Have You Ever...

had a cat jump on your face at 3am?   Hand raised, drink taken, I have!! :) 

Since moving into our new apartment we've had Newton sleep in our room. This has stopped him from meowing early in the morning every day outside our bedroom door, which has been quite nice. I've had to adjust to him mushed up against my legs at night, but otherwise it's been fine. Until one early morning in February...

Before I go into too much detail of the event, let me preface this by saying a couple days prior I had put a canvas picture up in our room. It had fallen down one afternoon, but I decided to put it back up. Fast forward to 3am and I'm woken up to this loud bang followed almost instantly by this ten pound pile of fur smashed up on the side of my face. In those few quick seconds I thought someone had broken in, and then hit me in the face. My heart was pounding!

Thankfully none of that was case. I then realized the picture I shouldn't have put up again decided to fall down again. :) Since Newton was right by the picture down by my feet, the furthest he could get was by the head of our bed. Unfortunately my face was right there. Newton then scurried out of the room and didn't come back in the rest of the night. I even got a battle scar - in the morning I noticed I had a little scrape on my face.

Oh, Newton.... the joys of a cat.  Mom, hopefully this didn't freak you out too much - he'll never be by you when you sleep! :)

It's Official!

This is a couple month old 'Official' note, that I'm sure those of you who are reading this are well aware of, but the purpose of this blog was to record our Boston experience.  So without further ado...

Dave got a full time job, and we're sticking around in Boston!

All of November and the first few weeks in December were quite stressful for us. Our lease was ending December 17, and we needed to know where we'd be. Is there a way we can stay in Boston? Should we rent our house? If we move back to MI, what job could Dave have there? Are we ready to move back to MI? Should we just go to another state completely?

Dave's contract job had been going great. His 'bosses' really liked him and said he was a great fit, and Dave loved it, too. We felt good that this would turn into full time. Well, mid November, Dave was told there was no funds for a full time job so this would end Dec 31... and hopefully there would be money for Dave to start FT later in the year.

Well how can you plan on getting FT months from now.  We kicked it into high gear. Dave contacting various contracting companies in Boston, researching jobs back in MI, me prepping to pack everything up. But we weren't satisfied with our 3 month experiment, and we just didn't want to go back to MI. For our family and friends reading this, please know that this is nothing against you (!!) - we just wanted to have more time to explore!  We even started looking pretty in depth in moving out to Colo.

Six days after hearing there were no funds for a FT position, Dave was called into the boss's office. Someone on their team in NY quit, and they got the ok to use some of those funds for Dave!! Ok, change of plans.  Now we had to find a new and cheaper apartment within two weeks (first one we checked out we signed!) and figure out what to do with our house.  Thankfully we had been in talks with some friends and found a great renter (yay Susan!), and overall should be a good deal on both sides.

It was unreal. Our minds so focused on moving away again, and then set on sticking around and all that went into that. Even thinking about it now kind of stresses me out. :) Those were some intense weeks trying to plan and re-plan our life, but it's worked out, and we're both so glad to still be here.

Thinking of this whole process thus far always reminds me of what my aunt said when I told her we were moving to Beantown....'That is amazing! I have such great feelings about you going there. It's going to be wonderful.'

Courtesy: http://www.alsponline.org/?page=Boston

Tip of the Day: Since I just threw out 'Beantown' and had a recent convo with a coworker, I thought I'd give some background. In the colonial days, Boston was overflowing with molasses (literally! There was even a molasses incident on the North End that flooded streets with molasses - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster) and sugar cane from the Caribbean. So what to do, besides make rum? Bake some beans in molasses - Beantown it became.

Meh-Hee-Co

Wow - kind of sad how long it's taken me to write about our trip from November! :)

To celebrate our 5 year anniversary, Dave and I wanted a laid back, all inclusive tropical retreat.  Dave researched almost a year ago for weeks, maybe even months, looking for a great place to go.  I have to say, he picked a great place!!  Excellence Playa Mujeres in Mexico.  We stayed for 8 nights, and it was incredibly relaxing.  I look back and think, wow, we were crazy lazy, but hey - can't change that now. :)

The food was awesome, the drinks and fruit smoothies were delicious (claro claro), and the weather was perfect.  Clear skies every day, pretty low humidity, and only twice it rained for a few minutes. It was a great way to relax.

Here is the bed/hut right next to the pool that we used the first 5 days.  It was sweet!  I read the whole trip!  A Sookie Stackhouse book - enjoyable, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - addicted, Interesting Facts about America's History - hilarious, and a Wine/Murder Mystery Dave got for himself - quick read. :)

Ok, so far we sound like sloths (for the most part we were hehe), but they had little classes/tours around the resort. One day we toured the kitchen and we saw how many times they cleaned the food ... well I'll go into that a little later.  We also sat in on a demo about the Coco Loco Mono.  Luckily we could take one with us to test. :)

Yummy coconut juice, all types of liquor, oranges, lemons, and limes ... and whaalah. Coco Loco Mono.

Although I don't have a pic of this, we also got to enjoy a fresh coconut! Dave walked up to one of the gardeners, who happened to have just sliced open a coconut that he took from a nearby tree, and asked if he could have one. The gardener took out his machete (!!) and popped the top off one for us. Step one - drink all the coconut juice. Step two - go back to machete-wielding gardener and ask for him to cut it open. Step three - eat the coconut flesh.  It was pretty cool.

Oh, I should also mention Dave was much less lazy than I. A couple mornings he went to tennis lessons, which he loved.

Back to the kitchen tour of items being washed so well... unfortunately with 3 days left to go, we both got some of Montezuma's revenge (Curse him!).... guess whatever we ate wasn't washed well enough. ;) It was too bad, because everything else about the trip was excelente!

The last fun tidbit about our trip was the First Class! Since we had moved to Boston after our flights were booked from Detroit, we had to change them around. All Delta had left on the way back was First Class tix - shoot. :)  Neither of us had experienced First Class - what a trip! You know when the flight attendant says over the intercom 'Please sit back and enjoy your flight'... typically Dave and I roll our eyes since next to you is a smelly person, or a crying baby, or you're squished in your seat. Well when I heard that phrase I smiled and thought, yes, I will enjoy my flight, thank you. hahaha  Ahh, how First Class changes you. :)

One last parting pic of the great, relaxing 5 year anniversary trip!

Of course... Playa Mujeres tip of the day: Before traveling to this resort make sure you get a large tattoo on your leg, arm, or back. No lie 80% of the people had visible tattoos at this resort. I felt like I needed to go get a tat asap!