Monday, December 28, 2009

Home for Christmas

My first Christmas in Boston, two of my friends had flight trouble and were not able to get home for Christmas day. Since then, I realized what a pain winter flying in New England is. It is unusual to have a flight without delays, but this year something even worse happened. My flight was cancelled! The one day it stormed that week was the one day that I was supposed to fly out. Of course, they started cancelling flights the day before when it hadn't even started snowing yet. Typical. Luckily my roommate Tristan noticed they were cancelling flights and let me know. I called and was able to get on another flight the next day. BUT, I was supposed to get there early Sunday morning and instead got there late Monday night, so I really lost two whole days at home. On the bright side, though, I was in plenty of time for Christmas. We did, however, have to reschedule our family party from Sunday to Wednesday, which my sister was personally upset with me over the whole week. Like I purposefully bought a ticket for a flight (in July!) that would be cancelled.

Good times were had once I was home, although I had to try and cram in a lot more in less time. I had a fun little get together with some old Alpha friends.
Jessica's family has three birthday's the week of Christmas. We celebrated Kevin's on Christmas Eve. My mom and abuela also made the traditional Bolivian New Year's soup. So yummy! The kids opened their one gift, which was pajamas, of course.

Christmas morning, my parents and I opened our presents... ...with Patrick, Hilary, and......their little man Ganon. It was his first Christmas and he was still learning the ropes of unwrapping things, but was so excited for all his gifts. I coudn't believe how big he'd gotten!We also saw Jessica's kids and went to see Jodie's girls. We found out that my grandma Turner was going to be alone on Christmas, so Kevin and the boys made an early run that morning to pick her up. It was really good to see her... it had been since before I moved to Boston.

The next day we celebrated Julian's birthday with his party. That little guy is so adorable. Somehow I manage not to take too many pictures when I'm home. The time just seems to fly by and I never get to see everyone that I want to. It was a merry Christmas, though, all the same.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Christmas Goodies

We get all sorts of deliciousness in the office at Christmas time. I just had to share a couple... this came from our COO who lives in Florida. Delicious Florida oranges and grapefruit creatively arranged in a Christmas tree.
This gingerbread house is from our neighbors in the building. Ginger Betty's is a client of theirs and I have never tasted such delicious cookies... their soft ginger snaps drizzled with chocolate. Mmm. Bethany went to their shop and said it is adorable. If you're not in the Boston area, you should order some. Really.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Birthday Tricks

I appreciate my office mate making me laugh. He was trying to catch this orange in his mouth and luckily let me capture this. :)

We let him pretend that he was victorious, you know, since it was his birthday and all. Hope it was a great one!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

New York, New York

To round out Mollie's birthday week, we took a little day trip to the Big Apple. I was so excited to see the Christmas displays on Fifth Avenue. My favorites were the Bergdorf Goodman windows.This one was amazing... everything was suspended at 90 degrees, and the king is even pouring tea!

This one reminded me of high school art class when we drew those wooden bodies.

A trip to New York is not complete without seeing a Broadway play. I found out Bye Bye Birdie was showing from a fun blog I read, (No) Sex and the City. I loved the movie with Dick Van Dyke when I was young and was excited to see Natalie in it. Luckily I was able to find some great tickets. The show was amazing! So much fun and a great cast. Kim's little brother was especially hilarious.


