The End of I-90

christmas 2011

2012-01-31T19:24:00.000-05:00

Well, I am really cutting it down to the wire (just like last year!) but here I am to post about Christmas. I think being in Seattle for two weeks and not blogging throws me off of my blogging groove. Since we officially began blogging in August 2007, just before our move to Massachusetts, we have never had a month go by without at least one post. So here I am, doing my part to keep the streak alive. :)

Now, I must say, I was AWFUL, absolutely awful, this year taking pictures while home for Christmas. I like to say I was living in the moment and not just photographing it (which is technically true) but I was still awful. So this post is likely to be a lot of words with minimal pictures. Thankfully my dear sis-in-law Jennifer took some pictures from McDowell Christmas and shared them with us all. If not for that most of my pictures would be of Pumpkin my parents cat. :)

So, our story begins on Tuesday, December 20th at Logan Airport waiting to take a flight to Portland, OR.

Ah yes, once again we flew through Oregon. Because once again the tickets were much cheaper. It is a little annoying after sitting through a 6 hour flight to not yet be at your final destination. But I sort of heart Horizon (shout out Aaron!) and their small town charm. So it all worked out. My parents picked us up at Sea Tac after what Daniel and I calculated was 12+ straight hours of travel (we left our house in Massachusetts at 2:00 pm EST and did not arrive at my parents house until after 11:00 pm PST, add 3 hours to make it EST that puts us at 2:00 AM, and makes us very weary travelers). :)

The next morning I went and got my hair cut with my dear father. Daniel and I then spent the afternoon with Aaron and Megan hanging out and getting to meet their adorable son, Asher. We all went out to dinner at Thai Ginger, as is tradition.

After dinner at Thai Ginger we drove across the street for a casual McDowell meet and greet at Applebee's. Daniel's mom was in town from Yakima for one day only, so those of us who could gathered there for some dinner/dessert and chatting. It was sort of surreal walking in to Applebee's the day after we arrived and seeing half of our McDowell family. I guess I am just used to seeing them at their houses or something. :) It was a great evening and a fun bonus get together with many McDowell's. After that we headed BACK to Megan's parents house for some games late into the night with Aaron and Megan. :)

The next morning I had a lovely reunion/brunch with my dear friend and former roommate Alicia. We ate at the Portage Bay Cafe in the U-district and it was DELICIOUS. Highly recommended for all you Seattle-folk. Alicia and I were not able to get together last year, so it was great to catch up on a few years worth of stuff! :)

In the afternoon we met Aaron and Megan at Trader Joe's for some grocery shopping. We were having a friends get-together at Megan's parents house and Megan and I volunteered to make the main dish, so we got some lasagna ingredients, and then headed back to Megan's parents for some cooking.

Ryan, Emily, Owen, and Beth arrived, the lasagna was a success, and we had a lovely evening all together. Owen and Beth were just recently engaged, so it was lovely to hear about the proposal from both of them. We then played a spirited game of Gretch, which, of course, the girls dominated. I don't even know why the boys play with us anymore. :)

Geeze this sure seems boring without pictures. But fear not - pictures are on the way soon!

The next morning we headed into Seattle for a quick brunch at Ryan and Emily's apartment before they left for Sunriver. It was short but sweet, we were thankful we managed to find time to get together with just the two of them before they headed out.

We made a quick stop back at the Tobin's before we headed south to Daniel's dad's house for the McDowell Christmas celebration! It is always so wonderful to have so much of Daniel's large family together. Though I wish every year everyone could be together, we understand why it doesn't always work out. This year we were missing David, Crystal, Isaiah, Seth, Angel, Levi, and Rebekah. We love you all and hope that someday we will all be together in the same place at the same time. :)

We ate a tasty dinner and than gathered in the living room for some Christmas story reading and present opening. (Thanks again Jennifer for all the McDowell Christmas photos!)

Daniel and Seri.

Chatting in the armchair. :)

Hannah, Abigail, Jordan, and Debe waiting for everyone to gather. :)

Martin reading the Christmas story from the Gospel according to Luke.

Twas a full house. :)

:) I love how Micah is reclining with the pink blankie.

A bit of post present opening chaos. :)

Daniel and Matt with Elijah in front.

Me with my oldest (and taller than me!) niece Hannah.

Everyone watching Martin and Debe open their photobook, a gift from all the kids.

We spent the night and a good chunk of the next morning at Martin and Debe's before heading back to my parent's house. We went to our former pastor's church for Christmas Eve and spent some time afterwards talking and catching up with many friends. :) After my parents made it home from the Seahawks game we met at The Keg for a Christmas Eve dinner.

The next morning I found Daniel reading some theology while waiting for my mother and I to wake from our beauty sleep. :)

Pumpkin hiding under the tree.

Now, some may constitue this as animal abuse, but we call it tradition. :) Every year my mother or I get Pumpkin some sort of crazy outfit for Christmas, then make her wear it and then laugh. This years really took the cake though...

Hahaha, oh man. Love that video. I promise, we (well, everyone except Daniel) love Pumpkin. Dressing her up is all in good fun. Oh, and as the video mentioned, shortly after the taping concluded she gave a swift tug and off came the antlers. :)

The jingle bell collar remained a little longer. :)

For the second year in a row, Daniel and I took a nice little Christmas day run. 'Tis tradition! :)

We had a lovely dinner with my parents of salmon, roasted brussels sprouts, potatoes au gratin, and delicious salad.

Daniel and Pumpkin bonding the next morning.

The day after Christmas we headed north to spend some time with Josh, Jordan, and family. :) But not before Daniel contracted the 24-hour McDowell flu bug. Oh yes, somehow 7 family members suffered from this stomach bug. Including myself. But not until later in the trip. Anywho, Daniel felt pretty awful all day but was better by evening when we arrived at Josh and Jordan's.

We didn't stay up very late the first night as Josh and Daniel went fishing in the early hours of the AM. Nothing was caught, but I think they had fun anyway. :) Jordan and I did a grocery store run and then we came back and played games most of the afternoon. Daniel's sister Jennifer and her two girls arrived that evening so it was great to spend a little extra time with them. We all ate dinner together and then played more games until we slowly one-by-one went to sleep. :)

We left early the next afternoon to head back to my parents house for a night out on the town. We went out to dinner at Benihana before seeing Cinderella at 5th Avenue Theatre.

Now I can't really remember what we did the next day. I think I went and saw a movie (*ahem* Twilight, Breaking Dawn part 1) with my mother and two of her Twi-hard work friends who were excited to meet me. We then met up with my Dad and Daniel for some dinner at a Vietnamese place near their house. That night I got to spend with one of my oldest (as in we have been friends for a long time) friends Lindsay and her husband Chad who were in town. Lindsay's parents live less than 5 minutes from my parents, and I grew up spending a lot of time there, so it is always wonderful to go over and see the whole family, as well as play a lot of Catan. :)

The next day Daniel and I got to have a fun night on the town with Daniel's brother Matt and wife Dani. We met in Bellevue and carpooled into Seattle to have a delicious dinner at Emmer and Rye. Also highly recommended. We drove around Seattle for a little bit and got out at Kerry Park to admire the view.

Not great picture, but a great view.

We attempted to find somewhere to bowl in Seattle, but ended on coming back to the Eastside for good ol' Sun Villa. :)

I have the most wonderful 5+ minute video from our bowling adventure, but alas, vimeo would not let me upload it this week. Hopefully it will make it on the blog in the next week or so. :)

The next day, new years eve, we spent at Matt and Dani's house. We had a fun morning relaxing and playing with the kiddos. Matt and Daniel went for a run, and when they got back Dani and I went on a nice, long 9-miler. We had to top the boys after all. :) We ate dinner once we were back and showered. Soon the kids went to bed and we rang in the new year playing our new favorite game Stone Age.

I can't believe I never mentioned Stone Age before, because we probably played it about 10 times while we were home, if not more. :) We played it twice with Aaron and Megan and then Santa brought it for Christmas. :)

On the 1st we spent the morning at my parents house, then headed back down to Martin and Debe's to spend our final days with them. We watched some football in the afternoon and hung out for a while talking in the evening. The next day Daniel and his dad went golfing with various family members (my dad included) and I relaxed around the house while Debe worked. Jennifer and the girls were at Martin and Debe's as well, so we all hung out, watching college football and chatting in the evening.

We stayed up late talking with Daniel's sister Jennifer the night before our flight. The next morning I woke up feeling not so great, but figured it was from very little sleep and empty stomach. Unfortunately I was incorrect, and I was sick on the plane ride home. :( Fortunately, we were near the front of the plane and the first class flight attendant was very nice to let me run and borrow the bathroom that had no line. She even gave me some ginger ale and crackers on my way back to my seat. The flight was not fun, but I survived.

After my one incident on the plane I was puke free the rest of the day, but I still wasn't feeling hot so I took the next day off of work. It worked out really well, since I wasn't up to unpacking the day we got home I was able to do it the next day. Plus I got 12 hours of sleep and we even made it to Costco to restock our empty cupboards. It was truly a 24-hour bug as I was feeling fine by the next afternoon. Glad that is all behind us and everyone is healthy again. :)

Phew, so that was out trip back to Seattle! Best as I can remember it one month after the fact at least. :) Thank you again to everyone we saw and spent time with! You are all wonderful and we love you. Everyone we missed out on seeing, we are sorry and hope we can get together next time we are back. :) January has been relatively quiet so it shouldn't be hard to catch up on that soon. :)

In closing, I want to give a big GO PATS for the Super Bowl this weekend. :) We are seriously ridiculously excited and giddy for the game this weekend. It feels sort of appropriate as this may well be our last football season in New England, and the Pats were in the Super Bowl (against the Giants no less) back in 2007/2008 for our first year here.

We may seem like little band wagon jumpers and Bill Belichik kool-aid drinkers being Patriots fans these days. And I won't lie, most of the time it is not hard, at all, being a Boston sports fan. Pretty much every team is great. 7 championships since 2001? Us Boston sports fans sure are spoiled. But I know it will not last forever, just like our Massachusetts residency [probably] won't last forever. And as we have come to learn, it is hard to be a fan of a sports team you never get to see on TV, hear about on the radio/news, talk about with friends/strangers or attend any of their games.

So, bottom line, we are soaking it up. We are watching lots of interviews, reading all the reports/articles, making the most of this time. Because who knows when the next time our team (from our favorite professional sport!) will be in the championship game. And we are really, really hoping they win. :)

quick NYC trip

2011-12-20T13:30:00.036-05:00

The weekend before last we were able to do something I have always wanted to do, but honestly thought we would never be able to do. Since we travel home every December (for at least a week, if not more) I didn't think it would ever really be possible to visit New York at Christmas time. This year an opportunity presented itself, so we took advantage of that and had a great time. :)

As part of Daniel's application process to Princeton they offered him a chance to meet with Professors in his area of interest (Theology). We originally were trying to schedule the appointments for a different day (in November) but it didn't end up working out, so they rescheduled for December. Since Daniel would need to go all the way down to Princeton for a Monday interview, we decided to make a [very] mini trip out of it, and see New York in all it's Christmas glory.

We were debating where to stay (in the city or in New Jersey), when to get arrive, how long to stay, where to park our car, etc. etc. etc. In the end we decided to err on the side of cheap and just spent one night in New Jersey, in between NYC and Princeton. That meant Sunday morning we woke up BEFORE the crack of dawn (oh...roughly 3:00 AM) and were on the road at about 3:40. Yes it was pretty rough to get out of bed that early but we probably saved about $200 (hotel + food alone), so it was worth it. Plus, it was fun to be driving to NYC in the wee hours of the morning together, laughing at our ridiculousness. Oh, and we went to bed at around 8:00 PM the night before, so we were not insanely sleep deprived or anything.

We drove to Newark and arrived at 8:00 AM, parked in some lot, and took that PATH train (only $2.00!) into NYC, arriving right at the WTC.

Daniel in front of the new WTC building.

A full length shot, pretty neat!

We took the subway into times square.

Which is semi-deserted at 9:00 on a Sunday morning, but there were still a few tourists wandering around. :)

We stopped at a bagel shop we went to last time we were here. It was honestly a surreal experience for me, walking around Times Square on a cold December morning eating a bagel.

Daniel getting a little messy. :)

We decided to do the top of the rock this time around. So many of the big New York attractions cost big bucks, so our first time we decided to just do one. We picked the Statue of Liberty and had a great time. This time, we went the tall building route. To be honest, the top of the rock (TOTR) may have been a little prettier in the spring/summer time (central park view especially), but it was still a breathtaking view.

Central park on one side...

Empire State Building on the other!

There are actually 3 levels of observation decks on the TOTR, so those first two pictures were from the lowest level (floor 67).

The two of us from floor 79.

And open air on top of floor 70.

Yes, those were all from the 70th floor. And I took a video, so now all of you can save $25/person and just watch this!

Just kidding, you should really go. Even though it is a lot of money for an elevator ride, the view amazing, spectacular, and all sorts of other adjectives.

That's where we were! (Rockefeller tree at the bottom)

Rockefeller tree and skating rink.

After that we headed toward central park so make a loop to hit up all the big department stores/store windows.

Horses lined along Central Park.

Central Park.

So we visited all the major department stores to view the store windows. Most of the pictures turned out crummy because (1.) the windows are reflective and (2.) I am not a talented photographer. :)

We headed down to the Flatiron District to eat brunch at one of our favorite chef's restaurants....

Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill.

I have decided that one of the reasons I like Bobby Flay must be because we have similar tastes in kitchen decor.

Not only were the menu's mustard yellow, but the little bread plates were either red, green, blue, or yellow, the exact colors of my kitchen. :)

Our tasty brunch (though mine was really more of a lunch ), Daniel had spicy chicken sweet potato hash and I had the pressed roasted pork sandwich. YUM. :)

After brunch/lunch we perused the Holiday Market at Union Square. I was optimistic about getting some neat, one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts/stocking stuffers, but alas, in true New York fashion, everything was ridiculously expensive.

It was quite crowded. And extremely cold. Did we mentioned that it was cold this day? I think the high was 30 degrees and 85% of our time was spent outdoors. Obviously we were walking a good bit, which helped. But we were cold nonetheless.

One booth we did purchase something from was the Wafels and Dinges booth at the holiday market. We were planning on going to their truck, but since we found them there, we decided to go for it. :) We had seen these fine folks on some sort of Food Network food truck show. Turns out they also had a throwdown with our friend Bobby [Flay}. Twas quite the Bobby Flay themed trip it seems! :)

My throwdown wafel, with speculoos spread and whipped cream.

Daniel's had chocolate, strawberries, and whipped cream.

Across from Union Square is a Nordstrom Rack. This is the closest I could get to visiting a Nordstrom while in Manhattan. :)

We had contemplated going ice skating but ended up chickening out due to the cold. For anyone interested and/or visiting NYC, Bryant Park is the cheapest place to ice skate. $14/each skate rental, but free locker if you bring your own lock. There is no admission cost, so technically if you had your own ice skates it would be free! Rockefeller and Central Park charge you an admission fee, skate rental, and a locker rental fee and therefore cost a good bit more.

As the sun was setting we walked toward 34th street and beheld a miracle....

or really, just a very large Macy's. :)

The crowds were large but the decorations were great. Probably better at night so I am glad we didn't make it there until it was dark.

Macy's wins for best window displays, but the crowds made it hard to really enjoy.

Inside was decorated [and crowded!] as well.

We visited all 7 floors but about half way but the escalator suddenly turned vintage. Perhaps this is an original?

After that we called it a night, and waited for the subway to take us back to the WTC, to then take the PATH back to Newark.

Daniel looking all east coast. :)

We made it to our hotel and went to sleep shortly after that. It had been a long but very fun day! We woke up early (around 5:30 AM - what kind of weekend was this anyway?!) again and made the 30 minute drive to Princeton so Daniel could have his two meetings at 8:00 and 9:00 AM.

Before leaving Princeton we made a stop at The Little Chef for some delicious, and still warm, croissants.

We had raspberry and plain, and both were amazing.

We then drove north to Yale where Daniel was able to catch up with a friend of his from Gordon-Conwell who is currently getting his PhD from Yale. Then Daniel was also able to meet with a professor. I happily just read my books while these meetings took place. :)

Before leaving New Haven to drive back to Mass we wanted to grab some dinner. I was craving Thai so I looked up a place on Gretchen (our GPS) but alas they were not open. Right next door was a [slightly sketchy looking] Noodle House, but we were hungry and wanted to get on the road, so we gave it a go.

Fortunately, it ended up being a GREAT decision.

We had a huge, delicious dinner plus dim sum for less than $20. Awesome.

Then we drove home, stopped for some ice cream on the way, and made it home around 8:00 PM. What fabulous food we ate on this trip! It was quite the whirlwind trip.I am so glad we were able to do it, we had an amazing time!

