some pics
-beacon hill brownstones (LOVE)
-boston college
-another cool brownstone on beacon hill
-tom at the 1st library in the US (founded by Ben Franklin)
-one of two lions in the library
-cheers (but not the real cheers... nothing was like the show)
-cemetery where paul revere is buried. the 'angel of death' etchings on nearly every tombstone were interesting...-more library shots of tom and di
this kid rocked!! we enjoyed watching him--this was just a short clip of his work. make sure your sound is on.
More pics to come of beantown when i am a bit less busy at work...
we are in Boston and we LOVE it! I will post more once we get all of our pics loaded, but here is a little bit now.
Tom and I headed to Rhode Island yesterday morning (after dropping the dogs off at the canine spa) to see our friends Mike and Virginia and their boys Alex, Jack and Christopher. We last saw them Sept 07 shortly after we moved to the East Coast. Virginia made a nice dinner and we enjoyed visiting and hearing stories --especially from the boys (so funny). We stayed in downtown Providence last night. What a neat little downtown area! It was pretty dead this morning with it being Sunday but we managed to find a modern little cafe (Down City) for breakfast. They played 80's music, served all egg white Omelets (among other things) and it was just perfect! After breakfast we headed to Boston (about 45 min from Providence), and here comes into play the title of this post...
Boston, aside from being the home of the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics, is the city OF Paul Revere! This guy is everywhere here and his famous quote alerted the military --- wait, you know this story. Anyway-- we saw where he lived with his 16 children (yes)--the house is still standing and now you can tour it, we saw the church where his lanterns hung from the steeple on his famous ride, we saw a few statues of him and finally, where he is buried (in a creepy cool old Cemetary right in the heart of downtown). This cemetary is almost across the street from our hotel which I KNOW would normally seem really creepy--but this city is SO old (first park in the US established in the 1600's, first church in the US, first public school in the US, first subway in the US, etc) that modern hotels (such as ours, Nine Zero) and shops are integrated in with the wonderful old original buildings which are now landmarks.
I LOVE Boston. Now that we are used to Manhattan, Boston, like Seattle, seems so small. We were able to walk the entire city today and saw so much. Tomorrow we'll go a bit more indepth and roam more slowly around the shops and beautiful neighborhoods (Beacon Hill brownstones, sigh--) and get over near Boston College to look around. The USS Constitution is also here-- it is a wooden-hulled, three-masted ship of the United States Navy. It was named after the Constitution of the USA by George Washington and is the oldest commissioned vessel afloat in the world. This ship saw action in the war of 1812!!
It was 60 degrees today and perfect for walking around. Sadly, I had a moment of stupidity when packing and didn't bring my comfy boots, just my stylish ones so my feet were a bit sore, so, if you see any pics of me and wonder why I have running shoes on with my nice coat--well, now you won't have to wonder. Good thing Tom reminded me that this trip is not part of a fashion show. He is so sweet and grounded.
Here are some pics of Virginia, Mike, 2 of the boys and I lounging and laughing; me on Beacon Hill (avg rent for an apartment on this street is 3K a month); paul revere's tombstone; the front door to our hotel (kidding)---seriously, what was this used for??; and the church where Paul's lanterns hung...
Its finally here!! Tom and I are having a wonderful day that started around 8am! Santa was very good to each of us and Frank and Ollie even managed to get a little shopping in for "mom and dad". We are having a nice day at home, talking to family on skype (feels like we are there with them) listening to Christmas music, playing with our new toys and watching the Christmas Story loop on tv.
This Christmas, instead of posting a heartwarming video or an inspiring Christmas story we are taking a more offbeat approach to bring a you some Christmas laughter.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas! May there be peace on Earth in 2009.
attachments:
1) Saturday Night Live clip from a couple years ago about the "other" activity that happens on Christmas.
2) My niece Chloe with a little picture doctoring by cousin Ryan showing her rebellious Christmas side today and possible "thug life" calling.
3) Snickers and Recees, our little dog friends (John and Lisa) posing for their Christmas card as the First Family.
Hello all and Merry Christmas a day early! Tom and I can't believe that Christmas is here already! But we are ready! All the presents are under the tree (except for Frank and Ol's----too tempting for them) and the snow is still around so it looks like it will be a white one! Perfect!!
Its been a short, but busy week for both of us at work and it will likey get busier. With NY being the largest T-Mobile market in the country and the upcoming New Years Eve celebration here in Times Square (among other things), Tom is working extra hard with his teams to make sure all of our customers can make calls as the ball drops! My job is always busy at year end with the last minute deals and negotiations going on! Makes for an exciting time for sure. Also, my boss is on vacation so I am backing him up. I have been lucky enough to have been on vacation the last couple "year ends" so I'm due to be a back up!
