Who We Are

Better late than never to introduce ourselves. It’s been 15+years since we started this blog. So, it's long overdue as to the who, when, why, what and how — coming from a former newspaper reporter.

Dorothy & Patrick (Beatrice & Grenville)

I'm Dorothy, my husband is Patrick and we're natives of the Garden State (Plainfield and South Orange) there's always a NJ connection (even here). My degree is journalism, my working career was with a defense contractor, a reporter and photographer (my favorite and lowest paying job), insurance company and a telecommunications corporation. 

Patrick's background is in public safety and marine biology which seems an unusual combination, but they were not done together. After 25 years as a NJ firefighter, he retired and returned to college earning a degree in marine science. That began his second career as a naturalist at the Jersey shore, where we were living at the time; it was his favorite job.

Backing up a bit, how we met isn't a tale of knowing each other for years; our meet-up came after past romances (and marriages) — online and way before social media exploded. The site was called Web Personals, which was founded in the mid 1990s and considered the first online dating site. For 3 months, we communicated only through text messages before a face-to-face first date that lasted 10 hours!. We had a lot of catching up to do and came armed with photos as there had been no photos or talking before then. Yes, it worked, we've been married over 25 years.

Our first home together in Onley, VA

After retirement, we relocated to the Eastern shore of VA in 2002, after buying an older (1913) home that needed a bit of updating. In between working on the house and yard, we came across blogging and decided try it. The first short post was mid-January 2010, when Grenville posted that we wanted to share stuff we were doing and more. The “plan” was to share about ourselves, our home, family, friends. In short, we wanted folks to get to know us and vice versa. Even though we had scant comments the first couple of years, we kept on posting. We were undaunted.

The blog name, The Frog & Penguinn was what we called our VA home. OK, not everyone names their house, but it was common in VA. It wasn't an inn, and the misspelling (double N was deliberate). The house and later blog were named for our assortment of frog and penguin figurines and toys. (Never let anyone know you like something, you’ll be inundated.) 

The blogger names. We wanted to have fun, so rather than use our first names, we chose Beatrice & Grenville, after Boyds Bears figurines of this couple. We added a middle initial for fun. Patrick became Grenville T. Boyd; Dorothy was Beatrice P. Boyd. Today, we use actual and blogger names interchangeably. Many long-time readers know us as both, although, some newcomers may not.

Clocktower Apartments and the Nashua River as seen from Main Street 

In 2015, we relocated to Nashua, NH leaving VA because of (in no order): sparse medical facilities, summertime heat, missing snow, being closer to family. We went from living in a home with much indoor and outdoor work to a rental apartment in a former textile mill (Nashua Manufacturing Corporation, now Clocktower Apartments). We've become comfortable with this lifestyle change — no maintenance, yard work or repairs to do, when something breaks, it's a phone 📞 to the main office. We missed being homeowners for a while; we've since gotten over that.

Our VA home before we moved

After a few years of going back and forth between VA and NH, the Frog & Penguinn house was (finally) sold after being “on the market” longer than we'd anticipated. The words “location, location, location” truly apply when selling a home in a very small town (pop. 500) with limited attractions and no walking to anything, like here in Nashua — there was no downtown, unless you counted the post office and thrift store.

Theres no shortage of view, especially from our 5th floor river view apt

We enjoy sharing our lives and adventures, celebrations, special occasions and more. Comments have increased over the years and many long time fellow bloggers have become friends even if we've never met (yet). We've met a number of bloggers on road trips, even travels abroad and a few several times. Hopefully, more meet-ups will happen in future.

While The Frog & Penguinn is no longer our physical home, it's still our blog home. And, we have no immediate plans of relocating anytime soon; we like it here. If you are ever in the Nashua, NH, let us know. We'd like to meet you as well.