Christmas Card

2011-12-16T17:30:00.000-05:00

So last year we had all kinds of good/funny Christmas card photo shoot out-takes. This year not so much. Or at least they are not funny...just repetitive. But, I hate for all the extra photos to go to waste, so here is how it all went down...

I mentioned before that when my parents came to visit we convinced them to take a few pictures of us in hopes of getting one that was Christmas-card-worthy. We went to Crane Beach, as my parents had never been there before anyway, and killed two birds with one stone. The picture taking process was moderately painless (for most of us) so thanks Mom for being a great and willing photographer. Oh, and can I just say that coming up with poses is BY FAR the most difficult part of this whole process.

I feel I look a little too prim and proper here, and aside from Daniel's squinting (which is a reoccurring problem) he has some sort of hair/shadow issue happening on the left side of his head. :)

This just looks awkward. And I don't really know why. But it does. :)

Tehehe, oh how I love the totem pole pose.

I couldn't resist.... Also, are Daniel's eyes even open?

Crouching is awkward and I am basically crouching in Daniel's shadow...

I tried a little criss-cross applesauce action. This was actually probably our runner-up picture.

Standing is awkward, especially in the wind causing my hair to take flight (awkward seems to be a reoccurring theme as well...)

Location change, Daniel ditched his jacket the wind made my hair crazy and now we are BOTH squinting badly. :)

And the final location that was too dark. There were actually a lot of cute pictures from this spot, but they are all dark and grainy due to the suns location. Sigh...

So ultimately this was the winner. And after D got over his squinting (which, again, was in every picture) we were happy with the results. :)

I love Christmas cards, especially receiving them! Of course, we have only received 2 cards so far this year (I blame our constant address changing...I swear, every year we have had a new address!) but I love it nonetheless. :)

O Tannenbaum

2011-12-14T18:41:00.002-05:00

Ah, how I love Christmas trees. :) This year we went back to our favorite little tree farm (that is truly less than 10 minutes from our house) to get our tree this year. Even though they raised the prices on us. We (especially Daniel) do not want to talk about how much this tree cost. But, I am on a new campaign about how it is much more humane to chop down your own tree (what happens to the pre-cut ones that never get bought...do they just dry up and die???) and the proceeds from this place go to a local charity (which is a better place for my money to go then Home Depot or something like that) so we are at peace with our decision. Just please, don't bring up the price. :)

Anywho, the day after thanksgiving we went out in the afternoon to get our tree.

I think I mentioned last year about how it took us almost an hour to pick one out. Well, in order to try and be quicker this year we arrived at the place 30 minutes before they closed; thus forcing us to be quicker. :)

I was a little stressed at the thought, thinking we may have to "settle" but fortunately it all worked out. :)

Honestly, every tree there is beautiful, but we are somehow extremely picky. :)

Here is a little video to give some insight into our decision making process...

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. :) A lovely Fraser Fir (our Christmas tree type of choice; same as last year).

Once home, Daniel has to cut off a few of the lower branches so it could fit in the tree stand.

And, if anyone recalls Jenny expressing concern in the video about the tree being too tall.....

I was totally right! If you have low ceilings and you know it, clap your hands! (clap, clap!)

But, it was nothing a little haircut couldn't fix. :)

Here I am working away with the ribbon... (Please ignore the leftover Thanksgiving wine that Daniel appears to be enjoying on the couch)

For the curious, we upped the ante with the lights this year and had 16 strands (therefore 160 lights). It ended up being quite the dramady though....Sometime during the ribbon process all the lights went out. We figured out that the one plugged into the outlet blew, so we removed it and I redid the final strand. Well, sometime after everything was done they all went out again! Too many lights for one outlet I suppose. Anyway, I wanted to cry, but alas undid the very bottom section (since the lights go on first everything else had to come off to get the lights off), did some creative light re-wrapping (which involved taking one strand from the middle of the tree and plugging that in to its own outlet), and saved Christmas. :) The tree lights have lasted since then, though we are down to 140. :)

And, done. :)

How lovely it is to sit in the living room with the glow of the Christmas tree helping to light the room. :)

And from the other angle in daylight. Sigh...I love Christmas-time, especially Christmas trees. :)

Thanksgiving

2011-12-10T15:40:00.007-05:00

Thanksgiving was a bit different for us this year. The past few years, since we have moved to Massachusetts, we have had the pleasure of celebrating with many of our dear friends. But as the years have gone by, many of those friends have moved away. And so this year we celebrated Thanksgiving tougher, just the two of us.

Now, this by no means we have no friends left in Massachusetts. Though we do have far less than we used to. But that is fine, because we knew when we were in Seminary that many people come for 3 or so years and then move away. We are the odd balls who just keep staying. :) It just so happened that all of our local friends who we would have loved to spend thanksgiving with were going out of town this year.

But I embraced the small and quiet thanksgiving and started to get excited. This would mean that I would be able to make the entire meal. All by self. Thus began the weeks of planning and finding recipes, shopping, prepping the entire week before, and the of course, making everything that morning.

It was surprisingly not stressful. I think it helped that I was just cooking for Daniel and myself. If something did not turn out, it would stink, but not be as bad if I was cooking for others. But I was sure tired after we were done eating. And we were sure tired of thanksgiving food in the days that followed. I went a bit overkill and we were eating turkey for every meal for days. :)

First thing Thanksgiving morning I trekked around our property hunting for table decor. I was pretty successful. I put a bunch of stick in a vase, scattered cute little acorns around the table, and put some little baby pinecones in a glass holder with a candle. Plus I put some cranberries (which float) in a glass bowl shaped like a pumpkin with some floating candles. Oh, and the "table cloth" is actually a curtain we had hanging in our first apartment and then lace runner is actually a small scarf. Not bad for entirely free. :)

When you have limited counter space the kitchen table must be used for staging.

The turk, getting ready to go in the oven. I brined it again this year, as is tradition.

My beautiful pie crust. I was extremely proud as normally I can't make them look this good.

Tart dough in a pie pan (I really need to acquire a tart pan).

Even more staging. :)

Homemade crescent rolls. They tasted like croissants. YUM.

So I was really good at taking pictures at the beginning of the day. Then as everything was finishing and other things going in the oven it got a little crazy. I never even got a picture of my finished desserts! :(

My general game plan was to put the turkey in the oven fairly early in the AM since it takes the longest to cook, can sit and rest for a while afterwards, plus it needs to be carved. As the turkey cooked I prepped everything else. When the turkey was done I cycled everything else that needed to cook in and out of the oven. The pie and tart baked while we ate. Amazingly, everything was done pretty much on time!

From Daniel's perspective (I am not quite sure what he spilled...)

Ariel shot. Clockwise-ish from bottom right corner Turkey (duh), cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, crescent rolls, parmesan mashed potatoes, balsamic roasted carrots, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and gravy. Phew. Like I said, way too much food. :) (Recipes are linked below if you are curious).

The delicious rolls/croissants. :) I am pretty sure this is the first thing we finished off and I made about 20 of them! :)

The rest of the evening was just spent relaxing on the couch reading and watching a movie. It was really a lovely day. We never felt lonely, it just felt a little bit different being by ourselves. But I had a fun cooking adventure and would definitely be game to try it again. :)

I have linked to [most] of the recipes in case you are curious...
Turkey - brine, roasting instructions.
Stuffing - cornbread, sourdough bread (I just add 1 cup of sourdough starter to the dough and add more flour as needed) (and oh yes, of course I made my own bread!)
Parmesan mashed potatoes (I used yukon gold and red now potatoes, skins on)
Green bean casserole
sweet potato casserole (just the sweet potato base, orange zest not extract, I improvised a brown sugar/pecan topping plus added marshmallows)
Balsamic roasted carrots
Crescent rolls
Cranberry sauce
Alsatian apple tart (this was SO GOOD) - tart dough (tart dough under other recipe)
Pumpkin pie was Gamie's (Daniel's Grandma) recipe - crust
Vanilla ice cream recipe from The Perfect Scoop
Gravy was made from turkey drippings

The end. :)

catch up

2011-12-10T10:08:00.000-05:00

It is getting a little tiring always saying I am behind. Yet, here I am again. So this post is just a catch all so I can catch up on everything in between my parents visit (in October) and Thanksgiving (my next significant post). So, here we go.

**Bear in mind my camera/iPhoto is driving me a bit nutty these days and therefore, some of these photos are straight-out-of-the-camera, i.e. unedited. The horror. It is actually taking a lot for me to put these up here, but I am too annoyed with being behind in posting and can't figure out a way to solve my problem yet, so here we go. :)

So, once upon a time it snowed. Twice. In October. I think I mentioned it before. So this is a picture from time #1. It was actually in total about an inch, but I took this picture too late to catch the snow in it's prime. We went out to dinner with some of our friends and we had to scrape off the car when we were leaving. We then ate some cookies and chatted at our house for a while and I took this after they left. By then most all the snow mostly turned to slush. It was still crazy. And pretty ironic because we were hanging out with our friends for one last hurrah before they moved to Texas. Where it probably doesn't snow in October. :)

So here is the morning after time #2, two days later.

A little more significant, but still, just a light coating. But crazy to see with so many [green!] leaves on the trees still.

And this is the last time we had snow. Which is not uncommon, our big snow months are typically January and February. And get this, for about 85% of November the temperates were IN THE 60'S! It was awesome. And unheard of. But no complaints from me. And while it took extra long for the leaves to change/fall, I just soaked up the "warm" temperatures and thoroughly enjoyed not having to wear wool socks/long underwear to work the whole month. Bare legs in November is pretty rare. :)

Also in November Daniel decided to buy 50 pounds of apples.

When we went to Russell Orchard with my parents [to get a normal amount of apples] Daniel discovered that there was a big price cut if you bought a ton of apples. Like costco-esque prices for apples (less than $1/lb). But these are local, pesticide free, and come in about 20 different varieties. So off Daniel went.

Unfortunately, the experiment turned out semi unsuccessful. :) We loaded as many as we could into our refrigerator and then rest went in a large cooler down in our cellar. When Daniel got to cooler to load more into to refrigerator, we had a handful of rotten ones, and a good number of half-rotton ones. So, we tossed to rotten ones, and Daniel made (semi-questionable) apple sauce [all by himself!] from the good half of the half-rotton apples. Some were rather hearty though and have survived. In fact, we still have about 10 in the refrigerator. And I think he bought them November 1st. So, pretty impressive nonetheless. :)

And I may or may not have gone to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn part 1 with some of my friends from work....

It was actually really fun, and I survive the whole day at work plus an after work event the next day on only about 3 hours of sleep. It was my first time doing such a thing, but I think I would do it again. Probably for the Hunger Games. :) (and BD part 2...) :)

And, every now and then I help Daniel with a bit of yard work. Particularly in the fall, when the leaves are absolutely insane.

Sigh....I am glad the leaves have all fallen and we are done with that now. Just looking at these pictures reminds of of the longs hours of work and sore shoulders... :)

More to come, perhaps even later today!

the Tobin's visit

2011-11-23T18:26:00.001-05:00

Last month, in honor of my birthday, my dear parents flew to Boston to visit us for just under a week. It was their longest trip to date, but the time still felt like it flew by! We managed to do quite a bit though, so here are the highlights... :)

My parents flew in on my birthday, Wednesday, October 19th. I worked that day, but they and Daniel met me after work in Salem for a birthday dinner celebration. :)

We ate at the Greenland Cafe, which is a restaurant I had been wanting to try for a while.

The food was tasty and we all had a great time. We made a quick stop at Costco on the way home, and then ate a small cake I had made the night before. Oh, and I got to open a few presents of course. :)

Thursday I was off to work again but my parents kept themselves pretty entertained (see the end to find out what my Dad was doing). We met again for dinner in Salem.

This time we ate at the Lobster Shanty, a restaurant my Mom had been wanting to go to ever since she saw it on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

See? It's Guy Fieri! :)

My mother got a lobster martini. And I think the rest of us all got some sort of lobster meal, except my dad who got pulled pork. :)

The Salem Farmers Market was going on right down the street, so my Mom and I stopped by to get some tasty bread and flavored butters right before closing time. It was fun to take her there as I went pretty much every week to get produce and eggs over the summer/early fall! They are having a winter market right now, though I have yet to go.

We stopped for some ice cream on the way home. Daniel was a little chilly so he borrowed my mom's coat. :)

Friday I got off work a little early and met my parents and Daniel at home. Our landlord-esque people were out of the country when my parents visited, so we were watching their dogs for them (the dogs were still on their side of the house, we just walked, feed, and let them out periodically). We just love their dogs, they are so sweet, so I enjoyed getting to take them on a quick walk with Daniel. :)

It should be noted, with great sadness, that since the last time the dogs were pictures on our blog one passed away. :( We miss Tess a lot, but sweet little Echo helps ease the pain. :)

See? She is just so cute. :)

Daniel playing with Otter.

Otter and Echo both love Daniel. :)

And another picture of Echo. :)

We then proceeded to eat dinner at 15 Walnut and then play 2 rounds of Candlepin bowling. Of course I accidentally left the camera in the dog's room after their walk, oops, so there is no photographic proof.

Saturday morning we ventured south to downtown Boston. This is Daniel and I riding on the T! :)

My mom had noticed a groupon for Boston that sounded interesting, so she got it and we decided to give it a go. It was a Boston movie/TV tour, so it showed you different sights where Boston movies and TV shows were filmed.

My parents on the bus!

It was actually pretty neat, because they showed you clips of movies and then you drove by the filming location outside. And a few times we got to get out of the bus.

Prudential Center.

This was the flower shop from the movie The Town.

L Street Tavern from Good Will Hunting.

The Booth from Good Will Hunting. :)

Daniel checking out the bar.

Daniel and my Dad. Note the Good Will Hunting poster in the background.

This was an alleyway from the move The Departed. Yes, lots of Matt Damon/Ben Affleck movies/references. They are Boston boys and really like filming movies here. :)

After the tour ended we walked over to Beacon Hill for a late lunch/early dinner.

Sigh, my love affair with Beacon Hill continues. :)

We ended up eating some delicious pizza at Figs. Yum. :)

The next day we went to church. After church Daniel and I had to help out at our church's Harvest Party. We ran the donut on a string game. After that was done we somehow got signed up for a Corn Hole tournament.

I had only played Corn Hole once in my life before, I am not sure exactly what Daniel's experience level was. And though our first game was a little shaky (I scored 0 points for our team, oops) we some how made it into the finals!

See?

This is from our final game. Which we unfortunately lost. :(

It was a close one though. And while no one is technically to blame, Daniel did not score nearly as many points in this game as he had in the past. Oh well...you win some you lose some. :)

A personal highlight was when all of our Sunday School kids (we teach 3rd-5th grade Sunday school) started chanting and cheering for us. 'Twas cool. :)

I had Monday off of work so in the AM we drove over to Crane Beach to show my parents where we had sent a majority of our summer. We also attempted to get a Christmas card picture. :)

We were pretty excited about our front row spot. :)

After we were done at Crane Beach we drove north into Newburyport to wander around.

We saw a lighthouse on Plum Island.

We then headed back toward home for some lunch/dinner from Woodman's. This was my Mom's other big request. We have gone to 3 different fried clam places with my parents (seen here, here, and here) but somehow never Woodman's. And since Woodman's is the place we take pretty much every visitor, we felt we should take my parents too. :)

We love Woodman's. :)

Tuesday I was back at work. But my parents stopped by to visit with Daniel and my lovely boss let me leave early to grab an early dinner with them and then take them to the airport.

Yummy food at The Howling Wolf in Salem.

Thank you again Mom and Dad for another wonderful visit! We had a wonderful time!

Also, it should be noted, per Daniel's recommendation my Dad began reading The Hunger Games during their visit. And my Dad continued to read it every spare second he had. I even allowed him to take it, along with Catching Fire (book #2), on the plane with him so he could continue to read. He has since acquired Mockingjay (book #3) from the library and is nearing the end of a wonderful series. I should probably have him write me a little blurb for the blog so I can further promote The Hunger Games up in here. One final bit of Hunger Games propaganda, the movie trailer has now been released and it is chill (and tear) inducing. Possibly only if you have read the books, but intriguing nonetheless. Here it is on youtube and iTunes. Enjoy, I have only watched it about 15 times myself. :)

coffee table

2011-11-21T18:01:00.094-05:00

And just like that we are 2/3 of the way through November. Daniel has been busy finishing up applications and therefore hogging the computer, so I apologize for my absence. But, on to the coffee table. This was really a fun project, albeit time consuming. I probably worked on it on and off for about a month. And in the end, it turned out to be quite a bit of drama. In fact, I don't have an "official" after picture yet as I am trying to figure out how to correct a bit of problem I ran in to at the end of the project...

