New Stake Center

On Sunday, I was able to attend the new Cambridge Stake Center dedication. We have always had to borrow the Boston Stake's building or broadcast Stake Conference to the multiple buildings our wards met in. The Stake Center is 36,000 square feet and even has underground parking, a valuable commodity in Cambridge. As an aside, it was so nice to be in an actual LDS chapel for a meeting. We've been renting space since the fire at Longfellow Chapel last year. My ward will actually be moving to the Davis Square chapel until the Longfellow Chapel is completed. The LP wards will be sharing the Stake Center with the family wards that meet there.

Yellow Night

This month's movie night revolved around the color yellow. We had pineapple, lemonade......grilled ham and yellow cheese......corn on the cob... ...yellow squash casserole...

...and a yummy yellow soup.We then enjoyed the old Jimmy Stewart movie 'You Can't Take It With You.' As usual, delicious food, wonderful company, and good times all around. :)

B: Miriam, Nancy, Bishop, Suzanne, Ruby, Michelle, Nate, Daryl, Charlotte, F: Jarick, Emily

Nod to Mr. Rogers

Do you remember that classic clip on Mr. Rogers about making crayons? Well, my friend Cristi informed me that you can actually go to the Crayola factory in Easton, PA, so that is just what we did.

The number of crayons made... constantly increasing.

We played and did crafts in the attached Crayola museum. Lots of fun stuff there.

The next factory on the list was in Hershey, PA. Who knew there were so many cool places in Pennsylania?

My favorite thing on the ride/tour of how Hershey's chocolate is made was the singing cows.

Funny story... after leaving Hershey, we headed to NYC. After putting the address into my GPS, it showed us the route, but didn't show an arrival time. Very unusual, so I tried it again. Same thing. No arrival time. I checked a page of the travel directions and the highway looked right, so I figured there was just a gliche. Luckily, Cristi noticed that we were going towards Pittsburgh, ie, the wrong way. Finally, I realized that the setting to "Avoid Toll Roads" was checked, causing the GPS to route us around through Ohio and then up through Canada to get us to NYC. There wasn't a time showing because we weren't going to get there that day... or the next for that matter. ;)

We spent the night with Cristi's awesome friend, Jessica, in Harlem. We ate a little Indian food in Ghandi's Cafe then had a little frozen yogurt for dessert.

We attempted to go see a movie on the battleship Intrepid, but the security guards wouldn't let us on, even though there was only a little bit left of the movie.

After church on Sunday, one of Cristi's friends invited us over for his family's Father's Day tradition. He made breakfast: first, omelets with spinach, mushrooms, carmelized onions, seven Italian cheeses, and red, green, and yellow bell peppers; then stuffed french toast filled with strawberry jam and cream cheese on cinnamon swirl bread, topped with powdered sugar and a strawberry. It was definitely a delicious gourmet breakfast. On the way back to Jessica's, we passed an open fire hydrant, water spewing into the street. Of course I had to dance in it. :)

As we were leaving Harlem, these boys egged a car just as we walked by, making me jump. Punks.

"How he lived, and toiled, and suffered"

After skydiving, four of us decided to have breakfast at Henrietta's Table inside the Charles Hotel. Jason had the fantastic idea of sharing different items, which I love because so many things always sound good on a menu. We shared cinnamon cranberry french toast, eggs benedict, and an omelette. It was all delicious. I love being able to spend time near Harvard Square. I am usually only in Cambridge on Sunday, when I can't really enjoy all the fun shops and restaurants.

On a whim, we also decided to tour Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's home on Brattle Street. This house was actually General George Washington's headquarters for a time during the Civil War. There were little nods to George and Martha in many of the rooms. All of the furnishings and decor are original to the Longfellows (except for tapestries that had to be replaced), which is so unusual for historic homes.

Isn't the portrait of the three girls adorable? Longfellow described his three daughters as "grave Alice, laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair."

Henry spent most of his time in this room.

The second story window affords a view of the Charles River... or at least it used to. The Longfellow's owned all the land between, and Henry made sure that nothing could be built between them, which is why that park is there now. Can you see the orange construction going-ons on the left side of the picture? That is where our church that burned down last year is being rebuilt.
One of my favorite things about the house is the double staircase. One on each side of the house, connected at the landing with this beautiful window. I'm sure the kids loved to play there.

That evening my friend Cristi came over to watch a movie and she introduced me to the Purple Cow. Have you ever heard of it before? It is like a root beer float with grape soda. It was yummy. You should try it.

10,000 Feet

I did it again. I jumped out of a plane in the sky. This time the papers I had to sign even more boldly explained the dangers of skydiving.
We were scheduled to go the week before, but there was too much cloud cover. In order to jump, you have to be able to see the ground from the plane. This week, we had to go super early to fit in before the other groups, but the timing was perfect. Although it was cloudy, there was enough of a break to jump, and the clouds made for beautiful scenery.

This is my tandem buddy, Ron. The first thing he said to me was, "Are you nervous?"

When I explained that I had done this before, he disappointedly asked, "you're not even scared?" All the way up in the plane he kept saying things to try to make me nervous. "It's only my second time jumping." "The serial number on your chute is 000013." "We're good as long as you don't hear a beeping noise" (when the altimeter beeps). All I could do was laugh, because surprisingly enough, I wasn't nervous this time. Last time, I was wicked nervous, but this time it was just fun. Ron offered to spin me until I threw up, so we did a few turns and different things that I didn't do last time. I also didn't get a video this time, so I was just able to soak it all in instead of making eyes at the camera. The one downside is that the harness is not really fitted for my body, so when the parachute opens and then floating down, my thighs were a little bruised and sore from holding all of me up. So worth it though.

Here are the jumpers that day, including my old bishop.

Skipper or Crew

I had my first sailing lesson last night! My ward had a sailing activity at the MIT boathouse, where we learned the concepts of sailing. There is actually more technique than you would think. After a rainy week, the weather ended up perfect and beautiful.

This was my sailing partner Alex. I admittedly let him be the skipper the whole time and I was the crew. So I technically didn't really steer the boat at all, but I did ease and trim the mainsheet AND I had to dodge the boom whenever we changed direction so that it didn't hit me on the head. :)

We finished up the night with some delicious barbeque. Such a fun night!

Spring Blossoms

Just had to share a pic I snapped of one of my favorite flowering trees here.

I love how the flowers on this dogwood only grow on the top of the branches. Happy spring!

Plymouth Waterfront

My roommate Pat came down to the south shore with me yesterday so that she could visit a school. After I finished work, I called up my friend Trina and we decided to have dinner in Plymouth. I think it is the most adorable little town by the water and wicked old. This was Pat's first view of Plymouth Rock:
We had dinner at Lobster Hut, which was one of Bethany's favorites, then strolled along the coast.

It was a very pleasant evening.

Memorial Day

I am such a fan of long weekends. I honestly wish I had three-day weekends all the time. It is so nice to be able to recover from the weekend on Monday instead of going to work all day. ;) You can also do so much and still feel relaxed.

Friday, I went to see my friend Emily's new pad in a town further north of Boston. It used to be a warehouse, so has a fun feel, but still really nice. We had delicious pizza and watched a movie.

Saturday, I had lunch with my roommate Pat. We just walked down to Brighton Center and ate paninis at a cute cafe with outdoor seating. I love that it is getting warm enough to enjoy being outdoors.

Monday, Memorial Day, Cristi and I met up with some friends near the Charles to play some volleyball. Idario has an awesome outdoor net. We recruited some guys walking by with a volleyball to play with us. They were friends from Mass Art. It made it a fun game. :)