New posts will come

...eventually. My laptop is broken, so I won't be posting new blogs with Costa Rica and Boston pictures until it's fixed. But, I think I figured out a way for you to at least see my CR pics...so enjoy! Most of them have comments, you can read 'em if you click the little guy in the left corner with the word bubble.

Birthday Celebrations!

On Saturday Nate, Chris, Amy and I met my mom, her boyfriend and his daughter at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River. The Beach Boys were playing that night!! Mom had been saving a spot since about 2pm. We got there right before the concert started at 7. There were soooo many people. It was a really fun concert. Everyone was singing along and dancing. And John Stamos was playing with them. I guess he's pretty much always performing with them. He gets a younger audience there...the swooning, screeching audience...He's a good looking man that Stamos...They said that he's doing Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway right now. He'd be a perfect Conrad Birdie...have mercy! ;) There was a group of people right next to us who kept chanting, "Uncle Jesse!!" Here's some video and pictures of the night:

on the T ride to the concert

the yummy cake!

John Stamos singing with Mike Love, the only original member of the band

Nate being all weird and serious


Oops!

He finally cracked a smile

How Nate and Chris spent half of the concert

The Hatch Shell all pretty at night





And then on Monday, the actual day of my birth, Jordan and Juli made me a cake! And the left it at my door when I was napping. It was chocolate applesauce cake, and really really good:
AND my mom made me a pineapple upside-down cake the next day. I didn't get a picture of it though...but my taste buds'll remember it.

Back in Time

My friend Juli and I went to a really awesome Victorian house museum. It was beautiful! The house is officially called The Gibson House. The Gibson family had this house built in the 1850s. It was in a new area of Boston, the Back Bay, which for a bit was where all the city's raw waste sat for a bit. But it got filled in and homes for the rich were built there. And even though it used to be a big toilet, the rich wanted to move there so they could be close to their friends and family.

The house itself really shows how people at that time lived. There is the public part of the house

the fancy dining room with all the pretty china

the living room, where the party would go after dinner

I liked all the baubles hanging off the chandelier, all the lights were originally gas lights

This was a study...or library...

And then there's the private side of the house, the part that I actually liked the most. We entered at the main floor, with all the glitz and glamor, but it really felt like a home and I could see people living there when we went downstairs and saw the kitchen. There was a dumbwaiter! Too bad it didn't work. I want a house with a food elevator...that'd be so cool.

A pretty stove used to feed the family

Cool bell system used to alert the servants of the family's needs. It reminded me of Disney's Cinderella, when the sisters keep calling her, "Cindereeeellllla!!"

This was Mrs. Gibson's bedroom. I liked how light the room was, and I loved the furniture, made to look like bamboo. All things Asia were really popular back then.

Me in the mirror

Oh, and I saved the best for last. A fancy Victorian dog palace and a video of me attempting to get the view of us going up the gorgeous staircase...I get good shots of the wallpaper, which was fancy and gold and made in China...or Japan...

the photo is really dark cuz flash photography wasn't allowed around the old fabrics...and I tried to lighten it up...but you get the idea...

Day at the Beach!

We spent this past Monday a group of us: Sister Bratt, Sister Keeney, the Kellys, Ashley Cook and I all went down to Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts. It was beautiful, we were lucky it didn't rain.

The African Savannah...in Massachusetts?

The boardwalk that leads to the beach

The beach has been found!!

I just love the fence

We had a fun time. I actually swam in the ocean. Usually when I go to the beach I wade a little...but it's usually too cold to actually swim. But this time I decided to do it. And it wasn't that cold. I've been in the Atlanta in New Hampshire where it was so cold you got numb. I didn't get numb this time! Juli Kelly and I had fun bobbing along and chatting while everyone else was sunbathing. Sis.Kelly was chasing her year and a half year-old grandson around. He loved the beach.

Sis.Kelly, Paul, Juli and Michelle's son Kaleb following us home to New Hampshire

Ashley and I spotted a beached whale!

4th of July Weekend

Mandie's brother Joey flew into Boston on Friday the 3rd. We picked him up and headed over to Nate's work at the Broad Institute. He took us around the lobby, showed us all the fancy high tech stuff they had. And then we got to go up to the laboratory. Nate was in his element. Lucky for him Mandie and Joey were fascinated by it all. Nate just gets too into it for me...explaining all the sciencey stuff. I appreciate what he's doing, cancer research and all, but I don't need to know exactly what he's doing. Science doesn't do it for me. But I did get to see robots this time. Big robot arms that do a bunch of tests at one time.
Anway, we made it back to Nate's apartment after several wrong turns. Don't soley rely on GPS...sometimes it goes a little screwy, especially in Boston apparently. We just hung out that night.

Here's Nate soaking up the sun. It had been rainy for about all of June.

Nate's place is made up of about 3 levels. Mandie got this great shot.

Saturday we went and got Dim Sum, a Chinese brunch type thing. Nate's friends call it a crazy Chinese food circus...or something like that. Cuz they wheel around carts and ask you what you want. So that was fun. We then went around to different shops, trying to get dressy clothes. So Mandie and I HAD to go look at shoes and bags. We made our way back to the apartment and hung around until it was time to make it over to the Charles River for FIREWORKS!!
We managed to get a good spot, even though we showed up 5 minutes before it started. Everyone and their dog (yes, there were a lot of dogs out) were making their way to the river. It was like one of those movies were the zombies are on the streets being called to a central meeting place. Freaky.
Here is a video of fireworks. We were on the Cambridge side of the river, so we couldn't hear the music on the other side, from the Esplande where the big concert and Pops concert was. I found out later that Neil Diamond was performing. Dang it! I missed him!