Oh and sorry the pictures are sort of random/bad. Our new camera (grrr) has been doing weird things in iPhoto lately where half of our photos suddenly become 0kb after editing. We still have the picture and can revert back to the original, and there is no rhyme or reason about which pictures this happens to. So I had limited picture options. :)

We last left off with Jenny sanding away the black paint. I eventually got EVERYTHING off of the top piece, and a decent amount off of the bottom. I also needed to do a bit of evening out on the bottom part as there were some chunks missing from the previous owners dog. :)

Once that was done sanding I stained the top (twice; letting it sit, wiping, and drying in between) of a dark walnut stain. I painted the inside of the drawers green (this took thousands of coasts and yet somehow some marker/ink marks from the inside of the drawer STILL bleed through. They must have had super markers) and used my small brush to start putting some green in the corners/hard to get places.

Then I painted a base coat of green on the bottom section.

Then, two coats of white semi gloss paint (this is just off the shelf stuff we used for all of our trim/doors). This picture is clearly after just one coat. :)

Again, after just one coat. You can see the drawers in the background!

And a close up of the drawers. Some parts (the bleeding through markers parts) had just been touched up. I am not that bad of a painter. :)

After the second coat of white paint was dry, I used some fine sandpaper to lightly distress some of the corners/edges so the green paint showed through. It came out very subtle, but that is what I was going for.

And here is where my problem arose. I put a clear polyurethane coat on the stained top portion. The bottom was semi-gloss and therefore already had a shiny finish, but I thought with my distressing it would be helpful to have a little reinforcement with the clear coat, just so the white didn't keep chipping off. Well all was fine and dandy until I realized that the clear coast is not so clear....perhaps a little more on the yellow/tan side?

Anyway, you can really only tell in daylight but there is yellow/tan glaze all over the bottom now. And I am trying to figure out what to do. Perhaps it just looks a little extra antiqued, but there are ugly drips and parts look quite bad. Because remember, this went on clear...it just dried darker. I refuse to redo the green and two coats of white again. That would be torture. I am toying with the idea of very carefully painting a thin coat of white over the bottom part again; hopefully leaving the green distressed areas in tact. We will see. For now, I am just enjoying the completed project, in artificial light at least. :) Maybe some actual after pictures to come after I make a decision on how to correct my mistake. :)

fall weekends

2011-11-03T18:35:00.002-04:00

October was quite a whirlwind. Is it really November already? I can't believe how fast fall is flying by. And with winter-esque temperatures in Massachusetts lately (as well as two days of [minimal] snow in October) winter is really knocking on the door.

But once upon a time it was fall. So here we go... :)

This doesn't really have anything to do with anything. We just have a cute pumpkin (still) on our porch. I think since it is not carved it can remain up through Thanksgiving as fall-decor. :)

Hahaha, I can't believe I am talking about going to the beach and snow in the same post. But, it is what it is, so we will go with it. :) We had AWESOME (80 degree) weather for Columbus Day weekend, so Daniel and I decided to go to the beach one last hurrah.

We weren't the only ones. :)

Even though the weather was absolutely beautiful, you could feel fall in the air. It was a lovely way to spend the long weekend though....never something we thought we would be able to do in Massachusetts in the middle of October!

Then the real fall weather rolled in and our pumpkin (and the grass beyond) looked like this. But not even 2 days ago our porch has snow and ice on it (we don't understand how it stayed so long! We only got an inch of snow on October 30th, and the temps were in the 40's - low 50's during the day, though below freezing at night. It was a New England mystery...) Lets just say I miss the leaves. :)

Though leaves meant (/means. Even with the snow we still have leaves on the trees) lots of raking. But it is okay, Daniel has the leaf blower after all. :)

Another fall project (though this was actually part of our work for free rent arrangement) was staining our little porch. I helped D do the first coat one Sunday, and he did the second all by himself. There is no after picture, but it looks much improved. :)

Also, I have long since finished the great coffee table project but have yet to take "after" pictures. Though we have happily been using it in the living room for weeks. So that should hopefully be coming soon. Plus, my parents visited for my b-day, so of course that meant we went on all sorts of fun adventures. :) More to come. :)

festival

2011-11-01T18:24:00.027-04:00

Last month (in fact, it was exactly 1 month ago today) Daniel and I ventured down to Boston one Saturday to attend the Boston Local Food Festival. We weren't exactly sure what to expect as we are not regular festival attenders. But it seemed like it could be fun, and since I am "in to" the local food movement (and D is along for the ride) it seemed like something good to support.

We did our usual get down to Boston technique of parking at a T-station in Malden and riding the T into the city.

Daniel looking very excited. :)

As I said before, we were not exactly sure what to expect, if the festival was going to be more informational, interactive, glorified farmer's market, just food to buy and eat, etc. It ended up somewhat being a combination of everything, but very heavy on the buy food to eat side.

Not that we minded. :) (And yes, "we" is correct. Though Daniel happens to be in all the eating pictures, we both happily shared and tasted everything).

Everything at the event had to be "local" cost $5 or less. Daniel and I had a lot of fun wandering around to every booth seeing if anything piqued our interest. Pictured above is Jamaican jerk chicken (with all meat from a local farm), organic ginger slaw (yum), and "natural" blueberry soda ( I got pumpkin pie flavor.) D and I generally do not drink soda, but the unique flavors were too tempting. While I still think it is true that there is no nutritional benefit to drinking soda of any kind, at least this company uses quality ingredients. And it's local, for us New Englanders at least. :)

There was a chance of rain, and though the day started out a little cloudy, it ended up being a lovely early fall day.

Batch salted caramel ice cream. (which was supposed to be dessert until we discovered the festival continued on the other side of the street!)

And by golly, look who we found across the street! Our good friends at Flatbread. :)

Ribbs.

Some kind of special flavored pickle.

There were also many samples (yay for free food) and food trucks parked all around the perimeter. We were well fed and probably spent less than $15 on food! There was also a great turnout (30,000 according to the website). Though I am sure more people were attracted to the "festival" part of the title rather than local food; it was still neat to see so many people gathered for what I think is a positive change for our food industry.

The festival was held in a area of Boston we had never been to before. So after we were full to the brim, we wandered around for a bit and snapped a few pictures.

We also wandered through Chinatown (after passing through the Occupy Boston peeps) since we had never been there before either. It truly felt like we were in another country (possibly China?) while walking through. We may have to go back sometime for some likely awesome Asian food. :)

candlepin

2011-10-21T15:17:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the blogging delay. Our blog is actually through Daniel's email account, so with my birthday approaching (and now past!) I was suddenly locked out of Daniel's email and therefore the blog! What a tragedy. :) Now I am back in action and hope to try and catch up asap!

One weekend last month we went on a fun double date with some of our dear friends, Michael and Bekah. They are actually moving soon, so we wanted to try and fit in some 2-on-2 hanging out time before they have left us for Texas (hey that rhymes!) :)

For dinner, we went to Flatbread, which is actually the same company as the Flatbread we went to with my parents back in 2009 in MAUI. I think I wrote about it then, but it was crazy to me to find that this delicious pizza place we went to in Maui had other locations; pretty much all in the New England area (one in Whistler BC now for you PNW-ers)! Since then I have been determined to go...and 2 years later we finally did!

Flatbread is a pretty cool company. They use all local and organic products whenever possible. Everything is homemade and all the beer on tap is from local microbreweries as well! They are also very involved with the local community and have a charity night once a week where all the proceeds go to a local charity! All the workers are a bit on the hippie side (or as hippie as a New England-er can be). Those Maui ones were hippies to the max though...of course Paia (where the restaurant was located) is a pretty hippie town...so it all fit right in. :)

Anyway, we made it to Somerville with little to no trouble. We were there pretty early for a Saturday (around 5:30/6:00-ish so there was no wait for a table. We had some delicious pizza's...2 "regular ones" (the nitrate-free pepperoni and mushroom and Mopsy's Kalua pork pie (we had it in Paia, basically like a BBQ-chicken pizza but BBQ-ed pork instead!)) and 2 specials (one that involved steak and peppers, the other had butternut squash and a cranberry sauce reduction). Everything was delcious.

The Flatbread in Somerville shares a building with an old candlepin bowling alley. So we thought it would be fun to do that too (since D and I had never been candlepin bowling before and they are much more common than 10-pin in Mass, Maine, and NH plus easterns parts of Canada, eh.) Unfortunately, the one at Flatbread had a really, really, really long wait...so we headed closer to home to find some available lanes. But first we had a [much longer than expected] detour for some froyo. I still say it was worth it, others do not agree with me. :)

We eventually made it to Sunnyside Bowl in Danvers and played 2 games!

Michael

Bekah

Jenny

Daniel

So before we went bowling Daniel and I were doing a little research so we could be better prepared for our first candlepin bowling experience. Obviously, the ball is much smaller...

And all the balls are all the same size/weight with no finger holes. You throw 3 balls per frame and you get 2 frames back-to-back per person. So in one game you throw 6 balls each turn, 5 times. Also, the pins are not cleared in between. Though that is part of the strategy, hitting the downed pins in such a way to have it knock over other pins. The scoring is also different, though that it complicated and the computer does it for you. :)

It is considerably more difficult than 10-pin bowling. According to wikipedia, the highest officially sanctioned score ever recorded was 245 (the maximum score is still 300). In the 2 games we played there was MAYBE 1 strike (I cannot remember) and a handleful of spares. Oh yeah, and a strike only counts if you get all 10 pins down with the first ball, a spare with the first 2. The 3rd is just a bonus roll of sorts; if you get all 10 pins down with 3 balls you just get 10 points.

And you still wear the awesome bowling shoes! :)

After reading through all of that, Daniel declared that he thought he would be better at candlepin bowling then regular 10 pin. I though that was funny, as everything screams more difficult to me!

Well, by golly Daniel was right! None of us got a great score, but Daniel was pretty awesome at it, right off the bat! Especially in the first game. In the second he started tweaking with his "signature style" and his scoring went a little downhill. Bekah and I were lucky if we hit a few pins in each frame...I kept pulling the ball to the right, straight in the gutter. :( We had a lot of fun though and can't wait to try it again soon!

fall weekends and projects

2011-10-11T18:02:00.001-04:00

Can you believe we are in the thick of fall already? I swear summer goes by so fast. Oh well, at least fall is pretty. And October is the best month of the year, so I have that to get me though. :)

So, as I am perpetually behind on blogging, these pictures are a little outdated. But I have to catch up sometime so here we go!

Football season has started! We celebrated the first Sunday of football season by getting our favorite clam chowder (as discovered from this last year).

For week 2, to celebrate the Patriots first home game, and first game on a Sunday (their opening game was on MNF) we BBQ-ed some burgers. With some baked potato fries. I used to really not be a big burger fan, or like the taste of plain beef in general. But since we changed to only grass-fed beef, I like them again! What they say is true...it really does taste better! :)

So, I am sad to say that the Patriots have officially replaced the Seahawks as #1 in our hearts. I mostly blame the trade of Matt Hasselbeck and major restructuring of the team. There are seriously like 2 people on the whole team from D and I's Seattle days left! D has always been more of a fan of the NFL in general...but I am now officially a Pats fan. But, fear not, the Seahawks probably are my favorite team on the NFC! :) Who knows, we are probably just flaky fans; perhaps our favorite team will continue to change over the years as we [potentially] move to different states. We shall see, only time will tell...

So we have a new project we are working on...

Cheesy action shot.

At a garage sale I was driving by about a month ago, I saw this beauty...The price was right (only $5!) so I promptly called D (I had the Prius) to come pick up our new coffee table. We had been wanting to replace our current falling apart IKEA one for quite a while, but weren't sure what direction we wanted to go (wood, leather ottoman, etc.) This discovery made the decision for us, so off to work we went!

Sanding took forever....and gave me tingly hands and sore shoulders. :) I made a ton of progress this past weekend (i.e. it is almost done) so updated pictures to come... :)

Have I talked about pinterest yet? It can be at times rather addicting, but I find it a wonderful place full of all kinds of ideas and inspiration! Basically people "pin" pictures that link back to a blog or webpage of something they like. Whether a recipe, DIY idea, room color/style, craft, gift, outfit, whatever! It is actually a pretty ingenious idea, not only is it a great place to organize you ideas so you don't lose them, but you get to see other people's pins too, that you maybe otherwise would not have found or thought of! Anyway, thanks to pinterest, I spent about 3 hours a couple of Fridays ago tying knots.

The final result was pretty cute though, so I am fine with it. :) Here is the blog where I got the idea from, btw!

In other fall updates, I figured it was time for me to update my yarn wreath (I have pinterest to thank for the yarn wreath idea as well!). When I was at Michael's buying ribbon for the aforementioned wreath, I picked up some [fake] yellow and green Billy Balls.

Too cute. But maybe not super fall-ish. Oh well, at least I finally updated the original yarn wrapped twigs. :)

Oops, I forgot I had more pictures of the coffee table. In this picture you can probably see why it was only $5... the previous owner's dog enjoyed using the bottom as a chew toy...around all 4 sides. Oh well, twas nothing our new sander couldn't fix. :)

And Daniel about to embark on a long run in his cute [matching] running gear. :)

That's all for now! More to come...

The Hunger Games

2011-10-06T17:57:00.001-04:00

Ah, The Hunger Games. Where do I even begin? I guess I will start at the very beginning, since it is usually the very best place to start.

I have mentioned before that I have a bookshelf on goodreads that I use to keep track of what I have read. I also use it as my primary source for book recommendations. They now have a program [similar to Netflix for you Netflix-users) that recommends books for you based on what you have read and how you have rated past books. But back in the day (i.e. 2009-2010), I would just check lists to see what was highly rated and looked interesting to me as well as the most popular books of the week/month/all time.

A book that just kept coming up again and again was called The Hunger Games. The title just sounded odd to me, I thought it was some kind of anorexia book. When I read the synopsis it sounded downright disturbing so I chose to ignore it.

And ignore it I did, until I read the Twilight series. And as the series was winding down, I felt as though I may slip into a bit of a "twilight-depression" (feeling very sad as there is no more Edward and Bella to read) when I finished. To help alleviate that, I decided to stock up on only really, really highly rated/recommended books. And so I took the plunge, requested The Hunger Games from my library (it took me a while to get it - usually a good sign!) and haven't looked back since. :)

The book was addictive. It is young adult, so the end of practically every chapter is some sort of cliffhanger. I stayed up hours past my usual bedtime reading this, just because I honestly could not put it down. It is so good you want to devour it, but at the same time you want to slow down and savor it. It is hard to put into words what is so good about it, it is just so good. It is exciting, suspenseful, funny, emotional, romantic, and thought-provoking. From children to adults, I have yet to meet someone who dislikes them. And trust me I talk about them whenever I can and recommend them often. :)

I got Catching Fire from the library as quickly as I could and tore through that over a Florida vacation. :) Unfortunately, I had to wait 4 months until the third and final book, Mockingjay, was released. But apparently my library loves me, and somehow I was able to pick it up and read it on the day it was released. I have since acquired the hardcover boxed set (from one of my dear former co-workers as a going away present...she knows me so well!) and lend them out whenever I can. I may have re-read them once already as well. :)

This sort of brings us to Labor Day. Daniel had promised me that he would read the books once he was done with school. Then it was after he took the GRE. Then Daniel got this idea in his head that he wanted to read all 3 books in one day (They are just under 400 pages a piece, but the font is pretty big and they are quick reads) so then we had to wait for a day that he could devote to reading. I just wanted him to read the dang things, so I suggested Labor Day; that way I would be home and could fetch him food and other things to not distract from the task at hand.

And so, at around 6:30 AM on Labor Day, he began.

And kept reading and reading.... (we both kept having flashbacks to his GCTS-days)

I switched off between cooking (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bread), doing dishes/cleaning the house, and reading with him in the office.

I made a batch of honey wheat buns. Baking bread on the Hunger Games day is pretty appropriate, since Peeta is the boy with the bread and all [Hunger Games reference...read and you will understand]. :)

Sigh, I just love yeast. :)

Cute little buns...

After the second rising [I have an over-crowding-the-pan problem. I have a feeling it is a result of my not-having-a-dishwasher-and-washing-everything-by-hand problem.Though D washes 99.9% of the dishes...so I really can't complain. I still feel dirty dish guilt though).

And done. I make a batch every few months, slice and freeze them. They are quite tasty. :)

But back to reading...

The Hunger Games (R) is done...on to Catching Fire, with Mockingjay (L) waiting in the wings. :)

Finishing Catching Fire around dinner time (did anyone notice Daniel's many outfit changes?)

And Jenny heading to bed while D is still plugging away on Mockingjay. He ended up finishing around 3:30 AM, which I say counts as they were all read within a 24 hour period. Daniel said he was going to count it from "sleep to sleep". Either way he met his goal. :)

And here are some words on the books from the man himself...(a little repetitive at times, but I have him loose guidelines)

Jenny had been bugging me to read the Hunger Games trilogy after I finished my GRE responsibilities, so I set aside Labor Day, September 5. I decided to try and read the three books all in one go. I had read 400 pages of dense theology before in one day, so I thought it wouldn't be too hard to read around 1200 pages of YA literature. I started at 6:45 in the morning, and finished at 3:30am. This still counts for me using the paper/class deadline rules. I basically read all day, and only took breaks for food. I also was engrossed in the story and decided not to rush things - though I never actually speed read. My eyes were sore the next few days from my reading marathon, and I was slightly depressed from the overall plot and outcome - though the nature of man and the dystopian genre warranted both. I even developed a skin reaction on the parts of my fingers and hands that had been in constant contact with the ink, or some chemical in the paper. I look forward to the movies - finally a film series that Jenny and I are both excited about!

