My Mom Took a Skull on an Airplane

In April our family took a trip to Denver to see Sami and Austin where they moved this past August. It was the first time we've all been on a trip together since Myrtle Beach in 2009! Sami planned out our entire trip and made sure we saw all the best parts of Denver, and also took us outside the city to Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder, and Golden. We had perfect weather the entire trip and we ran our butts off. While the parks and restaurants and sites were all glorious and unforgettable, perhaps more memorable were some of the things that happened just in our Air B&B or in the rented minivan that we all 7 rode around in for the long weekend. (Shout out to Dad who drove the entire time and endured the opinions of 6 backseat drivers!)

First of all, on Day 1 of the trip, we were exploring the Red Rocks Amphitheatre when my mom got a news alert on her phone. "Prince died!" she told us. We were shocked! You see, the last time we were all on vacation together in the summer of 2009, Michael Jackson died. Our entire beach trip became unintentionally Michael Jackson themed as every radio station played his songs, stores put up tributes to him, TV stations played his videos and movies about him... Well, sure enough, our Denver trip quickly became Prince themed. The minivan bumped "Kiss" and "Party Like it's 1999" that week more times than I want to remember. Now we are worried to go on another vacation all together because it seems every time we do, a pop star dies. And we can't lose Justin Timberlake!

Another memorable event was on Day 1 when we noticed that the spice cabinet in our Air B&B was meticulously organized, labeled and ALPHABETIZED. The owner of the Air B&B was a 30-40 something year old single male. We became convinced we had a Dexter situation on our hands. Who else is that anal and organized besides a trained, skilled serial killer?

And speaking of creepy things, I should tell you about the skull. You see, Sami is in Denver to get her Masters in Anthropology. She is an archaeology nerd, so naturally we often buy her things like Laura's most recent Christmas gift, a skull painted with chalkboard paint that is also a piggy bank! When Sami flew back to Denver after Christmas, she didn't have room to take all of her gifts, so my mom made sure to pack the skull with her to bring to Denver. But instead of packing it in her suitcase like most people do when they travel with skulls, she brought it in her carry-on. Imagine the look on the TSA guy's face when he saw this thing go through the scanner at the airport.

Because Denver is spread out and we visited places outside the city, we spent a LOT of time in the car together. (We flew to Denver, just FYI. That would have been a serious road trip to drive from Louisville.) The time in the car gave lots of great conversations. We learned about how Laura's friends supposedly led "an uprising" against her in the 4th grade and she's still not over it. We discussed Sami's fear of boats and Mom scared her by saying she thinks her fear of water comes from when she was "submerged in ice water as a baby" before her heart surgery, which led Sami to believe she was killed and brought back to life until Dad chimed in with the important detail that just her body was put in the ice water, not her head/face. On the last day, I had an outburst in the backseat when my sisters were trying to convince my dad to stop for restrooms 20 minutes from home. I was arguing that we should not stop so close to home and when they kept trying to overrule me I shouted "I NEVER GOT SWIM LESSONS AS A KID AND YOU TWO DID!" I have no idea how stopping for the bathroom and swim lessons are related, but for some reason I had a middle child moment and needed to know why I was never taught to swim and only taught to float. And now that I'm thinking about it, like Sami I should probably ALSO have a fear of boats because if one I'm on ever sinks, everyone else will swim to safety and I'll just have to float until someone rescues me.

Austin and Chuck are brave men.

Besides sight-seeing and riding in the van, we did a lot of other things too. We played a lot of games in bars. (Side note: if you have never played the card game "Exploding Kittens," do yourself a favor and order it on Amazon NOW and play it ASAP.) We walked a LOT and Austin lied to us constantly about how close certain destinations were to keep us from getting discouraged. We ate a ton of good food. We toured a whiskey distillery (because, duh). We climbed a mountain, sort of. We looked for Peyton Manning. We debated the origin of elk (are they a mix between donkey and deer?). We went from place to place with a schedule but also with no real agenda at the same time.

Of course the mountains were breathtaking and the elk everywhere in the park were amazing and the food was great and getting to see Sami and Austin's new 'hood was fun... but the best thing about the vacation was knowing that our family could go literally anywhere in the world together and have a good time.

But, unfortunately we'll never get that chance, you know- because of the whole pop star thing.