I am posting a couple shots from a NY Rangers hockey game that Tom and i went to last night at Madison Square Garden against the Washington Capitals. It was a great game and good company all around.
Have a wonderful Christmas eve. Our families are gathering tonight in their central locations (Our nieces in Calgary are in a Christmas program at their church, our Texas family has both kids home from college and our extended and immediate family on the West coast are all gathering at my sisters in Bellingham). We know they are missing us. I think we may be missing them more.
hey everyone--its sunday, its snowy and football is on!! Tom and I have become quite the followers of our two very excellent teams--the Jets and Giants--and we rarely miss a game on Sundays. Tom got his Christmas shopping done yesterday (whoo hoo) and we are getting ready for a nice Christmas at home.
The Sat after Christmas we are heading to Providence RI to see friends and then off to Boston. I am VERY excited for that long weekend especially now since we just got done booking all of the hotels etc. YAY!! Neither of us have ever really toured around Boston before.
Its very cold here still, but it seems we'll be snow free for a little while now (unlike our friends in Seattle). All my friends and family are loving the snow so we are happy for them. Some of our other family, in Calgary, is not liking the weather too much as its like 15 below zero there. No thanks!! Karen--come and visit here!! :-) I love the snow and have taken advantage of taking long walks and letting the dogs out to dilly dally in the powder. The snow here is much different than Seattle, here its dry so you can actually be out in it and not come in soaked through.
Here is a pic of me I sent to my dad and brother to get them riled up for the Jets/Seahawks game today (don't be a hater--I just got back from the gym so I don't look my best) and one of the dogs snuggled in after a wrestling match in the snow. :-)
Have a great Christmas week!!
hey for all of you that go on the internet (everyone) or shop online (nearly everyone)-- check this out.
goodshop.com is a shopping directory site and each purchase you make at one of the stores linked to goodshop.com will get a donation of up to 30% to the school or charity of YOUR choice. This is legit. It was on the NY news for the past few days.
Go to www.goodshop.com and 1) choose the charity you want to receive a donation then 2) choose the online store below that you want to shop from. You will see the % of your purchase that the corresponding store will donate.
There are tons tons of name brand sites such as amazon.com, itunes, the gap, bloomingdales, barnes and noble, apple and seriously tons more. You can search for a specific charity just by typing in a few words. The charity must be actual and verifiable through goodshop.com (done instantly).
The other great one is www.goodsearch.com
Use this site like a google browser and the charity that you choose to receive a donation will receive 1 penny for every search you do from goodsearch.com. For example--you could search for seattletimes.com through the search bar on goodsearch.com just to read the paper and the charity of your choice gets a penny. Doesn't sound like much, but it adds up! Many charities right now are seeing large declines in donations due to the recession. This is your chance to give by doing something you'd do anyway.
side note: yesterday it was 67 degrees. today, its 29 and we have 3" of snow. :-)
Spread some holiday cheer!
Sunday means the end of the weekend, but the start of another week--and we really don't have many left this year. We checked in with family and friends this weekend and got some great updates. Happy Bday Michele! Its -11 below in Calgary and snow, yes snow in Seattle. Wow. Here its been cold, but tomorrow I may have to lay out in the sun as its supposed to be in the 60's. Wacky.
I am attaching a couple more holiday-ish winter pics of the area as well as some with our (Tom's) early xmas gift. :-)
Christmas tree shopping NY style (upper west side);
Christmas Ornaments in the fountain (across the street from Radio City);
Di and the dogs sitting in our new dinghy (yes in our extremely cluttered box filled basement). I think we should name it Follie. Thoughts?;
Tom and the dogs working on the motor.
Have a great week.
This is a heart warming story (cough) of the fabulously elegent Plaza hotel in NYC extending themselves so possibly the less-fortunate can live like those that think the recession/depression just means one less holiday party this year.
The article is from the New York NBC News website.
"Spend Christmas Like Eloise
Deal of the Day: Are we reading this right? The Plaza's giving away free nights at the illustrious hotel?The Plaza's new owners may have spent $400 million to renovate the iconic landmark prior to its February reopening, but it doesn't look like they're counting on the holiday season to recoup any of that cash. Between now and December 30, if you book a two-night stay, they'll throw in the third night for free.