Bottom line, I highly recommend this trilogy. And because all the books are already published, there is no dreaded cliffhanger/wait time from one book to the next. If you are close by, I am more than happy to lend my copies to you; if not, I recommend your local library. :) And finally, read them now, because THE MOVIE (of the first book) is coming out in March, and I (and Daniel, and many others) cannot wait. :)

Completely unrelated...

Creepy giant moth [outside our window] = National Geographic statement stands true. :)

labor day weekend activities

2011-10-03T18:42:00.005-04:00

Okay, now that all of the road trip stuff [and spontaneous blog update] is out of the way, I can begin catching up with everything else that has been going on. I shall begin with Labor Day weekend.

We started the long weekend fun with a dinner/movie date planned for Friday night. The plan was for D to meet me at the mall (about 15 minutes away from my work, 20 minutes from home, but sort of right in the middle but west. Not sure if that made sense or why it is really relevant to the story.) where we would run some quick errands, eat dinner, and then drive to the other mall to see HP and the Deathly Hollows Pt. 2. As I am leaving work, D calls to say he has to stop by Costco but will meet me a little later at the Apple Store.

So I get a little bonus time to wander around the mall and go to whatever stores I want! An unexpected surprise. I actually also bumped into one of my friends/former co-workers (she still works at the college, just we no longer work in the same department) so we got to wander around and shop for a while. D's Costco stop took way longer than expect (he got a bit lost getting there...oops) but I didn't really question anything. I was enjoying my shopping time.

So we finally meet at the Apple Store and just before D runs in to look into genius bar appointments (his iPod Touch had been non-responsive for a while) he hands me a BRAND NEW CAMERA. Total shock and surprise. Our former camera had broken a few days before (just AFTER I downloaded all of our road trip pictures, thank goodness) and we were going to look in to getting it fixed. But between it probably costing more to fix then the 3 year old camera was worth worth [and D breaking it more while trying online fix-it-yourself tips] D decided to surprise me with a newbie.

It is very fancy shmancy, red, and takes really great pictures and HD video. Oh, and it is Nikon. But that is because our last one was Canon and once D is burned, he never trusts again. :)

Testing out the new camera in the Apple store.

Daniel dearest, asking me to stop embarrassing him in public.

Daniel ignoring me since I won't stop embarrassing him. :)

After we were done in the Apple Store (no openings at the Genius Bar, I had to return on Sunday) we headed over to P.F. Chang's to eat. While we were waiting, we recorded this video...

Camera Test from Jenny McDowell on Vimeo.

And took this picture of the pretty, late summer sky.

After we ate we hurried to a late snowing of HP. It was good. Daniel loved it.

He is such a Potter-head. :)

The movie ended just before midnight...much later then us two early birds are used to going to bed. Twas a fun and enjoyable evening for all though. :)

The next day we went to the beach!

Since Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, it made sense that it also marked our last beach trip. Sniff, sniff. We have not been back since. :( We were hoping to squeeze in a few more days, but the weather has not been cooperating on the weekends. We do hope to go to the beach some more while we still have our pass (it is good through April) but probably not for swimming and sun bathing. :)

At our last trip to Costco (not when D bought the camera, but the time before) we saw the matching umbrella to our chairs on clearance for only $9, so we decided to get it. It was a good decision. :)

And what trip to the beach is complete without a visit to our favorite ice cream place? :)

Me with my raspberry cheesecake. D got a DOUBLE SCOOP of cherry something or other and chocolate/raspberry. YUM YUM.

Enjoying our treats and the scenery.

Sometimes I feel like our house is in the middle of a National Geographic magazine or something.

We had another visit from a creepy little locust. Gross.

Sunday I went to the mall AGAIN to find out D's iPod Touch is officially dead (RIP dear friend) and bought a much more affordable iPod Shuffle to replace it. :)

Monday gets it's own post as it is something very near and dear to my reading fanatic heart. :) Stay tuned... :)

blog updates

2011-10-02T17:01:00.000-04:00

Well, I have spent way too many hours updating the ol' blog today. Daniel mentioned the other day that there are new layouts in blogger, so I decided to check it out. Well, then one thing led to another and bam, new layout, colors, fonts etc.

While I was at it, I decided to do some research on making my pictures bigger. I miraculously figured it out and will [very slowly, over the course of many, many months] hopefully be updating all of the old posts so those pictures are larger now too. The process (that I am using at least. There are probably easier ways, but the ones I saw involved uploading pictures to an outside hosting source and I thought the sounded annoying. Plus, would that mean I would have to re-upload ALL my past pictures?) is tedious, as I go into html mode and manually change a number that reflects the size of the picture. Like I said, it will take me quite a while, but it is strangely worth it too me as the thought of all the pictures not "matching" drives me nuts. Daniel thinks I am crazy, btw. :)

And, because no post "counts" without a picture (plus I need to practice my new skills)

Don't ask how long it took us to get a proper picture. :)

Anyway, that is all. Now off to watch some football. :)

road tripping, day 6

2011-09-23T19:32:00.032-04:00

And, the last day of the road trip is finally here; sniff, sniff, sob, sob. I will surely miss the steady stream of blog material! Haha, just kidding. Everyone else out there is probably getting pretty tired of all this road trip stuff. Plus, I do have a few things to catch up on, as this trip was over a month ago.

Sooo...our final morning (Tuesday, August 23rd) found us camping in the almost mountains of NY. For breakfast Daniel was determined to finish off some the last of our uneaten food, and therefore ate a cheeseburger for breakfast. I tried to convince myself that it was like a breakfast sandwich, or something, but I couldn't do it. So I ate free pancakes while Daniel ate TWO cheeseburgers (mine and his own, double ew.)

We hit the road traveling east and entered Connecticut (missed the sign of course, twas the theme of the trip!) First stop was visiting Yale in lovely New Haven. :)

New Haven is actually pretty sketch...until you reach the campus.

I kid you not, we were basically in the ghetto one minute, then all of a sudden there are magnificent stone buildings, beautiful lawns, and cute shops/boutiques on every corner.

I really loved the architecture, it was just unreal. The whole campus (which is large and in change) really impressed me.

We got out of our car to wander around a bit and locate the Biblical Studies building (which was pretty small).

Cool, old gate.

We had to drive to fine the seminary, but we are glad we did because it was good sized and very beautiful.

Daniel liked the Jonathan Edwards door. :)

After we were done at Yale we travel north, through Hartford, to visit one of Daniel's favorite, local breweries, Thomas Hooker.

The brewery actually has open houses and beer tastings on Fridays and Saturdays, but it didn't work with our travel dates to go to one of those. So we hoped that they were semi-open on random Tuesday for us to drop in for a growler and pint glass (we buy a pint glass from every brewery we visit). Well, we were in luck on both accounts. However, they were out of the pre-poured growlers in the beer that D wanted (the IPA) so they ended up pouring one for Daniel directly off the tank. We had to wait a while (it pours very slow) but it was worth it as D got the best beer possible! :)

We took the scenic route back through Massachusetts. We have not been able to explore western Mass/the Berkshires too much since we moved here so we wanted to see a little if we could. Also, I wanted to visit an organic farm I had heard of that just happened to be open to the public on Tuesday afternoons (it was meant to be!) to stock up on some produce. Also, it is always nice when we can avoid the Mass Pike (i.e. our end of I-90) and all it's tolls.

We made it back home before 5:00pm which we were very thrilled and impressed by. We actually took a lot of back roads closer to our neck of the woods in hopes of avoiding rush hour traffic, and I think it worked. :)

We had some leftover camping food for dinner, unpacked, started a load of laundry, and FINALLY watched HP and the Deathly Hollows part. 1. It was a lovely end to an amazing trip.

road tripping, day 5

2011-09-20T18:17:00.001-04:00

So, this day of the road trip (which was Monday, August 22nd) ended up being mostly planned by none other than Daniel himself, pretty much the evening before. Mostly with his vast American History knowledge.

See, when I plan things to do and see on a trip, I look at guidebooks (we have a few, including this and this [though ours is vintage 2007) that I use the most), websites, etc. to get ideas of what to do and see. If something doesn't sound interesting or familiar to me, we don't do it (according to the itinerary at least). So, when we decided to drive to West Virginia and camp for the night, in Harpers Ferry, Daniel got all excited and wanted to visit Harpers Ferry (now called HF).

Okay...fine by me, but what exactly is in HF? And why have I never heard of it?

So Daniel filled me in. Most of HF's history centers around John Brown, his raid, and the Civil War. Conveniently, all of the historical site are nicely contained within a National Park. Unfortunately, you have to pay to get in, park, and then walk quite a ways to see everything. And we didn't have a ton of time as we had much ground to travel today (the goal was to camp in upstate NY that night) so we decided to see if Gretchen could help us out a bit and take closer to some of the sites so Daniel could see them.

Well, Gretch did us one better, somehow we ended up smack dab in the middle of the downtown/historic site area.

Thanks Gretchen!

Of course there is no parking in the vicinity (duh, because we are supposed to be parking at the park) so Daniel hopped out with the camera while I drove around like a creeper so he could see the sites.

So, since I never left the car, I can't really tell you what any of this is! :)

Oh! I do think this is John Brown's fort though.

So, probably check out the virtual tour, or maybe even Wikipedia to find out more...Then you can fill me in! :)

It was a beautiful day though.

And I don't know why West Virginia has such a bad reputation...I thought it was beautiful.

Something written on the mountain.

Sorry HF for being cheapos. We just didn't think 10 minutes of taking pictures (and probably at least 30 minutes of walking to and from the car) was worth $6.

We really enjoyed our time though!

So, back when Daniel had declared he would like to visit HF, of course I did a little research in one of my guide books...by reading, we learned that Antietam was not too far away. Okay, so this place I have actually heard of....though I [previously] couldn't tell you what happened there. This piece of information secured our overnight location in HF though, as well as our first two activities that morning. :)

So, we drove into Maryland (got the sign this time!)

And visited Antietam. :) (yes, we paid the entrance fee this time.)

Walking in to buy our pass.

I took some scenery shots while D used the facilities. :)

Walking to our first stop.

Sometime soon after the first monument I started having flashbacks to a family vacation of my youth. We visited my mom's sister's family in Ohio and then took a road trip to Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg. I was about 9 at the time and was not a history buff by any means. Basically, it was not my ideal vacation as we walked around large lawns and looked at monuments. And probably watched some reenactments and and other historical things. Anyway, that trip was saved by visiting Hersey, PA (it is a chocolate themed theme park).

So Antietam is like a little mini Gettysburg. It is actually much smaller but similar idea. You follow a map from spot to spot and read a sign/plaque that tells you why this spot is important. Apparently I have not matured much because I lost interest fairly quickly. :) I was a better sport this time though. :)

Cool, old cannon.

Beautiful day, beautiful scenery.

The bloody cornfield. (When I say this I like to act like I am British and pretend I am British-swearing)

We started getting a little lazy and not always getting out of the car. I like to call this technique drive-through style. :)

There were little crickets everywhere. I actually don't know what size crickets should be per-say, but these didn't seem huge to me, about the size of a quarter/50 cent piece?. Also, it should be noted, even though there were crickets literally all over the ground I was not afraid of them! This surprised me looking back, as I am afraid of most flying insects and birds. But these little dudes just hopped, so I was not bothered. In fact, it was kind of fun to walk around as you created a wave of cricket hopping. Tehehe.

Burnside Bridge. D remembered this bridge from his history books of yore.

The last stop on the map was the Antietam National Cemetery.

There were lots of headstones...also a lot of unmarked graves. Very sad.

After we left Antietam we headed toward Baltimore. We had high hopes of visiting my cousin who lives there; though he was unfortunately out of town. Ironically, he was in Rehoboth Beach, DE; and we figured out, after the fact, our trips overlapped when we were there (very briefly) on Friday. Small world, and if only we had known before we could have maybe met up. He actually ate at the restaurant/brewery we went to the next night after we were there. Oh well...until next time Michael (Maui 2012 - woop, woop!)

There were other things to see in Baltimore though...

Like the Baltimore Raven's stadium. (Another big stadium with a little Daniel picture - can you find him?)

We also felt that no trip to Maryland is complete without some crabs...so we headed to Obrycki's for a late lunch/early dinner. ***Sad side note! When getting the link for their website, I noticed that the location we ate at is closing in a little over 1 month! They will still have 2 airport locations, but not the original restaurant. :( Very sad, but glad we made it here when we did!

Of course we wanted crab, so we just ordered half a dozen steamed and seasoned crabs to split.

Getting ready with our crab eating tools.

They roll out brown paper and then dump your crabs right on top.

You get a bib, quick demo, and then you go to town.

Crabs sure take a lot of work to eat...but boy is it worth it. I LOVE crab, and this did not disappoint!

The carnage.

We then hit the road again...

In New Jersey we made a stop at Princeton, one of Daniel's top choices for a PhD program.

New library under construction.

I had never been to Princeton/Princeton Seminary before, but Daniel has been multiple times. So we parked and walked around while he showed me the sites of the beautiful campus.

Then we ventured into the cute little downtown area for a little dessert...

And ended up with frozen yogurt. Can you guess whose is whose?

After eating we drove and drove, into the mountains of NY until we reached our KOA for the evening. Oh, and we got free pancakes the next morning. AND we had gotten free pancakes this morning as well. Perfect timing as we were getting a bit tired of cold cereal for breakfast (we actually have a fair amount of diversity in our breakfast, so the same cold cereal, multiple days in a row, does not happen at our house.) Change is good. As are free pancakes. :)

road tripping, day 4

2011-09-16T18:33:00.002-04:00

The next day of our travels (Sunday, August 21st) brought us to Williamsburg VA.
For many, many years it has been a dream of mine to visit Colonial Williamsburg. Not really sure why...I have always enjoyed Colonial America the most of all the other parts of history I learned in school. Also, two of my Aunts had visited there before and I thought it sounded really neat as a youngin'. So, when we decided the road trip was a "go" I knew we had to make it down to Williamsburg. And we did. :)

Just when we try and get good about taking sign pictures again, we get this. Sigh...

We bought our tickets ahead of time at the KOA, and ended up saving about $3 a piece! Not too bad, especially considering adults tickets into the park are not cheap. (just under $40/person I think.) We were willing to pay it though, as it was one of a few paid activities we were doing on the trip. Plus, Daniel couldn't bear to crush Jenny's childhood dream. :)

Waiting for the shuttle to the park with Daniel's special badge. :)

Funny story from the shuttle ride....It was PACKED with people, mostly southerners. We have come to realize that Williamsburg must be THE travel destination for the people of the south. Anyway, we were packed in like sardines so Daniel and I got off at the first stop. As we were walking past this lady near the front she announced to everyone walking by "Now have a great day, y'all". This sort of thing does not happen in Massachusetts....ever. Not in Seattle either. It made Daniel and I chuckle though. :)

Governor's palace

Gardens in the back.

Daniel liked this old school map. :)

The George Wythe house.

A colonial chicken. :)

We happened to be there on a Sunday but had missed the service times. (As in they were in the middle of a service so we could not enter.)

Inside the Capitol...

Daniel studying more old maps. :)

Inside a jail cell.

Daniel posing at the pulpit.

HUGE colonial cow. :)

Everything was so well done, we were really impressed and had a great time! We were surprised by how many people had multi-day passes though...sure we didn't do every single thing ( and we missed 90% of the daily re-enactment) and didn't stay terribly long at every single attraction, but we could not imagine coming back for a second full day.

We also found we preferred the attractions where you go in a get a tour of the area, or at least spoken to before you wander around the property yourself. Sometimes you were supposed to go and just strike up conversation and that was more awkward. For me at least. Actually, I just had one bad experience where I tried to talk to someone IN UNIFORM/COSTUME and he was very weird/rude and made me uncomfortable. I was traumatized for the rest of the day.

Some interesting things to note...the animals are all real and all the food they prepared (at different houses) is real. Again it was very well done. Everyone was so informative and I really learned/re-learned a lot in an interesting way! I told Daniel he should retire here but he said no. :)

Daniel cooling off (or at least trying to) on our stroll back to the car.

