” sailboat BooLoo Bag is in the works for our next run of graphic designs.

Nothing like getting on the water at 4:30 in the morning and watching the sun come up next to Bug Light.  Wish I had something more than my iphone for some really great shots.  So Wendy and I are headed out for our annual striper charter with Tide Hunt Charters out of Duxbury, Mass and Captain Jeff has been kind enough to get bait for us at 2:30 a.m.  We head out through the harbor and get to our first spot pretty quickly; Wendy and I get to watch the sun come up while Jeff puts the pogies on.  Within about 10 seconds there it is…..bump, bump-bump, line goes taut -”set the hook!”  Let the reeling begin.   We landed 17 fish (smallest was 32 inches) and lost either 5 or six- there was so much action I lost track.  What a great day out on the water and of course we love to see a BooLoo Bag on a striper charter.  Jeff stores cold drinks for his clients in his BooLoo Bag and puts the “keepers” in the big square coolers. Captian Jeff Adams can be reached at 781-545-3929 for striper charters.

BooLoo Bags hits Duxbury Beach July 4th Weekend!  We saw fans everywhere, some people had freezing cold drinks in theirs while others had hot fried chicken from Bongi’s Turkey Roost- A-W-E-S-O-M-E!    We love it!  Shadow was along to introduce our newest product, “the BooLoo BlockPack”.  Last year we went to Rhode Island with 3 other couples and we all had our BooLoo Bags.  We were hopping a ferry to Block Island and then grabbing mopeds when we got there.  No one wanted to bring their regular BooLoo Bags, so when we arrived, we spent about $25.00 in cold waters and lord knows what on cold beers on the ride home. After this trip we thought how awesome a BooLoo Bag backpack would have been.  Well almost one year later it has arrived!  Anyone into anything outdoors will love these.  It is so nice to have your hands free for carrying other stuff or hiking or riding a moped.  So we have named this item the “BooLoo BlockPack” after our trip to Block Island.  We are in the process of doing our product shots now for them and will get them up on the website soon.  They can be purchased locally at Depot Street Market in Duxbury.

I have thanked Bill many times in person and in emails but I would like to thank him publicly for all of his ideas and graphic design work for BooLoo Bags.  Not only is Bill a good friend and neighbor, but he is very talented and creative.  All of the logo work, color schemes and graphic designs for BooLoo Bags came from Bill’s Mac.  Once I was at the bus stop and asked if I would know any of his work;  he carved in the sand Reebok’s logo.  Later when he was working on my logo I went through his portfolio, all of you would recognize one piece of his work or another.  Bill has done work for Coca-Cola, Zildjian, Disney, NFL, Reebok, Puma, New Balance and Dunkin Donuts just to name a few.  I am very grateful to have accidentally discovered Bill’s talent.  Thank you Bill for everything!!  I could not have done this without you.  Bill can be reached at bill@714design.com.