Christmas in Thailand

Who knew a Buddhist country would be so crazy about Christmas? I guess Thais just want an excuse to party. It seems like every building has their own gaudy tree, there are lights and Santas a plenty.



Even now, several days after Christmas, it's not dying down. At the aquarium today we heard the same string of 4 songs at least twice..."Feliz Navidad" was one of them...what's up with that?

Autumn in New England

Here in Boston Sunday we had beautiful weather...maybe our last nice fall day. It was sunny and warm and the leaves are all bright and colorful...So where do I choose to go on such a wonderful day? The cemetery of course! Look at the great photographs I got!









Here are some more artsy ones...I had fun editing them...Which one is your favorite?

A video for a friend

Nate and I made a video for our friend Mandie who got married this past weekend. We weren't able to make it to Colorado to be there, so we made a video. We got started late...so we progressively got sillier and sillier. Oh, for the dancing scene, I've gotta give Sam props for playing the piano. Sam also threw the bouquet and you can hear him laughing as Nate pummels me.



Here's the extended version of the throwing of the bouquet.

The Longfellow House

A couple weeks ago I went on a tour of what is now known as the Longfellow House in Cambridge. It's right down the street from where we go to church (at the Episcopal Divinity School actually. our building burnt down).

This house has a lot of history. It was built by a Tory, a guy loyal to the British, back in the mid 1700s. But when Washington and his men were taking control of Cambridge and later Boston, all the Tories left. Washington took over this house to live in and to be used as a headquarters.

Then much later (around the mid 1800s) a young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rented a room out of the house while he attended Harvard (or he was a teacher there...I forget). When he married his second wife, Francis Appleton, he asked his father-in-law to buy that house for them. Francis' dad worked in textiles, I think he owned a mill...or was somehow involved with one. That's why there are all different kinds of carpets in the house. Not only was it the style then, but Mr.Appleton used it as a way to showcase his product. There was also a lot of colorful wallpaper used which was also so "in". I loved all the colors and patterns, hence all the pictures.



And what's really cool is that after the tour (which was done expertly by a park ranger lady who dramatically recited Longfellow's poetry) we were able to go down to the basement to meet the archivist! It was really neat. All the papers, documents and items concerning the house and the Longfellow family are all kept there. What's even cooler is that I get to volunteer there. H.W. Longfellow owned a lot of books and I get to do some data entry to get the handwritten cards which catalog all the books into a computer database. I'm really looking forward to going to this house every week!!

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...