The next thing we set out to do was ice skating at Rockefeller Center, something Mollie has always wanted to do. At this point I should mention that it was raining that day... all day long... and it was cold... winter cold. We were sharing an umbrella, but the wind was not helping us stay dry. We headed over there anyway, and waited in line to be let into the rink. Have you ever been completely soaked and freezing cold? Well, staring at the big slab of ice and watching people fall down and come up even wetter did not make us too excited to skate on it. After much debate, we finally realized we would be miserable in ice skates and decided to come back some other year for ice skating. We did see several proposals under the giant Christmas tree though.
We also decided to skip the delicious cheesecake we were going to get and headed back to the car to get out of our wet clothes as much as possible. Mollie was a trooper and drove us home through a blizzard, getting us home safe and sound. Definitely a fun and memorable birthday adventure.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Roomie Birthdays

Two of my roommates have birthdays this month. Mollie's mom sent her special brownie mix and adorable candles. That day, we had less than two hours between the time Tristan and I got home from work and Mollie had to leave for service she does each week (even on her birthday... isn't she dedicated?). In our haste, we didn't let the cake cool long enough before we put in the candles. We couldn't figure out why they kept leaning, until we pulled them out. Oops! Please tell me someone else has done this...A group of us also took Mollie to Fire + Ice the next day. You get to put together your food and watch them grill it in front of you. Way fun atmosphere and great food. Afterwards we saw New Moon. Love those vampires.
For Pat's birthday, we went to a Thai place on Newbury Street. She loves exotic foods and this place didn't disappoint. Happy birthdays girls!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Brotherly Love

For Thanksgiving this year, Mollie and I were both without a place to go, so we decided to head to Pennsylvania to enjoy Thanksgiving in Amish country. We started out in the village of Intercourse (great name, right?)...
...and walked around the different shops. My favorites were the amazing hand-sewn quilts and the iron works. Next we went on a buggy ride, featuring a covered bridge.
Love the buggy roadsign!
Don't hate me for cutting off this picture, but the buggy is kind of bumpy. I thought these girls were adorable, though.We headed over the restaurant that we have made reservations at for dinner. It had been under Amish restaurants when we searched online. When we walked in, though, it was not at all what we expected. We were thinking some cozy little old-fashioned diner. What we found, was a crowded almost cafeteria-like modern restaurant. The food left something to be desired, including our first course of fruit cocktail from a can, mashed potatoes from a box, and sweet potatoes drizzled with maple syrup. The bread was delicious, though, as was the pie. At least they had good baked goods. There were a lot of elderly couples there, as well as some interesting younger families. We just couldn't stop laughing about it.

The next day, we spent in Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love. Mollie and I were so excited to discover that the city is actually on a grid! It was so nice to be able to get around without staring at the map the whole time. I loved visiting all of the historical sites.

I was a little surprised at the size of the Liberty Bell. I always imagined it would be larger. I was also sad to know that the story about the crack that I learned in Elementary school is a myth.

Independence Hall was one of those places where it was incredible to imagine walking where such great men had walked before.
This is the room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the Constitutional Convention was held.
We enjoyed walking around Philadelphia, seeing the famous sites. There was also a really cute Christmas village set up with things from all around the world.

In the afternoon we drove to nearby Valley Forge. This was the 1777 - 1778 winter quarters for General Washington's troops during the Revolutionary War.

For dinner, we had to go get a famous Philly Cheesesteak. It was a little like the Seinfeld Soup Nazi. If you didn't know what you want and order quickly, you endured the wrath.

We ended the night with a little face mask and some TastyKakes, an original Pennsylvania brand.
The next day we headed to Gettysburg and did a driving tour of the park. I actually don't think I'd ever read the entire Gettysburg address before, and I came away with a new respect for Abraham Lincoln.

So many battlefields and so many lives lost here from allover the country. I don't think I've ever seen so many memorials in one place.
This is the Gettysburg National Cemetery, organized in semicircles around a monument. Each state had its own section for its fallen soldiers.

Our last stop before the drive home was the David Wills house. This is the room Lincoln stayed in and finished writing his famous Gettysburg address.

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state and there is nothing like a good road trip!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Dancing In Heaven

When we were little, my sisters and I had certain videos with movies taped from HBO that we would watch over and over again. One of our favorites was Girls Just Want To Have Fun. A classic, right? Still contains some of my favorite dance moves. Well, the movie was on t.v. the other day, so I got a little nostalgic and decided to find the soundtrack. Maybe I don't have the best search skills, but I couldn't find it available to buy anywhere. So sad. I did find a different version of this song and listened to it like a hundred times. Doesn't it make you want to dance? Bonus points if you know the scene this plays in. Go Janie and Jeff!