That's an extra night you can spend nuzzling up to the 24-karat gold-plated sinks and fixtures in every one of its 282 rooms and suites, sipping on holiday cocktails at the new Rose Club lounge, or coming up with fanciful errands for your white-glove butler to run. Per-night rates start at $755 (that's barely over $500 a night with the discount, and you could stay in far worse places in this city for half a grand per night)."
its been a very full week for tom and I so far. wow. after melissa left monday, Tom and I headed to the city for dinner with our friends Dave and Veronica. We had such a great time visiting with them--it had been a while since we'd seen them last. We ate at Butter in the E Village. This was our 2nd time at this restaurant and it was once again excellent. The waitress was very nice and was entertaining us with stories of the most famous people she had served there. It was all so glamorous sounding---but until I see one myself I just can't get wound up! We will continue trying to spot one... in fact, we will try again tonight! Our old neighbors from Seattle are in the city for some Christmas sight-seeing and we are meeting them for dinner. I am very exctited about this dinner since its at the Tribeca Grill-- a very NY restaurant (and half owned by Robert Dinero). Veronica highly recommended it to us and I had heard of it before as well.
Other than being busy at work and home and trying to fight off all things illness related--we are doing well and today anyway, we are trying to stay dry. Its been pouring rain for the last 14 hours or so!! But--its 60 degrees so its managable.
Talk to you all soon!
Hello from the super cold and Happy Monday.
Melissa left today and we had a fab time touring all around the past few days. NY at Christmas is just the best. Melissa has been to visit a few times now, so we skipped most of the touristy areas (except the top of the rock which she hadn't been to yet --she loved it) and focused on some out of the way areas like 1) the Upper West Side (where I want to live badly. It is so cool up there. A small city feel in a big city. Local grocery stores, churches, shops, lots of out of control rich people. I think its a law you must have a fur coat if you live or spend ample amounts of time there. I am sort of numb to seeing all the fur now, but Melissa was still shocked. In Seattle you see maybe a fur coat a year if that. Even if Tom finally gave into my pleas to move to the UWS, I think we could maybe afford a storage unit in someones basement and that'd be about it), 2) Brooklyn (we walked the bridge and toured brooklyn by foot) and then 3) yesterday headed to Lambertville, NJ which we have coined as the (much smaller) San Francisco of the East Coast. Very artsy and just cool. It is a small town though and had a smaler town feel. Probably the coolest thing there aside from the alligator chili we had or lunch or the used book stores was the bridge in town that crosses the Delaware River. While this bridge is no where near the size of the Brooklyn Bridge (or Golden Gate) we walked across and found ourselves in New Hope, PA.
We get around when Melissa is here, I am telling you!!
We quickly crossed back into Lambertville since it was in the high 20's and with the wind on that bridge-- it had to have been more like 8 degrees.
While in NY, we did see the skaters at Bryant Park, the windows at Macy's and Sak's all decorated elaboratly for Christmas, the tree at Rockefeller Center and many other things. It was very crowded, but everyone, as always, was so plesant and in the holiday spirit. To top off the great trip, it started to snow Sat night and we rode through Times Square on a rickshaw (see pic) in the snow. FUN.
We had a nice dinner with Tom last night at home (he pretty much lets us just go when Melissa or other girlfriends are here. He knows his best moments are not shopping and sightseeing in NY with the two of us!!) and now we start a new week.
Tom is in the city today for work and I am taking the train in later so we can meet up with our friends Dave and Veronica who are in town from Seattle. Last night the temps here dropped to single digits and today its only 22, so it should be a frosty one walking around tonight.
Here are some pics:
santa rickshaw
the brooklyn bridge
di on the bridge
view of the city from the bridge (other bridge is the Manhattan).
melissa at brooklyn hotspot Pacifico
our cool rickshaw in the snow
the tree is up and the christmas spirit is ON. We watched the Christmas Clay-mation classic "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (Burgermeister Meister Burger) and the beautiful voices of the Celtic Christmas women as we decorated. This is the dogs' second Christmas and last year they did pretty well with the tree. This year, they act as tho the tree offers a morphine drip into the tree holder water. They will NOT stay out of there! I refuse to get a gate around the tree so instead we will just do better at setting limits for the "kids".
some pics
Tom doing the lights (thats his thing)
and Olliie, Frank & mom. Ollie is such a little Christmas dog. Sort of looks like Max from the Grinch doesn't she?
hey everyone! the blog hit the 10K visitor milestone!! We are so happy people like to visit our life via the web!!
Only 1 month until 2009. This year went by fast for us! Today is Monday--back to work day. I actually took the day off today which was nice. We have our tree up and it looks beautiful--but its not decorated yet. We just didn't have the energy to decorate last night.
This was a full news day--some good, some not much good and some a bit puzzling. Here is a summary of the top stories from how we see it.
1) Today is World Aids Day. Love that! HOPEFULLY this recognition will alert some to make their behaviors more safe.
2) The NY news had a special report on the increase of psychic visits in the city with this current economic state. Which leads me to the next headline...