Did I mention it was HOT this day??? It was the furthest south we traveled on the trip, and the temperature was definitely in the upper 90's, pushing 100. And humid. THANKFULLY, every building was air conditioned so it was sweet relief to go inside. Not necessarily authentic but very necessary. :)

We arrived in Colonial Williamburg pretty much as soon as it opened and finished seeing everything (I think we visited 95% of the attractions that were open that day) around 2:00. So we had a late lunch picnic on our camping chairs under a tree in the parking lot. We were going to get lunch inside as we thought it would be fun to eat some colonial food, but not only was everything pretty pricey (which we expected), but all the "authentic" colonial meals were HOT, not really what we were in the mood for (even in an air conditioned tavern). And sorry, we didn't want to spend $13 on a turkey sandwich (I exaggerate not) when we had all the supplies to make one (probably tastier on my homemade bread) in the car. So that's what we did. :)

Then, we headed west toward Charlottesville, VA. We were always planning on visiting UVA (potential school D will apply to for PhD programs) when late in the game (the day before we left) I stumbled upon Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home) and Daniel really wanted to try to go. We knew they closed around 5:00, so we would be cutting it close with time, but at the very least I thought we could walk around the grounds, take a few pictures, etc. No need to spend more money on a tour as we had just spend good money that morning in Williamsburg. Well...apparently you have to pay $22 to take a shuttle up to tour the house/grounds. And we arrived about 30 minutes before we were closing. Kind of a bummer, but obviously it didn't work out.

The visitor center facilities we very nice though! :)

Next we drove to UVA...

Which was beautiful. After we toured around the campus for a bit (in our car....we think it was opening weekend or something because there were thousands of students, probably freshman, walking around, all dressed up going in the same direction. Kind of funny, but it probably made us look less creepy driving around slowly.) We found a Starbucks (we heart free wifi!) and finalized our plan for the evening.

We had originally planned on camping at a KOA in Charlottesville as we didn't know how long we would be at Colonial Williamsburg. Since we were already ahead of schedule we decided to see where the next KOA along our route was, since we were "done" in Charlottesville. The next day was to be a LOOONG driving day, so any headway we could make would be helpful.

We found a KOA in West Virginia near some other sights Daniel wanted to visit (also history related....how did my long awaited road trip/5 year anniversary vacation turn so educational?? :) Just kidding babe.) so we headed north (and a little bit west...?) on crazy, but beautiful country roads. In fact, the whole time I was singing...

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads

Very appropriate song choice I must say. :)

We drove late into the night (well, we really arrived around 9:30) pitched our tent and went to bed.

road tripping, day 3

2011-09-12T18:15:00.002-04:00

I need to get better at catching up on all this blogging...the longer I take the less details I remember about the post I am trying to do. :) It was a crazy week at work last week (first week of classes) but all went well and I am settling into the rhythm of my new job during the school year. Summer was nice and quiet, but having the students back makes things more interesting...and the days sure pass by quicker. :)

Anyway, we last left off with Jenny driving many hours at night while Daniel slept and missed important signs ( :) Just kidding! Though he did actually miss them I am holding a grudge) and sleeping in a lovely, comfortable, REAL bed.

We hit the road early in the AM on Saturday, August 20th (no free breakfast at the hotel...so we just ate our cereal in the parking lot before we left. :) We are quite classy.) First stop, the Washington Redskins stadium.

It was quite massive...much larger then I was expecting. Also, much uglier. I know it is Fed-Ex Field, company colors and all that, but where did the teal come from?

We drove a loop around the whole stadium until choosing the perfect pace to take the picture. Here is Daniel hiking up the stairs.

And, tiny Daniel in front of not even the whole stadium. This was a tricky one to photograph. :) (Pri-fontaine-us even made a cameo on the bottom left corner!)

A little closer up, here is the left side...

And the right. It is seriously crazy huge. And pretty ugly. :) Moving on...

We then ventured into WaD.C. Did you know, if you were writing a letter to someone who lives in DC, the city/state part would be Washington, District of Columbia (or D.C.). Maybe everyone else knew this but I never knew! So it it almost like Washington is the "city" inside of the District of Columbia. It also makes sense then why so many people call the area "Washington" rather than D.C. (as everyone from the REAL Washington, the state, does). It is like saying you are from Boston, rather than Massachusetts. Anyway, long ramble, sorry. :)

Also, it should be noted that I blame Washington D.C. for ruining all the "Welcome to..." sign pictures on this trip. There was no "Welcome to the District of Columbia" sign, which would have been nice. All of a sudden we were just in it. And then, when we left there was no "Welcome to Virginia" sign!!!! This was a big deal to me, as it was our first time being in Virginia and it would have been nice to commemorate. So the District of Columbia is weird, vague and apparently doesn't really exist, at least according to signage. :)

So Daniel and I have actually visited D.C. once before, back in July 2005. We were traveling to Baltimore for one of my cousin's weddings and took the opportunity to fly into DC, meet my parents, and spend the morning/afternoon running around and seeing as many sights as we could. We were definitely able to see a lot, but I always regretting not being able to visit any of the museums D.C. is famous for. So that was what this stop was for, to visit museums.

Cool factoid, any of the Smithsonian museums are free to the public. This was especially exciting to us in our quest to spend as little money as possible on this trip. :) It was overwhelming to try and pick museums, so we sort of copped out and chose probably the 2 most popular... The National Museum of Natural History and The National Museum of American History.

Tacky vendors set up all around the tourist spots.

First stop, the Museum of Natural History.

We are all set to go in, when we notice that there was no food or drink allowed inside. This is a bummer, as we had packed sandwiches, etc. to eat at some point during the day so we didn't have to shell out big bucks to eat yucky food at a food court somewhere. So, we ate a very early (10:30 AM) lunch before we went inside. :)

Daniel making friends with the birds (he was feeding them crumbs, probably just to torment me). Noticed them perched on the sign behind him as well? :)

Finally, we made it inside.

The giant elephant in the rotunda.

Hope diamond.

To be honest this museum was a little disappointing...Maybe I am just more of a fan of zoos or something, but I don't understand the point of having tons of displays of fake (stuffed?) animals/insects/fish with all sorts of information about them. Couldn't I just read a book or something? Again, perhaps there was a good bit of information, but most everything was just a picture, not the real deal.

We then moved on the to Museum of American History. As Daniel is an American History buff, I figured this would be right up his alley. :)

At an exhibit on transportation in America there was a good old Dodge Caravan (just like D's first car...the DanVan). Though this Caravan must have been a souped-up version as it had lovely wood paneling on the side. :) I made him pose in front of it. You can tell he is thrilled. :)

So our stomping grounds were prominently featured all over this museum. Here is Daniel with the display about Gloucester fishing stuff.

And me with Ipswich historic homes exhibit...they even removed one from Ipswich to put in the museum apparently.

In general I liked the American History museum more...though to be honest both of them were a little disappointing. They just felt juvenile and much more kid oriented. Which they probably were and it was our own fault for not looking into it further. The American History Museum was interesting though...They often times had actual artifacts and interesting displays...it felt like walking through a giant American History book from school. :)

When we were done we walked out to "the mall" to re-group and figure out what our plan was for the evening.

Washington Monument.

United States Capitol.

We decided to just hit the road and head south for Virginia.

Driving by the Pentagon on our way out.

So as we were driving through Virginia we were thinking about if we wanted to eat some Virginia BBQ (we are food lovers, and like to eat food while vacationing specific to the area). Then Daniel, having the wonderful memory that he does, remembered a past episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay (we are Bobby Flay fans here) for BBQ, in Virginia somewhere near a college. Bring the smartphone-less people that we are...we once again phoned-a-friend (i.e. my parents) and had my mom do some research for us. Well, she came through and found the place, which happened to be in Richmond, which we were about to be passing through.

And thus, we stopped at Buz and Ned's for some real Virginia BBQ.

We don't mind lines, as we figure that is usually a good sign. :)

And our delicious dinner...I got a pulled pork burger with cinnamon sugar sweet potato fried and cinnamon bourbon apples. Daniel got beef ribs with beans and coleslaw. Everything was delicious...probably the best BBQ we have eaten to date. :)

After dinner dinner we got back on the road to travel west to a KOA in Williamsburg, VA, where we spent the night.

road tripping, day 2

2011-09-05T08:42:00.067-04:00

So, I had originally thought that days 2 and 3 would be combined into one post, as day 2 was more of a driving day and less of a doing things day. However, I have many more pictures that I originally thought, and even more for day 3, so each day is getting a separate post it seems. This works out well; now I can spread out the the material and hopefully avoid too many blogging droughts. :)

Happy Labor Day today, by the way. I hope everyone is enjoying not labor-ing! D and I have had a great weekend so far, but I will probably blog about that at a later date. :)

So, day 2, Friday, August 19th. We left off at a KOA in Mystic, Connecticut. We got up early to shower, get ready, eat, and pack up the car. We were on the road quickly and headed west to New York!

D, starting off the day driving once again. Daniel did a disproportionate amount of driving, but I am the better navigator in my humble opinion (no offense my love) so it probably worked out for the better this way. :)

Ah, the Tappan Zee Bridge. We have found memories of this guy from our trip to NJ last fall. :) Really, Daniel is not a huge fan of bridges, and this guy is pretty beastly. Our first experience with it was late at night, which added to D's anxiety. Thankfully in the daylight it is not too bad. :)

Boom, see how many states we are cruising through without any stops? :)

Philadelphia skyline from the freeway.

And our first official tourist-y stop of the day, the Eagles stadium. (You know, because it is a tradition.) (I really need to just make a separate post all about visiting stadiums one day, then I won't have to link quite so many separate pages.) (oh, and we visit a few more stadiums on this trip. Hopefully I either make said stadium page soon, as the more we visit, the more annoying it is to link.) (Sorry for all the parenthesis.)

Can you find Daniel? :)

And right across the street is the Philly's stadium. Actually, the basketball/hockey stadium is right there too, so it is a nice little athletic complex. :)

And then I took over driving. It should be noted that this is not only the last time I will drive on the whole road trip (Daniel is a stud) but also the last time we remembered to take a picture at the start of a new leg/driving switch. Oh well, so is life. :)

Woop, woop, Delaware is a state we had never been to before, so it was nice to cross off the list. Nice photo capture my love. :)

Our destination in Delaware was Rehoboth Beach, home of the Dogfish Head Brewery Restaurant (and the original brewery until they had to open a larger one in Milton, DE.) We were also planning on camping in the general area and going to the Lewes Farmers Market the next morning. You know, we try and accommodate both of our interests, Daniel liked beer and football stadiums, I like local, organic food and farmers markets. :)

Unfortunately, the closer we got to Rehoboth Beach, the darker the sky was getting. And then the rain, thunder, and lightning started. And oh man, was it heavy rain that we drove in, for about 2 hours. I joke that while I may have only driven for half a day, but I had by far the worse driving conditions of the trip, so I paid my dues. :)

We planned to still go to Dogfish Head, but started attempting to look for alternate lodging. And this is where a smartphone would come in handy. :) Thankfully, my parents were home, so my mom did a little internet research for us. And Gretchen (our GPS) can look up hotels and provide phone numbers. Unfortunately, most everything was full, and those that weren't were significantly more than we were wanting to spend (we are talking $180 for Econo Lodge. No offense to Econo Lodge.) :)

Fortunately, the rain let up a bit and the sky started to clear, so we proceeded with dinner.

Dogfish Head was packed, so I dropped Daniel off while I searched for parking. Definitely easier said than done [I hate parallel parking]. Rehoboth Beach was adorable, but parking was not easy, even with the awful weather. I finally found a great spot, not too far away and I didn't even have to parallel park to get into it. Win-win-win. :)

A little lack of communication about the timing of this picture, but here I am out front! :)

Unfortunately, the rain came back, on and off all evening. And when it was on, oh man, did it pour. We knew we still probably wanted to find alternate lodging, but figured we would worry about it after we ate. While waiting for our seat, we did purchase a pint glass, as is our tradition whenever we visit a brewery.

Daniel with his beloved 60-minute IPA.

My raspberry, prosciutto, balsamic, and some kind of special sheep-cheese pizza. Twas tasty. :)

Daniel with beer battered dog-fish and chips. hehehe. :)

Daniel with two additional 2-oz beer samples. Don't worry, I continued to drive for the rest of the night. :)

After dinner, we wandered over to Starbucks to borrow some fee wifi and figure out our lodging for the night. We were planning on being in DC the next day, so we were really looking anywhere in-between, as cheap as possible and hopefully close to the freeway.

We ended up finding a lovely Marriott not too far away from our planned first stop the next day. (Thanks Priceline!). Of course, this meant a little less than 3 hours of driving yet to do that night. And the sun had already set (driving at night is not my cup of tea.) However, I had a comfortable bed and a private bathroom to give me the motivation I needed to keep me going. :)

Daniel snoozed 3/4 of the way there (thank goodness for Gretchen, no heavy rain, or traffic) and of course we missed the "Welcome to Maryland" sign. Daniel felt really bad, but to be honest, this was the beginning of our major downfall in failing to get pictures of those signs. (I mostly plane WaDC for this, but more on that later).

We arrived safely, in decent time. Daniel checked us in and we unpacked in our lovely room.

Ah, what a lovely king bed. Best sleep of the whole trip by far. Please note the time on the clock. At least we made it before midnight! :)

road tripping, day 1

2011-08-29T18:30:00.003-04:00

First of all, we did in fact survive our first hurricane with little to no damage. I feel very badly for the rest of the east coast and all the damage/power outages they are dealing with. We had some heavy rain Saturday evening and at times on Sunday. Definitely some strong winds too, but they mostly just blew off leaves and branches. We did lose power twice on Sunday, but both times it was restored within a few hours. Again, we got off much easier then most everyone else, and for that we are thankful. :)

So, the road trip. Ah, this trip was a long time coming. I think ever since we moved to Massachusetts we have wanted to take an east coast road trip of sorts. Unfortunately, due to funds (i.e. car and school loan payments we have now acquired) and time constraints, we had to shrink the trip down from what it once was in our mind (all the way to Key West and out to Oklahoma to visit some friends!) To just 6 days down to Virginia. But in those 6 days we were able to do and see SO MUCH. We managed to add 2 new states to our repertoire (Delaware and Virginia), visited 3 NFL stadiums, 2 breweries, and saw many sights (some planned, some spontaneous) along the way.

We began our trip on Thursday, August 18th. Our first stop was heading south to Newport, RI as it had been somewhere we have wanted to visit for quite some time. We had yet to make it down for a weekend trip like we originally thought, so we decided to make it our first stop on our road trip and see all that we could in one day.

Pri-fontaine-us all packed up. :)

Our small car managed to fit everything nicely.

Daniel had his doubts but I had faith. :)

Hitting the road!

We left our house around 10:00 am in hopes of avoiding traffic going through Boston, but still giving us as much time as possible for our one day in Newport. We arrived around lunch time and had a quick picnic lunch in the parking lot of the Preservation Society of Newport County. After we, ate we grabbed a map and some information and embarked on foot to see The Breakers, while walking by all of the other mansions. We thought about visiting a second mansion as well, but knew we wanted to do the 3.5 mile Cliff Walk, so we decided to do the walk first and see how we felt after.

Entering Road Island!

It makes me chuckle that the main road that most of the mansions are on in Newport, RI is called Bellevue Avenue, as I attended NEWPORT High School in BELLEVUE, Washington. Tehehe.

Speaking of funny, Daniel thought this segway tour of Newport was funny...

As well as these funny little 3-wheeled car things.

Daniel...you were supposed to wait until after I fixed my hair to take my picture. :) Outside the Breakers.

The Breakers.

Bummed we can't smoke, I mean photograph inside the house. :)

The tour of The Breakers was an audio tour which was pretty neat; I had never done one before. You could go around and look at what you liked; there were even additional topics you could listen to more information on.

During the tour we went out on a back deck and someone else took a picture; so I decided it was okay too. :)

Tile floor.

Awesome ceiling.

The Breakers from the back lawn.

And then we walked, walked, and walked some more until we finally found the end of the Cliff Walk.

The first thing you come to once you start the Cliff Walk is this beach.

We experience many terrain changed during this walk...from little dirt paths...

To large rocks...

To little rocks...

And paved walkways. :)

We ended up being pretty tired after that, as we had spent the whole afternoon walking. Instead of seeing another mansion, we decided instead to head to our campground early, so we could get everything set up, in daylight, and enjoy dinner at a decent hour.

Large bridge exiting Newport.

Daniel thought this was funny...a little island with a little shack with a for sale sign on it. :)

Connecticut!

This would, in fact, be the last time on our trip we arrived at our campground while there was still daylight. :)

For the duration of our trip (except for the next night when we were rained out) we camped at our beloved KOA Kampgrounds. We heart KOA for this sort of thing...we were not camping for the sake of camping, we were camping to save money. :) Again, most nights we arrived around 9:00/9:30; set up our tent and went to bed. Every morning we were up before 7:00 and usually on the road at 8:00.

