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!