Catching Turkey

Or rather, make that catching up and eating turkey.  The holiday season is officially upon us, even though Christmas music has already been playing in the stores for weeks.

I've eaten the biggest meal of the year and have been in a little food induced coma since.  We had a great day with Mike's family and are packed up for our trip tomorrow (more on that in a bit).  First, Luci says "Give me some turkey!"

Actually, she's just mid yawn, but doesn't she look vicious?!?!

The last several weeks have been hectic and I haven't been great about keeping up with the blog.  So, I figured I'd post a few quick updates.

I finally downloaded this picture off my camera.  In between parental weekends, I had the pleasure of squeezing in a quick dinner with some great gals.  My good friend Ana Maria was in town for her baby shower, which I would be missing due to hosting duties.  Luckily, I was able to get some good, but brief, chat time in with her for the few hours I had between Mike driving my parents up to NH and me picking Anthony up at the airport.  It was so great to see her, even though for far less time than I would have preferred.

Tamara,Karen,Sue,Ana Maria and Me

The weekend after the parental visit, we had the pleasure of hosting Mike's nephew, Corwin's, 6th b'day party.  Our house is kind of in the middle of where all the family lived, so it was the easiest for everyone.  With all the kids in the house, it was pretty nutty, but a great time.

The two weekends after were spent car shopping (though no decisions or purchases have been made yet) and hosting a boot camp with one of my best friends from Austin, Amy.  That deserves it's own blog posting that I'll hopefully get to before Christmas.

Tomorrow, Mike and I are off to Seattle for an unhappy occasion...a funeral.  It will be the first time I've ever dared brave the airports during Thanksgiving so I'm hoping to make it through the flights with as little anguish as possible (especially since we're flying separately and I won't even have a laptop to watch movies...what's a girl to do?).  So, I definitely won't be posting until at least the end of next week.

In other sad news, which involves the bird who's biggest day of the year is today, Tom-Tom, our office turkey, was hit and killed by a semi truck a couple of weeks ago.  Some in the office park were saddened and others celebrated.  Tom-Tom was a bit of a nuisance and it truly was only a matter of time before this happened.  Wild animals don't live well in office parks, especially when they have a hobby of chasing after cars and trying to hold up traffic.  One of my coworkers had a special affection for the bird and fed him daily (also probably not a good habit for a wild animal).  She's the one that found his body and had him cremated (seriously people, I can't make this stuff up).  I will miss our office mascot but his memory will live on with his poult that are still seen roaming the grounds.  

All of you that are braving the malls tomorrow and over the weekend....best of luck to you! Please don't get trampled by the mobs!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hiking With The 'Rents and The Aussie

Parental visit take 2.

After the adventure of the whale watching cruise, my parents took off the next day to spend the week in NYC, only to return back to Beantown for the next weekend. I'd like to think they just couldn't get enough of me, but the primary reason they were making a 2nd weekend visit was to see our family friend, Anthony.

Anthony was an exchange student with our family in 1985 and we've stayed in touch since. He made another visit to Dallas with his sister several years after that initial visit and then many years later, in 2004, my parents visited him in Australia. I actually had planned a trip to Australia a couple months after my parents had been there which was crashed by this guy I had just started dating....Mike! In 2006, Anthony's family was traveling in the states and swung by Dallas just in time for Mike and my wedding reception there. Flash forward to a few weeks ago, he was traveling for work in the US and took a quick weekend side trip to see my part of the world. So, considering we didn't see him much for 20 years, we've had the pleasure of spending some good quality time with him (and his family) over the last several.

The plans for the weekend were ambitious. I wanted to show Anthony and my parents our NH getaway then scoot back to Boston so Anthony could do the 5 minute tour of the city. Of course, you can't really experience my love of NH without a good mountain hike. I told my parents months ago that a hike was in the cards, which caused my mom a lot of anxiety but she was game for it.

The hike we choose for them was one we're very familiar with - the Welch\Dickey Loop (though we didn't do the whole loop). The Welch\Dickey peaks are very visible due to their large, open, granite faces. We see them on the highway on our approach to our condo and when we see them, we're happy to be just about to our beloved vacation home. The hike across them is rated one of the best bangs for your buck because the elevation isn't atrocious and you get fabulous, unobstructed, 360 views of the region. The first outlook (not quite to the peak) on the Dickey peak is a reasonable distance and has a great view so that's what we picked for the family hike.

Mom,Dad, Anthony and Me - Ready to Hike Up

During the hike - Anthony,Me,Mike and Dad all on a big rock
Even though my mom was a bit of a weeny (sorry mom, but you were), she made it to the first outlook on the mountain. Here she is with Anthony on the home stretch.
Such a nice view as a reward for all of our hard work. Me,Mike,Dad,Mom


While Mike, Mom and Dad decided to head back down at this point, Anthony was intrigued of our stories of the steep granite ledges and really wanted to experience them. So, he and I decided to head up.

Here's what we were about to tackle. (Trust me, it looks a lot easier than it is.)

So, Anthony and I hustled our way up to the top. Here's proof.

A nice view of Welch mountain's granite ledges from the peak of Dickey mountain.
After making it to the top, we hustled back down to meet the rest of the group at the base. We practically ran down the mountain, which was actually pretty fun. Our timing was superb because we ended up arriving approximately 1 minute after everyone else.

No visit to our place in NH is complete without a visit to Franconia Notch. So, we also went there and showed off the Basin area.

Mike and I by the stream leading up to the Basin.