Every KOA we have been to has nice grounds, great facilities, and free wifi (one of our favorite perks)! :) We even got FREE pancake breakfasts two mornings at two different campgrounds. Sure, there are tons of RVs and trailers with people spread out for the long-haul. Lots of kids, and pools, and bouncing castles and all kinds of things we don't need. BUT, they are everywhere (for the most part), usually not too far from the highway, and consistent. And we love them. We actually first discovered them on our cross-country move/road trip and also stayed at a lovely one in Bar Harbor, Maine. We also happen to members (we signed up at Bar Harbor, because the 10% discount saved us more money then it cost to join) so we enjoyed a nice discount too. :)

Starting a fire, reading, getting dinner ready...so relaxing. :)

Pri-fontaine-us looks so cute on his first time camping. :)

Anyway, so we camped in southeastern, CT. We bought some firewood and were able to enjoy our only campfire of the whole road trip. It was actually necessary for dinner that night - Hobo Stew.

Little packets of marinated chicken, diced veggies, and seasoning cooking in the fire in foil packets.

Yum, yum. :)

We had brought along our final Harry Potter movie to watch (Deathly Hollows part 1), but ended up not watching it until the evening we got home. :) Now we have a date to watch the final Harry Potter coming sometime soon... :)

Days 2 and 3 coming soon! :)

a productive weekend

2011-08-25T19:25:00.002-04:00

So, the problem with my being "behind" in my blogging is that I tend to forget all the little details about what we did. And these pictures aren't even that old...just from the weekend before last. You see, Daniel and I went on a whirlwind road trip vacation last week for about 6 days, so I still have vacation brain. I should be posting about that soon (hopefully sooner than later, lest I forget!)

So this was the weekend before the road trip. Unfortunately, the weather was sub-par, decent temps but on-and-off clouds. We didn't let that get us down though, and got many errands/projects done.

First thing on the docket was for D to take Pri-fontaine-us in for his first oil change. We figured it was especially important to take care of this before our little road trip.

Unrelated to being productive, while D was changing the oil I visited the dear horses.

Yuck, we have nasty horse flies that tend to attack while we walk to and from the car. The lucky horses get this contraption near them, so we unfortunately do not reap the benefits. :)

So, we have 2 pregnant horses these days!

Very exciting. Though they are not as friendly as our last horses, they are still quite pretty and majestic.

Horses are pregnant for about 11 months...so the little babes will not make their appearance until sometime in the Spring.

We are still excited though and hopeful to have some cute little horses around in a few months. (Okay, like seven).

See how they ignored me the whole time I was there? It is okay though, I tried not to take it personally. :)

Back on the productive side, I fed the chickens and visited the little chicks.

Those chicks just grow up so darn fast.

Once D returned we ate a late breakfast/brunch and went on to do random home projects.

D did some window repair work while I worked on the door knob project.

Though, during the drying period in between coats, I did a little reading and relaxing in the backyard. :)

On Sunday, Daniel had some grass to mow.

He is just too cute on the riding mower. :)

And that evening, I baked some bread. It was actually my first attempt at baguette-style bread, but it came out great! There is nothing like warm homemade bread right out of the oven.

Road trip posts hopefully coming soon... We took around 350 pictures so I suspect it will be broken into multiple parts. Oh, and I probably won't post ALL 350. :)

an affordable upgrade

2011-08-19T19:19:00.026-04:00

So, I worked on a little home improvement project last weekend. It sure took me back to last summer when basically every spare second was spent painting or doing something house related. This pace is much nicer....as we feel so inspired, we do. So, I did door knobs.

The inspiration for upgrading the door knobs was really Daniel's doing. We had contemplated replacing them for a while (they were mismatched, some silver and some gold, and they had paint marks on them from many paint jobs over the years) but even though door knobs can be somewhat affordable, we would have to buy so many! We have a plethora of doors in this place!

Last week Daniel was at Home Depot buy some things to fix our kitchen sink (We had a bit of a leaking problem, plus the hot water knob broke off. Now we have a new sink though, so that is very nice! And D has acquired many new plumbing skills) and he came home with some replacement door knobs. And while I thought it would be nice to have new and matching door knobs, I didn't know if I wanted that color (they were generic silver) and I thought it could get pretty pricey to replace them all...in a place that isn't even ours.

So, I felt inspired by a few of my favorite DIY bloggers (actual inspiration found here, here, and here) and decided to experiement with a little oil rubbed bronze spray paint.

Believe it or not, the first Home Depot was sold out (I like to think because I read such cool blogs everyone else is spray painting things oil rubbed bronze as well) but fortunately the second one was a success and thus began my project.

We figured there was not too much to lose, and I would much rather spend $15 on spray paint then $15 on just one door knob set, so it seemed like a safe investment. And, worse come to worse, we just replace the door knobs anyway if my project was a complete flop. :)

We removed all the screw and door knob accessories. This, along with re-installing, was probably the most annoying part of the whole project. Thankfully Daniel helped, and as they say, many hands make light[er] work. :)

Daniel thought my use of styrofoam was ingenious. I just asked how in the world else he would expect to easily spray paint them?? :)

And then, I sprayed; while trying not to inhale too many noxious fumes. :) (It should be noted that I follow the instruction on the can of spray paint and cleaned each item before spraying. I just used wet wipe cleaning cloth things.)

So pretty and sparkly in the sun.

I waited for about one hour and then did a second coat. And then they dried. I sprayed Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening we brought them "inside" to the cellar, as rain was expected on Sunday. We let them dry for 24 hours and then I installed them (with minimal help from the D-man) Sunday evening. Lo and behold!

Horrible lighting, I apologize. As I said, this project was completed Sunday evening.

Oh yeah, I did the knobs on our bathroom storage cupboard as well. Daniel actually had to reign me in, as once we started to remove door knobs, I tried to figure out what else I could pray... Our bedroom lights? The office lamp?! The toilet flusher?!?! :)

This is my favorite door knob in the house (most people have favorite door knobs, right?) as it is all old-fashioned and unique. It even has a cute little fake key hole below the knob. The spray paint has only improved it in my eyes.

Overall the project went great! While installing, there were a few minor scratches/nicks that need to be touched up (especially on a few of the screws from screwing them in!) I haven't done the touch up yet, but plan to soon. The jury is still out on how they will hold up to everyday use and if there will be wear and tear. But for now, we love them! And for this temporary place that is not our own, it was a very cheap, relatively easy, and great looking fix!

beaching around

2011-08-15T19:12:00.002-04:00

So I feel my blog posts are getting rather repetitive...It was a lovely weekend, we relaxed and went to the beach. To be honest, as long as the weather is cooperating that is what we do. We suffer through oh so much not so nice weather here in Massachusetts, any day that is pleasant and over 75 is meant to be spent at the beach. (When not working of course.) :)

So last weekend (the first weekend in August), guess what, we went to the beach! :)

This beach trip was actually slightly different than usual. First, we hiked 10 minutes further then we usually do. It was some sort of summer festival/sand sculpture contest (more on that later) on this particular day. Not only were there large crowds, but there was a slightly annoying cover band jamming out some tunes.

So we took the opportunity to walk a bit further then we normally do, outside of lifeguard range no less, for the sake of a bit more peace and quiet. :)

It was low tide, so the actual water was a good hike away. But, that also meant people were more spread out, and therefore it was a little easier to get reading (Jenny)/studying (Daniel) done.

After a few hours we decided to call it a day, but perused all the sand sculptures on our way back. Here are a few of them...

There were different categories...kids, teens, families, adults, businesses/corporations, and professionals. Not sure which came from where, but all of them looked better than I could do!

A sea of cars...and a fun day spent at the beach!

July weekend #5

2011-08-09T18:24:00.012-04:00

So for the 5th and final weekend in July, we did not exactly go out with a bang. We ended up spending a bit longer than we anticipated helping some friends move all day on Saturday. We then came home, cleaned up, and went over to some other friends, Bekah and Michael, for a BBQ at their place and stayed out much later than we anticipated. It was great company and conversation though, so it was for good a reason. :)

Sunday we were just pretty drained from the move the previous day. We had planned on going to the beach, but the thought of sitting in the sun and feeling even more drained made us decide against it. So that afternoon we just laid low at home, ran some errands, and did some random things around the house. It was a nice relaxing, low-key evening, and just what we needed apparently to recover from 6 hours of moving!

Because there are no pictures from any of the previously discussed activities, here are some from the last week of July...D working and the donkeys in their new location.

D hauling some branches. I accidentally walked through poison ivy when I came out to see him, but it apparently did not touch my skin. :) Phew!

hellloooo donkeys.

I think they are feeling a little lonely in their new, secluded location.

They both came over in a hurry to come say hi to me.

They are such sweet little guys, I will have to make a point to visit them more often. :)

moving and pizza

2011-08-04T17:45:00.007-04:00

As I mentioned a few posts ago, we attended a going away party for our dear friends Ross and Emily. They left us for the Midwest, Wisconsin, but it is for a good reason I guess as Ross got a job at a church up there. We helped (well, D did, by the time I arrived after work everything was already done!) them pack up their things and then ate some pizza and cake, and spent one last evening with our friends. Quite a few of us hung around reminiscing about good times and fun memories.

Emily and I on moving day. :(

An oldie but goodie. I didn't get a picture of Ross and Daniel, so here is one from the archives, circa Easter 2009. :)

On Wednesday, our friends David and Tara moved. This is not the first time they have made a local move, in fact, Daniel has helped them move at least 4 times before! We approve of this one though, as now they actually live in the same town as us! They formerly lived at Gordon College and supervised a dorm on campus. Now that David is writing his dissertation and baby #2 is on the way, they figured they could use some more space and some more quiet.

This was my first experience helping them move, but now I know, if I ever want to do any kind of outdoor activity, David and Tara probably have his and hers equipment available for me to borrow. I was extremely impressed, from multiple bikes, to ice skates, snow shoes, and cross country skis; we all said it was a good thing their new house has a big basement! It should be noted that David and Tara are avid REI garage sale-ers and never pay full price for anything.

Steve and Erica were our last moving friends on Saturday. It ended up being an all day affair, but Steven and Erica were very sweet and treated us out to lunch (not pizza this time) halfway through. Steve and Erica just had to move off campus and move their things into a storage unit; they are staying with some people from their church until Steve gets a ministry job.

Moving can always be a little sad but also exciting. We miss our friends that are far away, and thankful for the ones who are now a little closer. Also thankful that it isn't us moving this summer; we did enough of that in 2007, 2008, and 2010. :)

July weekends 3 and 4

2011-07-31T20:43:00.002-04:00

These July posts seem pretty focused on the weekends. Not that we live for the weekends or anything, but our Monday - Thursdays are all pretty similar....Jenny gone from the house and at work from 7:40-ish-6:00-ish, Daniel doing something productive or working outside. Evenings maybe run, make and eat dinner, relax by reading, studying or watching our latest netflix movie (which these days is Harry Potter. We are jumping on that train possibly in time to view the last one in the theaters. Daniel is the driving force behind this believe it or not. You probably think I am kidding, but I am completely serious. D digs HP much more then me.) and go to bed. Anyway, as you can see nothing really blog worthy.

Weekends in the summer we really just go to the beach, but that is still fun and blog worthy! If we are really feeling adventurous we might even do something else too. :) Anyway, weekend #3 I failed. No camera, no pictures. It is like it didn't even happen! I know we went to the beach on Saturday I can't really even remember if we ended up doing anything else. Oh, actually, on Sunday we went to this neat little market in Newburyport and enjoyed that quite a bit.

Weekend #4 was our big anniversary #5! So of course we did a little something to celebrate; we also have some sort of trip in the works for August. Friday was the big day, so I got off work a little early to pick up D so we could go to Costco! I know, so romantic. We had some things we had to pick up that night, plus, we really do love Costco, so we didn't mind that much. While we were there D put in an order at our favorite BBQ place, which we picked up on the way home. Once home, we quickly dropped off our Costco stuff, put away the perishables, and then headed out the door to enjoy a little picnic on the beach.

The temp was in the 90's that day, so there were still a surprising number of people there at 7:00 at night; the temperature was very pleasant that evening. Unfortunately, there were also a surprising number of greenheads (nasty, awful, biting flies here in the eastern US of A) that put a damper on our fun. I managed to avoid any attacks, but D got bit a few times. We didn't stay to long after we finished eating as it was unfortunately fairly miserable.

The next day though (Saturday) we gave the beach a second chance and had a grand old time. We weren't able to stay that late as we had to get home to freshen up for a going away party for some of our dear friends, Ross and Emily.

D heading out to the water.

There were a few people there with us. :)

People travel from all over eastern Mass to come to the beach (there aren't really any near the immediate Boston area, so people need to travel north), so we feel very lucky that we only live 10 minutes away. :)

Sunday was low key, which is how we like it to round out a fun weekend. :)

weekend #2

2011-07-28T17:54:00.085-04:00

So for the second weekend in July we had some more exciting activities. Saturday was actually pretty low key, as D did not want to go to the beach for some reason; so we just stayed in. Wait, there may have been thunderstorms. Or he was sunburned from working outside. I think there was a reason, but I cannot remember for the life of me.

On Sunday we visited a church in Newburyport, and then wandered across the street to check out the Newburyport Farmers Market. We did not end up getting anything but they did have a huge variety of things, from produce, to meats, to homemade pasta/sauce!

Daniel in his cool new red pants. :)

Cute streets in Newburyport.

So not too far from where we live there is this Greek Hellenic Center (fun fact, the people whose property we live on now used to own this place and sold it to the Greeks before they moved to their current residence) that was hosting a Greek Festival (and Clambake; how those two go together I will never know...only is Massachusetts) this weekend! (lots of parenthesis, sorry about that). :) My family loves to attend a certain Greek festival back in Seattle (St. someone or other), so I thought it would be fun to check out this one.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have because unfortunately, we were rather disappointed. First of all, we had to pay $3 each, just to get in! We only brought $20 cash, so that left us with $14 for lunch, but gyros cost $7 each, so no drink for D (I had my water bottle) and definitely no Greek pastries. Oh and the lamb in the gyro tasted like breakfast sausage, but was edible. There were a few random craft tables but over all the whole thing was pretty small...and I couldn't figure out why they were charging money to get in. There was live music and dancing, but that started after we left. To be honest we were there less than an hour and it put Daniel into a mood. Oh well, the gyros were decent; though I do not expect us to go again next year. :)

We came home to visit the chickens, which brightened our mood a bit because 2 chicks were born just a few days before!

Such sweet little guys.

chickies from Jenny McDowell on Vimeo.

And since it was hot and our people were gone for the day, it seemed like a good day to relax by the pool. (To be clear, we could technically use the pool whenever we want, and D often does when it is hot and he is cleaning it. It just feels funny to use it when they are home as it is right by "their side" of the house.)

Here is D in pool boy mode.

We were on dog duty so we brought them outside to relax with us. Hi Otter, hi Tess!

I am the dog whisperer. :)

But I guess they like Daniel okay too. :)

Aside from the slight downer that was the Greek Festival, it was a lovely and relaxing weekend. I love summertime!

Nick & Beck

2011-07-25T17:44:00.045-04:00

We had our dear friend Nick and Beck (plus sweet little Emory!) drive up from New Jersey to spend a lovely 4th of July (plus a few bonus days after) with us. It was their first time back since moving away last year (Nick went to Gor-Con with D but graduated in 2010). We had a few outings, but mostly just laid low and enjoyed each others company. I spent a good deal of time making googly eyes at sweet little Emory as well. He was just too much. :)

Emory is such a stylish dresser. :)

We did a little BBQ for dinner and stayed in to watch the fireworks on TV. Actually, Nick and D were discussing theological/church things, but Beck, Emory and I for the most part enjoyed the fireworks spectacular. :)

Yummy dessert; I obviously added blueberries to make it more festive and used a pie plate since I have yet to acquire a tart pan. This got rave reviews though, Daniel says it is the best dessert I have ever made (though I am still trying to figure out how I feel about that comment...)

The next day we relaxed around the house (while I was busy making googly eyes).

Emory is getting really good at pointing. :)

Then we headed out for a late lunch/early dinner at Woodman's before Daniel had to go to his GRE class.

Waiting for the boys to bring back the food.

After D left I tagged along with Nick and Beck while we did a little shopping.

The next day I had to work but Nick and Beck went to Newburyport and visited some of the families that Beck used to nanny for.

Thursday D had to come to work with me and Nick and Beck were leaving so we had our final farewells over breakfast that morning. We are so glad you made the trip up to visit us - we miss you and hope we see you again soon. Oh, and thanks for all the notes around the house; some are still up and they make me smile. :)

five

2011-07-22T08:00:00.013-04:00

Wow, I can't believe it has been five year already. 2006 wasn't that long ago, was it?

7.22.2006

7.22.2007

7.22.2008

7.22.2009

7.22.2010

7.22.2011

Married life is the good life, for sure. :) I love you tons, babe! xoxo!!

um, what?