Monday, November 16, 2009

I Love Bermuda

On Wednesday the rain started pouring down and didn't leave for the rest of the week. Joy and I decided it was a good day to go to the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute where we could be inside. Titanic artifacts were on display. Crazy to think about all the people on that ship.


We were able to be in a simulated shark cage. The shark coming up and banging the cage actually did give us a fright. That would definitely be a rush to do it for reals.


These heads show the shrinkage factor from going down to different depths in a submarine. Why doesn't that happen to people?

This is the Tucker Cross which Teddy Tucker recovered in 1955, from the Spanish ship San Pedro which sank in 1595. When it was transported to a facility in 1977, Teddy unwrapped it to realize that the original was stolen and replaced by a replica!

It was a very rainy day, so we just headed back to the hotel. That pink pole is the bus stop. Pink poles go away from Hamilton and blue poles go toward Hamilton. They were hard to recognize at first when walking about.

The next three days I spent in the conference for work. After the first day of meetings, our boss treated our Development team and us to the nicest restaurant on the island. Yummy, fancy food. Jeff did have to squeeze into the back of a taxi though. The curse of being tall. ;)

Joy got to spend the day roaming the beaches and taking pictures. Isn't Bermuda beautiful? Too bad I didn't get to spend more time on the beaches. Oh well. It did rain every day while I was working, so the timing couldn't have been better.

Friday night, our company had a Calypso White Party. Requested dress: white with a calypso flare (explained as a splash of bright color). I somehow managed not to take any pictures, but there was an amazing amount of fresh seafood and a live band for dancing. Good times.

The conference ended around lunchtime on Saturday, so I organized a group to go on a Glass Bottom Boat for a shipwreck tour. We were in the Bermuda Triangle afterall. Surprisingly, after a while you can't really tell the difference between a rock and a boat underwater, because all the anemones and ocean life covers them up.
We also spent a little time snorkeling. There weren't very many fish, but plenty of sea cucumbers and different types of anemones. It is actually against the law to remove these. Our captain told us about a guy who tried to hide one in his shorts... yeah, he didn't realize that they sting. Oops!
Another interesting story... the green turtle population was nearly extinct in the 1800's because they were hunted for food. They tried to bring turtles from another country, but didn't realize that turtles go back to the place they were born to lay their eggs, so that didn't work. In the '60s and '70s Bermuda tried again by bringing thousands of turtle eggs from Costa Rica and burying them in the sand. Many of them hatched, however, the sex of turtles is determined by the temperature of the water. Because the water in colder in Bermuda, they were all born males. Ironic, right?
Sunday morning, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before heading home.

I highly recommend visiting Bermuda. I absolutely loved it there. Maybe it's a sign that I need to move to a warmer climate. ;)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Dolphins at the Dockyards

Tuesday was an exciting day. Joy and I got to play with dolphins! We went to the Dockyards to the Bermuda Maritime Museum where the dolphins live.We watched them jump and do tricks.

We got to spend an hour meeting the eight dolphins. They like to play, so we were told to be really excited and have lots of energy. Here I'm feeding one a fishy.
This one blew snot on my hand. Ew!

This one even let me hold her.

Joy started a water fight with these two boys.

Dolphins are such beautiful creatures!

Afterwards we walked around the top of the fort. Great views, but sheep live up there, so we were dodging their little pellets everywhere.

We also spent some time looking at the museum. We had the place almost all to ourselves.

This room boasted amazing floor to ceiling murals depicting Bermudian history.

A cruise ship docked there that day. The other two girls that swam with us came off of it. I need to go on a cruise sometime. Can you believe I've never been on one?
Another amazing day in Bermuda!