Liz and Shane in Boston (Part 1)

Elizabeth and Shane didn't come into town until around midnight last Friday, so before picking them up from the airport, I attended a girls' paint night with some SOs and LGOs over in Boston. 

 

Here is what the painting was supposed to look like:

 

As you can see, we all added a little of our own creativity and some of us boycotted the birds on the wire even though I'm pretty sure the title of the painting was supposed to be "Birds over Boston" or something.

Here's mine up close:

Originally we had Liz and Shane's whole first day in Boston planned out to include the Freedom Trail, dinner in the North End, and a few other things. But after the Sox won the series and a last minute Halloween party popped up, we changed all our plans. 

So we started Saturday morning early with some coffee and cinnamon rolls and a walk across the river into Boston for the Red Sox World Series Parade. It was pretty packed.

 

Here we are, anxiously awaiting the Duck Boats carrying baseball players.

  

Chuckie got this awesome shot of the trophy.

 

Big Papi!

After the parade, it was SO NICE outside so we decided to just keep walking around the city. We walked all the way up Newbury Street, went in and out of some stores, got cupcakes, walked through the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, and then decided to find somewhere to eat lunch.

Even George Washington was wearing a beard to support the Red Sox!

 

Liz was obsessed with this outdoor bookstore right next to where we ate lunch. It's a cool picture and I personally enjoy the leftover confetti from the parade on the ground.

Before we headed back to Cambridge, we walked through Beacon Hill and the Esplanade along the river. Everything was so Fall-like and beautiful.

I was so happy it was warm enough outside for the sailboats to be out on the river! Liz and Shane really got to experience Boston at the perfect time of year.

After we walked a million miles all day long, we ended up back at our apartment for some rest and relaxation before we got some pad thai takeout.  That night we had an impromptu Halloween party at our apartment before we all went out for Liquor Treat with all the LGOs. I'll save that for the next post. So far I've only shown you up until 4pm on Liz and Shane's first day here. We have a tendency to wear out our visitors, as you can see.

A Boat Cruise, Karaoke and Jason Segel

To say our first week back in Boston has been fun would be an understatement.

We didn't waste any time getting reacquainted with our old routine.

Tuesday, Chuck spent the day at MIT in meetings and buying books so he was ready for school to start the following day.  That night we got all dressed up and headed to the Harbor for a Dinner Boat Cruise. This is something we did last year too and had a blast, so decided to go again this year. The food was really, really good (again) and it was fun to catch up with friends.

Chuck and I didn't get a picture together because we were separated for a lot of the night, catching up with different people. :(

We did have an exciting moment on the way TO the boat cruise as well, when we saw Jason Segel while walking towards the Harbor from the train. Yes, THIS Jason Segel.

As in Marshall from How I Met Your Mother- one of our all time favorite shows that we actually watch every week. Chuck and I freaked out, I said hi to him in a really weird way, he said hello back, and it was pretty much the greatest moment of our year.  I immediately called my sister, Laura, and left her a really high pitched voicemail because she is seriously in love with him and has been for years. When you search his name on her blog, you get a lot of results, including this love letter she wrote to him in 2009.


Wednesday, Chuck had his first day of classes and that night, we went to our friend Rachel's in Beacon Hill to watch the sun set on her rooftop deck.

 Sometimes we do things like this and it makes me stop for a second and wonder, "is this real life?"

Thursday night we met up with friends at our old Thursday hangout the Thirsty Ear, the campus karaoke bar. We got to meet several of the LGO '15s there and it was so fun to be back at a familiar place! Then we made the (terrible) decision to go to ANOTHER karaoke bar, the Asgard, which is really just a normal bar that also happens to have karaoke on Thursday nights too. The difference at the Asgard is that they have an actual live band, so when you sing, it's almost like you're the lead singer of a rock band. The place was empty (because it was almost closing time...) so Chuck got to sing with them.

If business school doesn't work out, I think he found his band.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were busy with more classes, homework, time with friends, food, drinks, and catching up on this season of Dexter so we can watch the series finale in a couple of weeks!

Like I said, we didn't waste any time jumping back into the swing of things, and things won't slow down from here on out. This week we have something to do almost every night and then a slew of visitors (yep, already!) start to arrive on Saturday!

Now if I could just find a job, we'd be all set.... :)