2011-07-20T12:18:00.002-04:00

So this is something Daniel and I have never seen before (at least as far as we can remember). Excessive heat watch?? Doesn't it just seem silly? And while sure the temperature is going to be in the 90's, isn't it far hotter other place (like the south)? Are they in a constant state of excessive heat watch??

Anywho, it is pretty funny. And pretty par for the course if you as me as I feel New Englanders are always complaining about the weather...it is too hot in the summer and too cold with too much snow in the winter. Not that I am completely innocent...I have my bouts of complaining, but strictly in the winter. Bring on the heat I say - that's what summer is for! To help us forget about the temperatures the rest of the year. :)

Hope everyone else is keeping cool!

summer days...

2011-07-18T17:55:00.003-04:00

So far this summer I have developed a not-so-good habit. At least, a not-so-good habit for someone who has a blog. I do all kinds of fun and exciting things every weekend with my dear husband, and of course remember my camera, but I rarely, if ever, take a picture. Boo. So, this post will be mostly words, with a few pictures thrown in here and there.

We last left off with our short but sweet California/road tip vacay and the Bruins Stanley Cup win (though that was slightly out of order)! That was in May....so the next weekend was memorial day! We, like many, many, many other New Englanders spent some time at the beach. We have our Crane Beach pass after all and we need to get our money's worth! It was a lovely way to officially kick off the summer. Oh, how we love the beach.

Daniel showing off his sun-burned knees. :)

The weather has been pretty great so far this summer. For whatever reason we get a lot of thunder storms here in the summer; probably at least one a week though they never last all day and thankfully often times happen at night! In June we had a real doozy though, that actually ended up being a hurricane warning! The hurricane never made it to us but check out the crazy looking sky.

My poor photos probably do not do it much justice, but I should say that this was around 8:30 at night...in our part of the word it is usually pretty dark by then, so it was a very eerie light outside.

Daniel is working away outside still...but look at this little visitor he brought back with him one day...

That is definitely a tick. Ewww. I noticed it on his side and then quickly ran to google to find out what to do. I was thankfully able to remove him quite easily and then (per google's instructions) put him in a baggy in the freezer just in case D started feeling not good. Thankfully D is fine and we have since trashed the little guy.

We had some friends over for dinners/dessert and enjoyed a movie or two. A story about the movie selection. I helped Daniel out with some of his end of the year school insanity (typing up some notes from books). To return that favor, I talked Daniel into this deal in which he must see 5 movies of my choice with me in theaters. Why 5? Well, in 2011, 5 of the books I have read were/are being made into movies, and I wanted to see them in theaters. We really aren't big movie goers...we have a netflix account and usually just see movies that way. But when it is a book I have read and really enjoyed, I like to see it on the big screen if possible. Plus, I got some sort of groupon movie passes, which actually turned into a big debacle (the passes were expiring and the only theaters we could use the passes at were an hour away) but we used the passes and saw the movies, so all is right with the world. :)

Yummy apple pie served with homemade vanilla ice cream! And speaking of ice cream, if any of you out there also make your own here is out new flavor recomendation: banana ice cream with peanut butter cups. YUM. One of our local ice cream places has this flavor, and we liked it so much we decided to make it ourselves. We pretty much just made a vanilla ice cream base and threw it in the blender with 3 ripe bananas. I of course took things one step further and made homemade peanut butter cups but you could easily do store bought (I am cheap and and like things from scratch). Anyway it was delish. I really need to acquire some bananas so we can make this again... :)

In June we celebrated a friends birthday with a fun lake-side BBQ. It left me smelling smoke for days until I finally figured out that my purse was the culprit. :)

Farmers Markets have starting running here in Mass, so I have been making weekly visits to the one in Salem after work.

Picture from opening day when I managed to snag one of the last pints of strawberries! Twas exciting. :)

A friend of Daniel and I's from our Crossroads youth group days, Michelle, had a layover in Boston on her way to Austria (she is going there to teach English and do a Master's degree)!

We picked her up at the airport, feasted on a fabulous breakfast buffet, chatted for hours, before we had to drop her back off again. That happened to be the same day as the Bruins' victory parade through the city.

Insanity. With the Bruins typically being one of Boston's least popular sport's teams (there's a lot of competition) there were more than 1 millions fans out that day, apparently the largest crown ever, even beating the 2004 Red Sox parade.

We drove around in circles for a while trying to see if we could get close and see anything easily. Twas not meant to be, so we gave up, headed home, and went to the beach. :) We have spent most every weekend at the beach to be completely honest. :)

Our awesome new beach chairs from Costco, where else? :)

Running into the water. :)

Daniel made a jaunt down to NJ for a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary on his beloved Barth (a theologian for those of you not in the know) and Thomas Aquinas. The conference was an unofficial dialogue between Protestant Barthian scholars and Dominican Thomists (scholars of Thomas Aquinas in the Roman Catholic Dominican Order). (Daniel added in some extra information here in case you couldn't tell. Welcome back to the blog, love!)

I can't believe we are already more than half-way through July. First, in case you didn't know, July is a super cool month because it has 5 complete weekends in it! Go look at a calendar and check it out. :) I will save our July excitement for another post but it has been great so far!

eye candy

2011-06-16T17:43:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the slight delay in posting. Our lives have slowed down for a little bit [post graduation/trip] so I was trying to make the blogging material last. We actually had a lovely memorial day weekend and some fun weekends after that as well (when the weather has cooperated at least) but of course I forgot to take any pictures. And what good is a blog post if there are no pictures! :)

Anywho, this is a slight continuation from the California trip post. As I mentioned in the post, we snapped many a picture of the adorable houses in beautiful Carmel. So here they are! Sorry not much of a post, but hopefully I will get some more exciting material soon. :)

This one is just too cute. I think I love all the decks (facing the ocean of course!)

The stone exterior with the red tile roof made an interesting combo.

This house was adorable, it looked like a little fairly cottage.

So many houses had these fences...and I loved them! The irregular, crooked stick at varying heights is so cool. Also, note the crazy, curvy roof.

More cool fence.

Beautiful flowers/garden.

Another house out of fantasy land in Disneyland. :)

More pretty decks.

And more cool fence. :) Also this house has this awesome fake-thatch roof! It is made out of actual shingles, but curve around the bottom edge of the roof to make it look thick and thatch-esque. So cool.

Here is a better picture of one I found off the internet (from here). Probably not the sort of style that could work anywhere; but it totally works in cute, artsy, fantasy land-esque Carmel. :)

And it is kind of hard to see in this picture, but house was super cute.

ALSO, we are so excited that the BRUINS won the Stanley Cup!!!! We watched last night and have watched almost every game of the Stanley Cup finals (not anything before that, though my daily sports radio listening kept me up to date on their progress). I will honestly admit that I definitely jumped on the Bruins bandwagon, though I am still a happy and proud Bostonian!

I have never given a second thought to hockey, never watched it growing up and I didn't even watch during the Olympics in 2010 (and I am an Olympics fanatic!) I will say it is an extremely aggressive, passionate and exciting game! And unlike soccer, the low scoring games are still very exciting! Daniel actually has a bit of a soft spot in his heart for hockey; growing up, hockey cards were the only sports cards he was allowed to collect (we still have them all believe it or not!) so Daniel has enjoyed re-learning all this hockey stuff.

Plus, it is always fun when your home team wins a championship, right? :) We are the first to admit we are EXTREMELY SPOILED right now in Boston sports. 7 Championships since 2001? The poor Patriots are now the team who has gone the longest without a championship (2004 was their last Superbowl win). Which also means that the Patriots are the only sports team in Boston who has not won a championship since we have lived here (We got the Red Sox in 2007, Celtics in 2008, and Now Bruins in 2011)! So get on that Tom Brady and company. :)

And thus end the Bruins season. But at least it ended on a very high note. Now, off to casually (via sports radio mostly) follow the Red Sox on their road to the World Series... :)

California here we come....

2011-06-06T19:17:00.003-04:00

Warning, there is an obscene number of pictures in this post. I will try and be semi-short and sweet about it; though that has never been my strong suit. :)

A few days after Martin and Debe left Daniel and I were airborne heading west to California for my cousin Brittni's wedding. We flew into LAX very late Friday night, but my parent's were there to pick us up and drive us back to my Grandma's house. We went to sleep pretty much immediately(after chatting briefly with the other family members that were there) and then caravaned down to San Diego with most of my Dad's family.

Lunch stop at In-N-Out.

We made it to San Diego (Alpine, specifically) with a bit of time to get ready before we had to be at the wedding location for family pictures! I think I curled my hair in record time. :)

The location was beautiful at my cousin's other Grandparent's house/ranch.

The bride coming down the aisle.

Wedding party.

A slightly out of focus kiss. :)

Even though the tent made my pictures a bit dark it was truly a life saver. It was SO HOT this day, and I can't imagine not having some shade around to relax and cool down under.

The wedding was lots of fun, and it was especially great to see and spend time with almost my whole family on my Dad's side. There was even a brunch the next morning (mostly for family) that we briefly stopped at so we could say good-bye to everyone before hitting the road with my Mom and Dad.

That is right, we turned a wedding trip into a little mini-vacation with a short but still lots of fun road trip up the coast of California.

After a brief stop at Starbucks we made our way to our first stop, the San Diego Chargers football stadium. As I know I have mentioned before, Daniel has a quest to visit as many football stadiums as possible, so we are always happy when we can cross more off the list. :)

After that, we mostly just drove, drove, drove up the coast until we came to Anderson's Pea Soup for dinner.

All of us ate pea soup of course. :)

Our next stop was at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.

There are a million things to take pictures of here, but all I have is a picture Daniel took for me of the inside of the men's bathroom.

So, it is hard to tell, but this is the "urinal" and it has a little waterfall cascading down the rocks.

The whole hotel is quite over the top, but every single room has a different "theme". They are all pretty neat, so check it out on the link above!

We drove a little further to make it to Cambria, out pit stop for the evening.

Daniel woke up for an early morning run the next morning. I unfortunately did not remember to pack running clothes/shoes, but I still enjoyed a nice stroll with my Mom and Dad. Daniel did say though that it was the most beautiful run of his life, and you can probably see why from the pictures.

The central coast of California is SO beautiful. That is the biggest thing I took away from this trip I think. It is definitely an area Daniel and I want to come back to again and explore some more!

Momsy strolling along the boardwalks.

After Daniel returned from his run, and we all finished eating breakfast, we packed up and headed out to our next destination, Hearst Castle.

Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark that is actually kept as a historic national park. It used to be one of the homes of William Randolph Hearst, a millionaire who made it big in the newspaper industry around the turn of the 20th century. After he died his family donated it to the state of California. It is maintained by them (as a national historic park) and tours are available to the public.

The house itself is over-the-top ridiculous and extreme; but there is also a very large collection of fine art and artifacts.

The Neptune Pool.

Beautiful gardens.

Approaching the main house after touring one the the guest houses.

The living room.

Dining room.

Game room.

The Roman pool (indoor, underneath the tennis courts), made of venetian glass tiles and pure gold.

A close-up. :)

After our tour we headed into the central California wine country to visit my family's favorite winery. :)

You can probably tell why, but for those of you who don't know my Dad's name is in fact James Tobin. No relation, just a good name. :) We had a very nice time tasting many different wines, and then were on the road again until we arrived in Carmel, our pit stop for the night.

Carmel is where my Mom's family came to vacation most every summer (they were living in California), so it was so fun to finally be able to see. We found a very fun and yummy tapas restaurant for dinner that evening.

The next morning we stopped by the beach.

Drove around the adorable town (we saw the most adorable beach homes! Pictures to come in another post as this one is already picture heavy).

And got some coffee, pastry's, and a large salted soft pretzel for Daniel, before we embarked on the beautiful 17-mile drive (all around Pacific Grove and Pebble Peach).

Some sort of scenic look-out.

BEAUTIFUL beach.

Golf course...what a location, right? :)

Look at the birds, seals, and sea lions all over that rock!

Jenny on candid camera.

And then we came across the creepiest squirrel ever.

It seriously kept charging straight at us and then standing up in its back legs! Begging for food I am sure, but I have never seen such a gutsy little guy!

We were all laughing so hard we were crying by the time we made it back into the car.

Another golf course...

The lone Cyprus.

Pebble Beach golf course...

View of the 18th hole.

And this is the starting point, hole #1.

After we finished the 17-mile drive we headed north to Palo Alto (home of Stanford University). We were able to drive around the campus a bit, but the real purpose of the stop was because Daniel and I had a little dinner date with Daniel's grandma, Gammie and his Uncle Tom.

We had a wonderful dinner. It was so great to see Gammie again and catch up with her and Uncle Tom. Gammie was adorable and she just kept staring at Daniel all evening saying she couldn't believe how tall and handsome he was. :)

It had been at least 7 years, maybe more, since Daniel (and I) last saw Gammie, so we were really glad we were able to see her (and to be honest, she was the real driving force behind us deciding to make the trip up the coast, so Daniel could see her).

Daniel and I's flight was that evening, but we fortunately had a few hours to drive around San Fransisco and see some sights! Daniel went on a mission trip to San Fran (a week before our wedding actually) in 2006, but I had never been before, so I really wanted to see a few things!

We of course had to stop at the San Fransisco 49ers Stadium... :)

Unfortunately every entrance was closed (we drove around the whole thing!), so this was as close as he got. It's okay though, it still counts. :)

Alcatraz, in the distance from the mainland.

I really wanted to see a cable car as well; so imagine my excitement when we happened to park right near one heading for a stop! :)

Sun starting to set...

We drove through the Fisherman's Wharf area before we made a stop at Ghirardelli for some yummy ice cream/sundaes.

And then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was extremely windy, but still a beautiful site to see. :)

After that we headed to the airport for an all-night flight back to Boston.

We flew on Jet Blue, and we just love them more and more every time we fly them. Daniel loves the extra legroom (and it is true, they have noticeably more legroom then other airlines in just their regular seats) I love the snacks, 1 free checked bag and for our all night flight we got this adorable little kit with earplugs and a sleeping mask!

The sleeping mask was awesome. Unfortunately, there was a good bit of turbulence during our flight (which is even more nerve-wracking when you are half-asleep/disoriented/wearing a sleeping mask. I could have sworn at one point we were plummeting toward the ground) but we made it safely back to Boston. And then I went straight to work. :) Since I was just a few weeks in at my new job I didn't want to take off too many days. Plus, I knew I wouldn't be that tired in the morning (it was true; once I am up I am pretty awake). Aside from feeling a little out of it all day, I was fine, though very happy to head home, un-pack, and call it an early night after watching a netflix movie on the couch. :)

It was a wonderful trip. We were able to see and spend time with lots of family we do not get to see very often. As well as see a part of the country we had not been to before, with my parent's as wonderful and experience tour guides. They grew up in SoCal and have taken many a trip (including their honeymoon!) up and down the California coast. Thanks again for everything Mom and Dad - we had a ball!

GRADUATION

2011-05-27T18:46:00.015-04:00

Wow, I still can't believe Daniel has graduated and is all done at Gordon-Conwell. It is crazy how fast 4 years can go by.

We were thrilled to have Martin and Debe come and visit us to be here for Daniel's graduation. They flew in on a Tuesday evening so I picked them up from the airport after work and drove them home. When we got home we ate dinner and figured out the plan for the rest of their stay. I had to work on Wednesday, but they managed to see quite a bit around the north shore; and they even stopped by to visit me at my new job! :)

Father and son. :)

Out enjoying some yummy ice cream. :)

On Thursday we took off driving south for a quick day trip to Cape Cod!

Even though we didn't have that much time, we were still able to visit 2 different beaches, a lighthouse, cape cod beer company and the cape cod potato chip factory.

It was pretty windy and cool, but we made the most of it. :)

Martin on the phone with his brother Mark. :)

We had to head back Thursday afternoon and got stuck in awful traffic. We did make it home eventually; Daniel and I had a BBQ to attend that evening while Martin and Debe took it easy at home.

Friday we spent the day in Boston seeing the sights and walking the whole freedom trail. It was going to culminate with us walking up the 294 steps of the bunker hill monument, but alas, it was closed for repairs.

Oh, and Martin developed quite the obsession with Dunkin Donuts during their visit. He likes not only their coffee, but finds their bagels and cream cheese to be top notch. :) He stopped at one whenever he could, so I felt the need to catch it on camera. :)

Inside a beautiful old church on Newbury Street.

The senate chambers in the Massachusetts State House. Bad lighting/picture but the room/whole building was amazing!

And on Saturday we spent the morning at Gordon College for Daniel's graduation! :)

Daniel walking in the gym.

Daniel standing with the MDiv graduates. You can see half of the back of him, in between the 3rd and 4th people from the right. He is the row in front of them.

Daniel standing with the ThM graduates. You can see all of the back of his head this time! :) If you count hats, he is the 6th from the right. He is in the very front ahead of everyone (since he was seated with the MDiv graduates rather than the ThM graduates).

Daniel getting his MDiv diploma!

Walking off stage...