3) recession. we are officially in a recession (as of 12/07). WHY are they telling us now? Why are they telling us something we already sort of knew? Did anyone really NOT know this? Does the market going down benefit anyone???
4) Men now can feel the pain of "spanx"--the figure flattering "under-clothes" that women squeeze themselves into time after time. I cannot wait to peruse the men's spanx section to see just what kind of guy will actually "pretend" to be shopping for this item.
and finally, before I post pics from getting the tree up and the house decorated....
5) today when I was at our usual UPS store (the one we have been going to since we moved here) to ship some items out (Yvonne and Weston, check your mailboxes), I enjoyed seeing the owner there that we have gotten to know over this past year 1/2. As I was nearing the end of my transaction, the owner commented "your canadian is coming out" (Let me make it known that today was 55 degrees and sunny out and all I felt necessary to wear in this "heat wave" was jeans, a fleece and flip flops). My reaction to the owner was polite as he is not a close friend of mine so I could not lash out that "I was not Canadian" so instead, I was polite and said nicely, "I am not Canadian (i was thinking maybe he confused Tom and I since Tom IS from Canada).
He responded with "I know, but Seattle is practically Canada".
Ouch.
Back in Seattle we said that about our state-mates that resided in Bellingham. All I could do was laugh and realize that I do look like I am used to sub zero temps "up north" when wearing flips in December when most people walking around Morristown were wearing Uggs, scarves and hats.
disclaimer: I obviously have nothing against Canadians. They are wonderful. As is Canada, except for their internet shopping accessibility. :-)
Thats all for today.
The pics loaded are tom and the dogs in front of the tree
Ollie warming herself in front of the fire in her Mrs Claus outfit
and Franky taking a break from all the decorating going on
For real. Well, not open, but does a an oven broiler count? This activity was just ONE highlight of our Thanksgiving2008! Roasting chestnuts, like in the song, apparently is a tradition out east much more so than we had heard of out west. John and Lisa have done this since they had both been kids. If you have never had them, a small slit is made in each and then broiled for 15 min or so, they turn out so delicious. The texture is more like a crumbly, but good cookie. Delicious!
Those combined with the Turkey, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce (thanks Li), rolls etc---made for a filling dinner. We also had major laughs over game time with the extremely tense Jenga and the purposeful lying in Balderdash! Very fun! We are all pretty good bs-ers it turns out!
It was so nice to have them over! We are very thankful for them being in our lives. Of course Reeces and Snicks came up too and all 4 dogs ran around like crazies until they tired out and each crashed in different areas of the kitchen/living room. Very cute.
We are having just the best time off. This long weekend has really turned into a much needed vacation from the everyday stresses of work and we are enjoying each minute. Today we got our tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We plan to decorate the house and tree tonight/tomorrow! The Christmas music is on, the dogs are dressed in their Santa and Mrs Claus attire (pics to come), 'Christmas Vacation', 'White Christmas' & 'A Christmas Carol' are queued in the dvd player and we are ready for another much anticipated Christmas season!!
Here are some pics from Thanksgiving!
Li & Di with the gaggle of wieners
John preparing to roast the chestnuts
Tom and Li working on the next move in Jenga
Tom, Di and Lisa
John, Di and Li
This year we are staying home and having John, Li and their dogs over! Tom and I started the day with a run and then watched the Macy's Parade on tv (we decided not to venture into the city to see it again. While that was awesome--once was enough for us!) We are making the full meal deal dinner (which is the real reason Tom and I got a run in this morning)!! The temp is much cooler this year than last, but still beautiful out.
We'll post pictures later! Hope everyone is having a great day! Tom and I are very thankful for all of our friends and family and we miss the ones we can't see -- especially on holidays.
It is freezing today!! With wind-chill, its in the teens! After running some errands we are now at home, in front of the fire staying warm and watching the annual Apple Cup (UW vs WSU). This year, its been labeled the Crapple Cup by all the media outlets thanks to the two team's combined record this season of 1-20. WSU has the only win (but it was against Portland State so it doesn't really count as a win). Hopefully the Huskies will win. There is nothing else I can say on this, no spin, nothing. Pathetic. The one bright spot... the leading rusher for WSU in the entire first half was the punter. Regardless of whether the Huskies win or lose--that is pathetic.
Here are a few more pics from my trip to Seattle...
*pics
-kurt cobain mural in the U Dist.
-geoff playing a most excellent host
-michele and I
-emily and ash jumping on the bed (when auntie comes, anything goes)
-their enourmous cat (tigger--which sounds friendly and harmless... but he isn't). He is HUGE. That is my large laptop bag he is sitting next to. I avoid Tigger at all costs.