When we got back, Chris and his girlfriend Amy were there! We stayed up super late playing a game...what was it called? Something like Loaded Questions or something. All I remember is the tag line was: Expose yourself. I made several jokes about that...It was one of those games where you all answer the same question, and then one person reads 'em to another, and that person has to guess whose answer is whose. That was fun, we got to get to know each other better.

Sunday was Peter Mead's wedding, the reason we were all together. We got all ready, and we looked good, and drove up to Kittery, Maine. I underestimated the time it would take to get there...so we got there 30 minutes late...but so did the bride! So we got there just in time for the I Do's.

And the reception was really nice, laid back. It gave everyone a chance to catch up with people they hadn't seen for years.Nate and Joey chattin' it up with Jeff Mead

Paul Kelly took some pictures of the event

our design we made from the stuff for the centerpieces

Nate playing with Mandie's bracelets

We are the champions...or in the City of Champions...

I took over driving later at a rest stop in Ohio. I got to drive through the rest of the state, then got gas in West Virginia and finally made it to my friend's place. She and her husband live right outside of Pittsburgh. They have a cute little house in a really nice neighborhood. We hung out here with them once they got home from church. My friend Jon Harbuck and his wife also stopped by and visited with us also.

I didn't know Pittsburgh is now considered the city of champions. I guess they are cuz their football team won something big and so did their hockey team. Yeah, you can tell I don't follow any of this at all…but I'm glad Pittsburgers are happy about it.

Today we had a nice chill, relaxed morning. We finally were all ready for the day at about 11:30 or so. Our plan was to go check out some of the thrift stores. Alyona loves them and has found some really cute clothes and shoes at some of them. We decided to investigate for ourselves. At the first store Mandie and I found skirt and dress respectively. So we were happy. At the second store, we weren't really into buying anything else, so we had fun with some nice blazers…hello shoulder pads!



We took Alyona out to lunch at Boston Market (Mmmm, their cornbread is sooo good) and then have been chillin' at the house since then. Matt, Alyona's husband, suggested going mini-golfing tonight. We ended up at a nice, Christian mini golf place. They had nice Bible quotes all over.

Luckily none of us got too into the game, so we didn't have to take this scripture to heart.

Alas, I came in dead last. Mandie and Alyona tied for first. Matt was in a close second. He was our dilligent score keeper. It didn't rain, though you can see from the sky that it was gettin' close. But we had a good time. Matt and Alyona are serious golfers. I'm more of a point and go, with minimal thought and planning. Maybe that's why I came in last...'eh! We had a fun time.

The Journey-Don't Stop Believin'

So from St. Joseph Saturday, we decided to take a route that cut right across the state, rather than go all the way back down to I-70. The route we were on ended in Hannibal, MO, right along the Mississippi. According to our atlas, it said Mark Twain's boyhood home was there. Since we had left St. Joe about 2.30 and Pittsburgh was about 14 hours away, we decided to stop.



Wow, I was quite surprised at how big of a deal this was. All of downtown Hannibal has something to do with Mark Twain and his stories (mainly Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer). I guess it was there that Mark Twain, then Sam Clemens, got his inspiration for those stories. He had a crush on the girl across the street, Becky Thatcher, who was in the book. There was a tall plank wood fence in front of his house, which gave him the idea for the part where Tom Sawyer convinces that group of boys to whitewash it for him.


Yeah, all kinds of stuff like that. The river wasn't too far from the house. I guess there's also a cave nearby, now called Mark Twain Caves, but that also found a way into his stories.


It was pretty neat to see…and we would've enjoyed it more if it hadn't been soooo stinkin' hot. When I say stinkin' hot, I mean it literally, it was soooo hot and muggy…we were sweatin' up a storm. It was the type of humid that the air feels heavy and it's a chore to breathe. Mandie said it was like walking around being covered in a big blanket. Gross.


We got there about 6 or so, so everything was pretty much closed. But it was fun to walk around and take pictures. I guess it gets pretty Mark Twain-ey during the day with impersonators walking the streets and horse drawn buggies…It was something I'd never seen or even heard of. I guess I'm not that much of a hard core Mark Twain fan. I have heard that he didn't like Mormons though…and he travelled a lot…that's all I know about the guy.



After our literary respite, we drove and drove and drove. I shouldn't say we, I should say Mandie drove and drove and drove. At about 8 or 9 or so, I hit the wall and didn't want to drive. I was willing to just pull over at a Rest Stop and sleep, but Mandie is the kind to keep going. And she did until about 3am in Ohio. She drove all through Illinois and the lightning storm, she drove through Indiana and then finally stopped in Ohio. This video is from somewhere inbetween Missouri and Ohio. We got to see some early fireworks while listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on cd. So you get to hear some of that while watching pretty fireworks!




Mandie said she had to force herself to stop and sleep for 3 whole hours. While I, on the other hand, slept about twice that. Mandie then woke up and then pressed on.