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!

Newport RI

Whoops - this is a month delayed and a long one! Back in early November we took a trip down to Rhode Island. It's not too far away - love Boston!  Newport, RI was the happening spot for the richies back in the day. They have 7 'summer cottages,' aka mansions, for the normal person to tour. The rest of the area is filled with other huge cottages that richies still own. I wanted to tour three cottages, but Dave wouldn't have been to handle more than one. I had to pick the 'best' one. So to The Breakers we went!

The Breakers was completed in 1895. It took only two years to build the whole thing, and it's like 20,000 sq ft. or so. The Vanderbilts owned this home...so Gloria Vanderbilt's grandparents built it, I believe. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures once inside the building. They give you individual audio tours, which took a little under an hour. This place was unbelievable! So ornate and over the top. Gold and platinum on the walls incorporated in the wallpaper. Wood used from all over the world, bedrooms that are as big as our house. The list goes on.  Oh, but my favorite extravagance was definitely the marble tub in Mr. Vanderbilt's bathroom. If he wanted to take a hot bath, his staff would have to fill it full 6 times with hot water before he could use - it took that long for the marble to heat up enough to be comfortable!  Of course, Dave said he wants one of those when we build our house. lol

The front gates are made with wrought iron and are impressively huge. They also have another set of these at the side entrance. The side entrance gates were down to be worked on. It took them over a week to dismantle, using a crane etc, because they are so heavy!

This side of the house faces the vast Atlantic Ocean!

 Dave on the patio of the Breakers.

The huge yard looking out at the ocean. They had all sorts of parties back in its heyday. I wish I could have seen it.

After our tour of the ostentatious Breakers that some called a tasteless exhibit of money (which by the way Dave was ready to buy ... typical American!), we did something Dave would enjoy - Tennis!  We briefly wandered the grounds and he saw a nice grass court up close. We were too cheap to buy tickets for the museum, but it was worth just wandering.

With our stomachs growling we headed to downtown Newport. It has all sorts of shops, restaurants, one way streets, and the like. We happened upon the White Horse Tavern. It looked pretty decent. We walked into an extremely dark room with ceilings about 7 ft tall and a huge fire warming the restaurant. The food was amazing! It happened to be restaurant week in town, so we got an appetizer, delicious lunch, and yummy dessert for $15 each - well worth it.  While we sat there we read a history of the tavern. It is the oldest tavern in the U.S.  It definitely seemed old :) but how cool that we ate there and didn't even realize it!  We bought a pint glass from there - how could you not?!

While heading back to the 'summer cottages' to do the cliff walk, we drove past the structure below. I bet few know about this structure.... but it made my heart skip a beat! A couple years ago while watching the History channel they discussed the origins of this, the Newport Tower. The origins have been argued for centuries. Some believe the vikings built it when they discovered the U.S and used as a lookout or cairn landmark (I thought this was the case after watching the HC). Others are convinced it was a windmill Benedict Arnold (the great grandfather of the Benedict Arnold most have heard of) built for his farm. They've done carbon testings and all sorts of tests, but there is still no definitive answer.  Love it.

 It's crazy to see the stones up close!

So, as you can see, back to the Breakers for the Cliff Walk! The Cliff Walk is about 7 miles roundtrip I think. You walk along the edge of the ocean in front of all the huge 'summer cottages.' What a perfect way to see these secluded homes! We started at the Breakers and began walking a portion of it - about a 1 mile trek.

How could I not take another picture of the Breakers in the late afternoon with families playing on the lawn?!

 Dave enjoying the water breaking on the cliffs.

Part of the path had a nice stone wall... other areas were sketchy looking fences, mucky tunnels, or really narrow right against the cliff.

This gazebo was half a football field away from the main house, and people on the path could look right into it. Maybe it's cool to have a structure right by the water, but who wants to have all these people walking by you and staring?

Another house we could have toured was the Marble house. We'll have to go back in the spring when their Chinese Tea house is open. It was an interesting sight to see this on the Atlantic ocean.

Ok, so this is just a silly picture of Dave walking through one of the mucky tunnels. After I took this I couldn't stop laughing. We had just watched Halloween the weekend prior and this made me think of Michael Myers.  Dave embodies MM here and it's way freaky to me.

We turned around and headed back to the Breakers. Can you see it in the background?  It's the dark red roof with a bunch of chimneys. It's just such a big building - I still can't get over it.