I was very proud of my mom for getting WAY out of her comfort zone and agreeing to go on a hike. It was a fun group event and I don't think she regrets it (though I'm not sure if she'll ever agree to it again either). We had a lot of fun together in NH. The next morning, though, we packed up and headed back to MA for the Boston portion of the weekend.

Bruised Not Broken

Mike's been hobbling around all week from a re injury of an incident from a soccer game 2 weeks ago. I have little sympathy for all his soccer bodily harm since he seems to have something happen to him almost every game but still plays as much as he possibly can (usually 2 games a week). However, even I have to admit this is a doozy.

After 2 trips to 2 doctors and me chauffeuring him around for a week, we've found out that is only a muscle injury and will heal on it's on within a couple of weeks. The immense swelling of his quad was due to fluid....a few days later we saw the result of the injury through a bruise covering almost his whole quad. This photo was taken a day AFTER the worst of the bruising and, in my opinion, looks far better than it looks in person.

OUCH!!

Whale Watching Cruise With a Land Lubber

Back in August, my parents celebrated their 40th anniversary. Before they knew most of the family would be surprising them for the big event, they decided they wanted to do a long driving trip to visit their kids and a few other interesting spots. They left Dallas on October 10th, headed to Mobile to visit my brother and sister in law, Jamie and Sarah, wandered up the east coast through some historic towns and then got to Boston on October 23rd. They insisted that I not take time off work so we just played over the weekend.

The most notable thing we did that weekend was to go on a whale watching tour. I have attempted a few times to go on a whale watching tour in my time living in Boston, but have always been hampered for one reason or another. This time, it actually happened.

Picture of Boston from the Harbor

While my parents both really enjoyed the experience, I can't really say I did, which was really a shame. We were on one of the season's best (per the crew) watches. The first whales we came upon was a group of 3. After I figured out that I just need to stake out a spot by the railings of the boat and wait for the whales to come to my side (as opposed to rushing to the side where they currently were and seeing a lot of peoples' backs), I saw some pretty amazing sites. The problem? I was feeling so incredibly green that I was not able to enjoy much. My strategy was to take a lot of pictures and hope that I got a few good ones to enjoy after I got back to good ol' solid land. So, here are some of my best shots.

3 whales here (blowing on L, tail in middle, back of one on R)

2 here (tail L and back R)

3 here (Back L, tail middle, back R)

The bottom of the tail has unique markings, which is how they're able to identify them.

After seeing the first group, I no longer could handle standing in a crowd. I headed back into the boat and sat down focusing on the horizon (I've been told that's how you're supposed to "fight" see sickness). When my dad came to check in on me, I wasn't improving so I had him grab a barf bag from the crew (they had been handing them out earlier). A wave of sickness hit me and I headed towards the bathrooms. After getting sick in the only slightly nicer than a port-o-potty bathroom, I returned to my seat to shiver uncontrollably for the next hour. (Mind you, there were many other folks sick on this trip as well so I'm not a complete whimp.)

During this time, the boat moved to a different area where there was a group of 6 or 7 whales. Apparently, that magnificent site is only experienced by about 1% of whale watching tours. It would have been nice to see, but I just felt so terrible I couldn't even rally to go see them. Bummer!

After a little nap during the beginning part of the trip back, I felt right as rain. Weird. So, I told my parents we needed to go out and take a few pictures.

My dad and I - downtown Boston in the background.

This might be my all time favorite picture of my parents!

Makes me laugh every time!

Wharf in Boston Harbor

In theory, we had an awesome trip. In actuality, I can't say that I had much fun and the likelihood of me doing another whale watching tour is pretty low. So, any of you out of town friends that want to do it while you're here (and if you're ok on boats, I highly recommend it), you're on your own! This land lubber is keeping her feet on firm ground!

Monday morning, my parents headed off to spend the week in NYC to return the following weekend to spend the weekend in NH and Boston with our Aussie friend Anthony.

Topsfield Fair

On October 13th, we went to the final night of the infamous Topsfield Fair. While this fair seriously pales in comparison to the grandeur of the State Fair of Texas, it's a fun event that I try to make whenever possible.

Mike and I had a quick packed dinner while we made the drive up to the fair grounds after work that Monday. We only brought my small camera, which doesn't take stellar pictures in dim lighting so you'll just have to use a little imagination on the pictures.

Me with the Topsfield Fair Sand Sculpture

Definitely the highlight of the fair night, other than the fun of the amusement park rides, was the Rabbit and Cavy barn. Apparently, a cavy (pronounced  kā-vē) is a guinea pig. Since this was the last night of the fair, lots of folks were "packing" up their bunnies and others were picking up the bunnies they'd bought. What that meant is that a lot of cuties were out of their cage so we got to pet several. The coolest one was Floppy. His owner had him out and was treating him like a ragdoll...and Floppy liked it. I stood by for so long, he plopped him my arms. He was super soft and sweet!
Of course, no fair would be complete without a giant squash.  Here's the winner of the largest pumpkin contest.  It weighed 1464 pounds! 

Super Tuesday!!

I got going a little earlier than usual this morning. Now, I'm not usually an early riser, but I had to get to the polling places before work this morning. Thankfully, our "fall back" in time over the weekend made me feel like I was getting up at my normal time, instead of an hour earlier.

I was somewhat nervous about the line\waiting for the polls. Thankfully, my timing must have been just after the huge morning rush. It wasn't congested at all and I was in and out of the polling place in a little over 5 minutes. Wahoo! My American duty for today is done.

I hope the rest of you Americans reading my blog get out there and vote today as well. Tonight, I'll be joining my house guest, Alev, in front of the tv watching the coverage. (I might also even take some time to update my blog on our recent events.) Happy election day everyone!