Daniel getting his ThM diploma! (I think I timed my picture well, at the same time the professional photographer was using her flash! :)

Walking back to his seat. :)

Debe did take a video as well, so hopefully I will get that and some of their pictures eventually. So stay tuned for that! :)

Me and the graduate. :)

Martin, Daniel, and Debe.

We went out to a very tasty lunch afterwards and spent the evening relaxing, reading, and eating more ice cream. :)

Sunday we went to our church in the morning and then out to a delicious brunch at Sugar Magnolia's...a place we had been wanting to go for a very long time. It did not disappoint. :)

We strolled around lovely Rockport...

And stumbled upon a sweet little dog. :) We think he is a chihuahua/german shepard mix. He was a rescue dog so the owner was not 100% sure.

Martin and Debe flew out Sunday evening...we sure had a wonderful time while they were here and managed to pack in a whole lot of fun! Thanks again for visiting us Martin and Debe, it really meant a lot to both of us to have you here. Also, Martin, we hope you are feeling better and healing up quickly! We know you won't want to stay off the golf course very long. :) Love you both!!

ALSO, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear Daddio and sis-in-law Dani today! I know I don't always do birthday shout-outs, but if a blog post happens to fall on a certain someone's birthday I try to remember. :) Love you both lots and lots!

job changes...

2011-05-17T18:03:00.015-04:00

So I will write about Martin and Debe's visit as well as the graduation festivities SOON. I have yet to download those pictures and need to get a few from Martin and Debe as well. We had a wonderful time though and Daniel walked across the stage twice to receive his M Div and ThM.

This post is not really about much except for the fact I have a new job!

Back in February a position was posted on campus that I decided to pursue. After applying and going through two interviews, I finally found out in the middle of April that I got the job, and I started on May 2nd. So, now I am actually in my third week at the new job and it is going great.

It was very difficult to leave my old office because my co-workers and my boss were great, and I have really enjoyed working there for 3 1/2 years. I told my boss that I was going to apply before I did because I wanted to be upfront and honest with him, not sneaking behind his back. I am now just the next building over from where I used to work, so I still see my former co-workers fairly often. When the weather is nice, we usually still all eat lunch together outside on the picnic tables.

My new position is in Disability Services. It is a pretty small office, 3 full time employees (including me) and one part-time. I am the office manager, so I am still a front desk person, but I handle everything administrative/office related. It has much more responsibility and it is higher paying then my previous position, so it is a good opportunity all around. My new office has HUGE window right behind me, which is awesome and a huge improvement from the basement where I used to work. :) My new co-workers are wonderful; they have been so kind and welcoming to me. It has been a great transition and I am very happy here and thankful for my new job.

My last week at my old position my co-workers were so sweet. They threw a large potluck in my honor (per my request; and yes, I made something of course!) plus many of them brought flowers and gifts for me.

Here are two of the lovely bouquets, believe it or not, both of them are still going pretty strong! In the larger vase I have had to pull out a few flowers as they turned brown/wilted but both are still looking pretty good!

Oh, and it should be noted that when Daniel and I went out to eat to celebrate Daniel turning in his last paper, we were also celebrating my first day at the new job, as they both fell on the same day (May 2nd). Plus, the day [after] I found out I got the job we celebrated with some Thai food. I am excited for this new opportunity to continue to grow and gain new experiences!

the beginning of the end

2011-05-11T17:47:00.028-04:00

**So I do not know what happened to this post. It posted on Wednesday but then it disappeared! I reposted it but the comments are gone it seems. AND the comments are back. It's a miracle. :) Thanks you all, we love you!!

So my title sounds like a LOST episode (and it is; season 4, episode 1. And no, I did not know that off the top of my head, I had to look it up. :) I am not that big a of a LOST fan), but it felt appropriate as this is some of the early events culminating in Daniel's graduation from Gordon-Conwell. Still to come is a BBQ in honor of some of our friends, Baccalaureate, and Graduation itself. But in order to remain moderately caught up (I am on quite the blogging role, right?) I figured I can post about this stuff.

I mentioned in my post last Monday that we were celebrating Daniel turning in his last paper. And we really were - I was not speaking figuratively. We had a groupon to Latitude 43, a seafood/sushi restaurant in Gloucester to use, so it felt like a good time for a night out on the town, as there was much to celebrate.

We ended up going the sushi route, as you can see. And it was delish. They had both traditional and some more unique options so it was nice to get a variety. (and I just read/realized that last year when Daniel turned in his final paper we went out for sushi! 'Tis tradition.)

Digging in. It should be noted that Latitude 43 also has some delicious focaccia bread you are served before the meal. We may or may not have eaten 2 baskets worth.

We have also semi-joined a softball league with our church. The first game happened to be that same day, in Gloucester. So Daniel played and I watched. I had brought my clothes to change, but there was no where to change, and there were more than enough people playing already.

Not a great picture, but there is Daniel!

We definitely won't play every week, and at this point I am a bit more enthused than Daniel is, but I think it could be fun. We will see... :)

Daniel made me wait until Wednesday after he gave a presentation (his final thing for school) to give him the graduation present I bought him.

It wasn't anything too big or exciting, but it was keeping in my tradition of buying Daniel something clothing/shoe related. I seriously enjoy shopping for Daniel more than myself.

I got Daniel some TOMS. I am officially jealous and I want a pair. Daniel loves them and it already looking forward to getting another pair for himself. If you don't know about TOMS, their premise is that for every pair of shoes purchased, a new pair of shoes is given to a child in need. So it makes you feel good about spending money on them.

The price is really not too bad, I purchased Daniel's from Nordstrom, online actually, with free shipping on all shoe orders! Because most of them are slip-ons, I would advise going in there and trying them on so they fit well. Of course, with Nordstrom's awesome return policy, you could always just purchase first and return if they do not fit right. :) Gotta love Nordstrom.

So, Daniel is officially cooler than me now. Though he does still have this facial hair thing going on, so perhaps we are equal. :)

And finally, last Thursday was the Senior Banquet for graduating seniors from Gordon-Conwell. It was a lovely night spend with friends, though it did last much longer into the night than we were thinking.

We always love a free meal though, and it is nice to get to interact with professors (and their spouses) in a non-classroom setting.

Daniel proudly stroking his beard, I think I am praying that he will be back to his normal, handsome self for graduation. :)

Martin and Debe (Daniel's dad and stepmom) flew in yesterday to visit and partake in the graduation festivities. I am off work the rest of the week, so you can bet we will be busy, out and about touring New England. :)

free fun

2011-05-09T18:15:00.009-04:00

We had such a fun Sunday last weekend. I especially enjoyed it as I felt it was a sort of preview for the future...the time when Daniel is finally done with school work. Of course, this was the day before his last paper was due; so maybe we should have gone straight home after church, but we both had a lot of fun anyway. He got the paper done and turned in, so that is all that matters. :)

On our way home from church we were driving though Essex/Ipswich area when we saw a sign for FREE ICE CREAM at Downriver Ice Cream.

It is a little ice cream shop we pass every single time we drive to and from church, but we had never stopped. Well, the free ice cream sign was just too enticing, so we decided it was worth a try. :) Apparently, it (May 1st) was there 2 year anniversary, so they were giving away free kiddie cones.

I feel it was really more adult cone sized, but we will not complain. I can't imagine ever ordering larger!

And oh man, was this good ice cream. They make it all themselves so it tastes very fresh, and they have very unique and interesting flavors! They even make their own waffle cones and those were amazing as well! I had banana ice cream with peanut butter cups and Daniel got cherry ice cream with cherries, fudge and chocolate chunks.

After we sat and ate the ice cream we got back in the car to head home. But not before we saw a sign for a FREE (the magic word of the day) spring open house at the Crane Estate.

Daniel thinks pictures are better if people are actually in them; so there is a mix of scenery and us standing in front of the scenery. :) Oh, and it was windy, hence the voluminous hair-do.

Now, we had been to Crane Beach once before, back when we first moved here, though have not been back since. Even though it is our closest beach, and one of the most popular in the area, we had a semi-bad bug experience the only time we went. Plus, you have to pay to park year-round and there is no where you can really park for free and walk. And technically they charge for riding your bike and walking on, so it was just never really ideal for us. The Crane Estate is something we have heard of and driven by, but had never been to. So it seemed like a good opportunity to take a visit. :)

Partial view of Crane Beach from the Crane Estate.

Oh man, was it packed. I know it probably doesn't really look like it from the pictures, but the house, and the whole property is huge. Even when we were turning in the driveway we were following in a few cars and cars were following us. We got a program at the entrance and it looked like it was going to be a fun afternoon. :)

We didn't want to stay too long, Daniel had a paper to finish after all, but we wanted to explore a bit. We were able to walk around the whole house, and even went all the way to the edge of the property. The grounds are really beautiful, and it is always fun to wander around a restored old mansion.

The view from the edge.

The big excitement of the day though was our acquisition of Crane Beach parking stickers. On the back of the program it had mentioned that today was the last day to purchase beach parking stickers at the discounted early bird rate (though it appears they have extended it again... oh well). We hemmed and hawwed over it, as we are pretty partial to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester. But, in the end, we got the passes. The beach is only 10, maybe 15, minutes away from our house, and they passes last for a whole year. There are other benefits as well (we basically get free parking/admission to all of the "trustees reservations" in Massachusetts), plus we can visit the Crane Estate again whenever we want. :)

We are hoping the bugs were a one-time fluke (we hear that they were, they are only around for about 1 week every summer...what timing we had!) and we are excited to spend as much time as possible at a new beach. :) Summer is a-coming and Daniel has free time again! Can't wait!

Oh, and it was May Day, so of course there was a May Pole. :)

blooming

2011-05-05T17:42:00.002-04:00

And, it is time again for my semi-weekly plant progress report. :)

As you can see, the Easter cactus is looking lovely and in full bloom. I will be sad when the flowers die, but cactus' are still cool even without bright red flowers, right?! :)

The basil is plugging along. I did have one sprout die because I accidentally watered directly on it. And then it buried itself in the dirt and never resurrected. All the others are looking good though, and have even started to grow their little off-shoots! I feel like it is going to be a while though before I have harvest-able basil... oh well. :)

Aw, I love those hyacinths at their peak. They have since begun to die so I started plucking them off as they turn brown. A little sad, but the daffodils are still looking great, along with the ranunculus.

And praise the Lord the trees have begun to bloom.

Of course not every tree is blooming, but I would say a majority have started.

Gordon-Conwell, looking lovely, green, and in bloom.

It is amazing how some blooms and green on trees really brings life to the world. I love spring and summer! Glad all those dead sticks are nearly gone. :)

and, DONE.

2011-05-02T17:32:00.002-04:00

Today, Daniel turned in his very last paper of his Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary career. It should be noted that he does have to make a final presentation to a Professor on Wednesday, but I am not counting that right now. :) Technically, Friday (April 29th) was the day all his work was due; but one of his professors told the class they could turn in their paper on Monday. Since D had 5 or so other papers he was working on, he decided to take advantage of the slight extension. It definitely made his final days a little less intense.

So we are celebrating in the McDowell house this evening as Daniel is an almost-free man! To some extent at least. I am still a bit in shock to think of him as "done" with school. Of course he is going to begin studying for the GRE's pretty much immediately, and will begin working on PhD applications in the late summer/fall, but his time at Gordon-Conwell is now past.

Of course, last week Daniel told me over breakfast that he would love to continue studying right now, he is not really too excited for his break. There just isn't really anything else in his field he can study at Gordon-Conwell. And we don't want to take out any more school loans than we have to. :)

So, congratulations to my dear husband. You have been a dedicated (and extremely busy!) student since September 2007 and I can't believe you are done. My, how the time has flown. I am excited for this slight "break" you can take, and for all the fun things we will be able to do this year, without a book to read for school or paper to finish up coming along. I love you and am so proud of all you have done; 3 Master's degrees in less than 4 years...wow! You are awesome.

walking a marathon...almost.

2011-04-30T08:28:00.001-04:00

Last week, our dear friend (and technically former student from Daniel's college pastor days) Kyle came out to visit us for a quick trip. He was actually visiting some friends down in New York City, had a few extra days, and decided to see if it would work to come up to visit us and have a quick tour of Boston. Though it wasn't an "ideal"time for Daniel (the final weeks of the semester) we told him to come on up and we would make the best of it.

Kyle arrived via bus late on Sunday night. We both made the trip (in Pri-fontaine-us of course) down to the South End of Boston to pick him up. Thankfully, it was a holiday the next day, so there was no work to wake up early for. Unfortunately, Daniel still had 2 classes on Monday, so he did not get to partake in the fun, though we did all eat breakfast together that morning. :)

After dropping Daniel off at Gor-Con, Kyle and I hit the road to a T-station in Malden to take the T into Boston. The parking lot was full, but we managed to find a spot and make the trek back to the T station. We had smooth travels until we switched from the orange line to the green line. Then all of a sudden it was insanity. Now, as I mentioned earlier, it was Patriot's Day, which is a holiday for many in Massachusetts. On this holiday, the Boston Marathon is run, and there is always a Red Sox home game. The green line is always a bit crazy on Red Sox game days (it is how you get to Fenway on the T), but add to that that the green line is the same way you get to the finish line of the Boston Marathon; both events happening (well, Sox game starting and top finishers finishing) within an hour of each other, made it nuts. We were actually just parked on the tracks, jammed in shoulder to shoulder for about 20-30 minutes. Then we would move a bit, and then be stopped again. Kyle and I decided just to get off the T early and walk to Fenway (our "starting location" for the day in Boston).

So, we got off the T right around the Boston Common and walked to Fenway via the finish line for the Boston Marathon. We have exceptional timing, because what is happening as we approach the finish line but the top female and male finishers are finishing. It was chaos, African flags waving, bells ringing, cheering. It was packed, so of course we should not see a thing, but it was still cool to be there for that excitement.

Warning, all pictures are from my cell phone as I left my camera at home.

Miracle of miracles, I think I got a picture of the top woman finisher! Or some runner at least. :) Look in the upper right corner, she is in bright green.

Once we extracted ourselves from the crowd, we walked along the marathon route to head toward Fenway. As we were walking, a few runners were approaching the 1 mile mark, so that was fun to see.

A decent time! :)

We made it to Fenway and walked around the stadium. Kyle was tricked and then mocked by a fan in the Green Monster seating area, in true New England-er fashion. Gotta love that New England hospitality. :)

As we were walking back, a few of the more "everyday" runners were approaching the finish line, which is always fun to see. It should be noted that these "everyday" runners were still finishing at around 3 hours, which makes them exceptional runners by my opinion. :) We walked back the same way we came, though got stuck on the "wrong" side of the marathon path this time. We were stuck for ages and ages and had to walk well out of our way to escape the chaos.

After that we walked through the Public Gardens and then into the Boston Common to jump on the start of the Freedom Trail to hit most all of the sights (we really only skipped the last one, the USS Constitution, ironically). This was actually my first time walking along the whole Freedom Trail. It was much more manageable than I thought it would be, mostly because we didn't really pay to go inside and "do" anything; we mostly just looked at the outside, took some pictures and read the plaques.

At a Starbucks right along the Freedom Trail. Thought this mural was pretty neat.

Hahaha. This cracks me up. It was in one of the museums/gift shops along the Freedom Trail, and they had these little bobble-heads. So there's George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams...and John F. Kennedy?? :) Only in Massachusetts if JFK right up there with the founding fathers. :)

After we visited our last stop, the Bunker Hill Monument, and took all 294 steps up and down (oh, how my legs were shaking the rest of the night), we headed back into the North End for a quick stop at Mike's Pastry for some dessert for that evening. We also had to make one final stop back at the Public Gardens, as I made a huge mistake in forgetting to mention the Make Way for the Duckings statue, which happened to be Kyle's favorite book as a child. Oops. :)

Bunker Hill Monument; I climbed up that beast. :)

At least there was a good view at the top. :)

So hence the walking a marathon. Though not quite. We did roughly estimate that we must have walked at least 7 miles though, plus 294 stairs up and down the Bunker Hill Monument. (Okay, sometimes I am crazy about things, and I just used map my run to roughly estimate our walking distance, and it was definitely over 10 miles. Now I feel a little better about being sore for about 2 days. :) )Whew, what a workout that day was. We made it back to the car and hit the road to pick up Daniel from his day at school. And what visitor's visit is complete without a stop at Woodman's? So we had a fried clam (seafood really, plus a crab and a lobster roll) feast, and then went home to enjoy our Italian delights, which included the largest cream puff in history.

Daniel and I hit the hay pretty early, as I had work Tuesday and D was still finishing up schoolwork. But, Daniel was able to take Kyle around our area a bit Tuesday morning, and even a brief little tour of Gordon-Conwell. Kyle left Tuesday afternoon via train to subway to bus back to NYC. It was a short visit, but lots of fun! You were a wonderful guest Kyle, we were happy to have you, thanks for thinking of us and coming up for a visit!