Oh, and our last stop was to the front gate again. I wanted a picture of me by it to provide some perspective. Can you even see me? :)

 

Rhode Island tip of the day: If you are a young, pretty female working at a bar - watch out for Marine guys from the Newport base! While at the White Horse Tavern there was a Marine guy sitting next to us at the bar. This guy would not leave our poor waitress alone. He kept telling her she was beautiful, and right before he left he asked to take a picture of her - say what?!?! We were a little creeped out, especially since we heard him talking to someone else about his girlfriend in Chicago and going home to see her and her child. Weird.

Freedom Trail

This post is a little delayed....  We traveled on the Freedom Trail 3 weeks ago in downtown Boston. It's about a 2.5 mile tour throughout all of Boston. Since it can take 3+ hours to walk it, Dave suggested we bike it instead. Biking around downtown was awesome!  You get around so much quicker and it's a lot of fun.

Throughout all of Boston there is either a yellow painted line or a nice red brick line to guide you through the tour. It was extremely helpful to know where to go next. :)

Our first stop was the Public Garden. Dave found an ice cream vendor outside of the park, so of course he needed to purchase some!

Next we biked where John Kerry has an abode.  These houses were all right next to each other, but looked pretty expensive!  On the top of the hill was the Capital. Every year Boston spends a lot of money refinishing the gold top! It was made of wood, but in order to stop it from leaking they began covering it with gold.

The cemetery where Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and others were buried was surrounded by all these large buildings. So odd to see these old headstones sandwiched between buildings.

Kings church was used by the British. The beams look like some beautiful type of stone, but really it is wood painted to look like stone.  Neat trick, huh? :)

The Old State House below was originally used for the British until the Revolutionary War. In here the concepts of 'taxation without representation' and the 4th Amendment, 'no unreasonable search and seizure' started here!

The Custom House Tower was built in the early 1900s. There was an unwritten rule that no building could be built higher than the tower. Unfortunately in 1964, the Prudential Tower was built taller than the Custom House Tower. Lame!  Now this tower is the 17th tallest building.

We wandered past Faneuil Hall and the nearby markets. We'll have to spend some more time down there because there's so much to see and do right here! Ok, trivia time.... what is on top of the weather vane on Faneuil Hall??  Give up?  You must be a British spy!!!!

 

The answer is: a grasshopper! The grasshopper was a 'shibboleth' during the Revolutionary period. If the suspected spy knew the grasshopper was on top of Faneuil Hall, they were free, if not they were convicted as British spies.  You better remember the grasshopper... :)

We biked to the oldest part of town where the roads are uneven brick and barely fit one car down the lane.  We saw Paul Revere's home, but didn't go into the musuem. We should have though - it isn't that expensive to get into. Look how funny it is, though, this building from 1680 is just chilling right up against a much younger building.

Since Paul Revere's house is right by Little Italy, we stopped at Mike's Pastry. Dave's coworkers raved about this place and man is it happening! We waited in a big line for 15+ minutes, and actually got serenaded by a guy's college acapella group. Not just us... there was a large group enjoying them singing Coldplay. :)

The canoli and tiramisu were huge!  We could hardly finish them. Were they the best we ever had? No, but they were delicious and crazy big, and it was fun to experience this packed out place.  Mom - just got your letter today about Mike's Pastry... we've been, as you can see, but can't wait to take you when you visit. :)

Old North Church was one of our last stops. Thankfully it was free, so we went inside. :) Each family had their own 'box.' The door/walls of the box were quite high (4ish feet maybe) and could fit 6ish people. You had a little lock on your door, too. All I thought was, I can hardly see over the wall to look up to the pulpit - how did people not just take a little snooze in their boxes... seemed quite easy cause no one could see you!

Last stops were over the bridge to the Bunker Hill monument and Old Ironsides. There's Dave biking on the road over the scary bridge. I biked on the sidewalk ... too scared to be biking next to cars on a bridge.

If there isn't a long wait, the USS Constitution is worth it!! It was one of 7 warships commissioned by George Washington and is the oldest functioning ship in the US. They said they actually took it out on the water the day before we were there. It takes a couple hundred people to run the ship - there are ropes everywhere, so it kind of makes sense.

Some of the original cannons.

 

 Dave chilling on the boat, notice all the rope!

 Yay! End of the trip and a quick self portrait. :)

Oh! Boston tip of the day: If you do end up going to the USS Constitution make sure you bring your license and be prepared to experience mini airport security. We had to show a valid license/passport, scan our bags, walk through a metal detector, and get wanded (if necessary). Definitely wasn't expecting that!  FYI - you could keep your shoes on :)

Breakdown Lane

I had an appt this morning south of us. This meant I had to drive down I-95 during rush hour. I was overly prepared and gave myself tons of time. Well, going south on I-95 was not bad at all, thankfully!  On the way home obviously I had to go north (still during 'rush hour'). Going north had what I would call a pretty significant amount of cars... :)

So merging onto the highway was kind of weird. Cars seemed to be a lot closer to me, but I merged on and didn't think much about it. As I'm driving along I start seeing cars passing me in the break down lane. What in the world? Why are all these people being illegal?! I thought, well maybe they're just being illegal for a little bit until their exit ramp comes up.  Nope, no one got off the exit.

I started paying more attention and looked ahead - ok, the breakdown lane was just as packed as the other 3 lanes. An example pic (albeit much less crowded) of what I was seeing. Sooo weird!

A little further down there was actually a sign (similar to below) saying you could drive in the breakdown lane between 6am-10am and 3pm-7pm from Monday-Friday.

 

It's kind of a clever idea for Mass to try to handle the insane amount of cars during rush hour! Although be forewarned, this doesn't happen on all highways or even in all spots of highways... so don't read this post and think when you visit us in Mass you can just drive in the breakdown lane all day long. :)

I don't know if this is really something that could be used in MI. I mean it would be useful, but I don't think MI drivers could handle it. I know I was too afraid to drive in it. haha  Plus it would need to be clean... no random tire pieces or junk, etc.

Boston Tip of the Day: Bostonians feel Detroit is being ridiculous about Thanksgiving Day.  Let me explain a little bit.... while slowly driving in rush hour the radio peeps brought up how Nickelback was going to sing at halftime at the Detroit Lions game on Thanksgiving Day. They then noted that people in Detroit are all pissed and want a talented person from Detroit to perform.  This is when the radio guy brings up that Detroit needs to just calm down, not worry about hearing the only Detroit artists, Kid Rock or Eminem, and stop shooting your residents.  Ok, the shooting residents was a little ridiculous, but I couldn't stop laughing!!! Hearing another state talking about my Detroit was so hilarious to me... I felt like 'I know Detroit, we aren't all crazy there!'   Wow, long explanation for my tip of the day- whoops :)

Dave's Experiment

For those of you who don't know Dave too well, he likes to experiment. Let me give you a couple examples... raw milk - a recent blog of mine :), crazy diets with low sugar and no white carbs (which actually works well for us both!), super intense workouts, training for a marathon with no further distance trained than 12 miles.

His most recent experiment is to bike to work 15 miles each way. Luckily there is a decent path for most of the trip right along the Charles river. 

This all started when Dave got sick of feeling a little stressed while going on the T. It wasn't always reliable, would be so full he'd have to wait for two more trains, etc. He wanted to do something that he'd think would be more reliable. There are a lot of people that bike around downtown, and a coworker of his bikes about 15 miles into work.  So the experiment begins.... :)

This weekend he had a test run. He got all geared up and figured out the 15 mile trek. He had a couple detours, but got to his building in an hour and 27 minutes. Then I picked him up, he got some yummy sticky buns from Flour bakery by his work, and we drove on back home.

Attire: Hat, helmet, aviators, scarf, gloves, smartwool long sleeve base shirt, fleece, outer shell, long underwear, track pants

I wanted to highlight here that in order for his track pants to not get caught in the chain he used my headbands. :)

 So like I said, he made it to his building! Pretty cool, Dave.  But of course, this new experiment costs a little bit of money. Dave said now he doesn't have to pay for the trains, and it should even out in a couple months - so fingers crossed. So like I said, since Dave plans to bike throughout the winter he has to buy some items. So he needs some warm base layers, bike fenders, a bike rack, clear glasses/goggles to protect his eyes, waterproof shoes, and front and rear lights. He has about half of these things already. 

The one I'd like to point out is the crazy bright front light. So Dave comes home and says this was kind of expensive, but it's a safety feature, so it's important.  'Was it like $50?' 'Hmm, a little more.' 'So more like $100?' '(Smile)... a little more' 'What?? Like how much?' 'Well it was $150, but remember it's a safety feature.'  ... So for any of you who would like to do this kind of experiment, be prepared to spend a little bit of money for safety features. :)

And in case you are curious, Dave has been riding his bike to and from work this week. He's loving it - although it's pretty decent cool weather for biking right now. Unfortunately today the bathroom stalls were all full so he decided to change out in the open.  He said nicely dressed middle aged men kept walking in!!! He said he thought they all looked at him like he was homeless. lol  If anything interesting happens on his bike rides, I'll most likely share. :)

Boston Tip of the Day: There are a lot of hills around Boston! Dave bikes uphill for the last couple miles - it's crazy!  Oh, except he does luck out in downtown because long ago they filled in the ocean with a bunch of dirt to make Boston bigger (fun fact!!), so it's nice and flat.