We Heart Vermont

Last weekend, Chuck's mom, Pat, came up to visit us in Boston. Like my parents, she had come to see us in Seattle but hadn't spent much time with us exploring Boston/the Northeast. She arrived on Friday and we did the typical North End dinner and pastries that we always do with our visitors.

Saturday morning we started a weekend road trip- beginning with Salem, MA and ending up in Burlington, VT.

In Salem, we explored the town, took a history tour (which became a private tour when we were the only people signed up for it), and ate lunch on the water. It was cool to hear the history of Salem and learn new things about the town, but he didn't really talk about witches enough for our taste. We wanted to hear the juicy stories! Oh well. We saw a lot of cool landmarks, including the hall where they filmed a major scene from everyone's favorite Halloween movie, Hocus Pocus. We saw real historical landmarks too of course, like one of the oldest remaining houses in the U.S. and the second oldest cemetery.

Hocus Pocus shooting location- where Bette Midler sings "I Put a Spell On You"

I want this house.

View from lunch

After Salem, we drove to Vermont towards Burlington and took a little scenic detour along the way. Vermont is famous for it's old covered bridges, so we looked on a map and tried to find some that weren't too far off the beaten path. While searching, we also found there was a place called Quechee Gorge, aka Vermont's Little Grand Canyon. So obviously we decided we had to see it.

The best way to see it is from a bridge, and we found it was pretty freezing when we stood out on the bridge. So we snapped a couple pictures and ran back to the car. Picture Clark Griswold at the Grand Canyon. That was us.

Then we found some of the covered bridges. This red one was my favorite.

Finally we made it to our hotel outside Burlington, and after checking in we decided to drive into town to find Church Street. First we stopped at Lake Champlain to snap some pictures because the sun was setting and it looked really pretty.

It reminded me a lot of Puget Sound in Seattle and for a second I missed living in Seattle and also thought about moving to Vermont.

After the lake, we walked around Church Street for a little while but most places were closing and it was kind of chilly, so after about an hour we left. We found a Texas Roadhouse right by our hotel, so of course we had to eat there. :) It was great, as always.

Sunday was Easter, so we headed into Burlington again for an Easter Brunch at a place called the Bluebird Tavern. It was delicious.

After brunch we walked Church Street again and got some truffles from the famous Lake Champlain Chocolates.

We then decided to go on another scenic drive, this time to a little island in the middle of Lake Champlain. We found a state park and got some pictures of the lake from a campsite within the park.

Before heading back to Boston, we made one last stop- at the Magic Hat Brewery just south of Burlington. Our tour guide asked why the 7-8 of us on the tour were touring a brewery and drinking beer on Easter, to which we responded "why not?" The tour was short and sweet and at the end we got to do a free tasting. Magic Hat isn't my favorite beer but we all found one or two that we liked.

And with that we ended our trip and headed south to Boston! We love Vermont a lot and I wish we had explored more of the state in our time here. I guess we will just have to come back someday for a vacation!

Parents' visit and the Party Trolley

Things are getting crazy around here. Between school, work, dinner dates, bridal showers, birthday parties, karaoke, seeing a friends' play, staying out drinking margaritas on a Wednesday night until 1 am because "soon we won't be able to see each other," etc etc- we've been non-stop busy lately. So, I'm a bit behind on posting about my parents' visit to Boston but, better late than never, right?

Two weekends ago, my parents came to see us! They visited us in Seattle last year and are coming up for Chuck's graduation (just for a couple of days) in June, but they haven't had a chance to just see our place and life in Boston and explore the city. They figured they better come see us before we leave Boston, which is less than two months from now. (Cue: mixed feelings of sadness and joy.)

They arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and while I was at work, Chuck took them to explore Harvard and HBS. My mom wanted to see my Grandpa's dorm where he lived as an HBS student back in the 1930s/40s. I met them after work at our old stand-by, Border Cafe. We had some margaritas, dinner and then just made our way home to relax the rest of the night.

On Thursday they drove to Western Mass to visit my aunt and uncle all day and that night we had sushi at Thelonius Monkfish in Central Square. I have walked past this restaurant for almost 2 years and never gone inside and found now that was a huge mistake. We've been missing out on amazing sushi less than 2 blocks from our apartment. Booooo.

We taught my parents how to play Pandemic. We're obsessed.

Friday my parents and I explored the city and walked about 50 miles. Not really but it felt like it. We walked down Newbury Street, Boylston Street, bought lunch at a food truck parked right next to the Boston Marathon Finish Line, wandered into an old church and happened upon an organ concert which we proceeded to sit and listen to, walked through the Boston Public Garden, Beacon Hill, found Acorn Street- the most photographed street in America, and watched opening ceremonies of the first Red Sox home game at the Beantown Pub while we enjoy Sam Adams and pretzels. And that was all before 4pm.

That night we made our way to the North End for Italian food and Mike's Pastry. Late that night, my parents went to bed and Chuckie and I walked next door to the infamous "3 Class Party" at Fort Awesome. It is the only time every year where all 3 LGO classes (the 2nd and 1st years, as well as the incoming class who is in town for Open House weekend) are in town at the same time. So obviously, they throw a huge party. And obviously they have a flip cup tournament between the classes to determine who is the best class and OBVIOUSLY the LGO '14s won because they're the best. And obviously I'm biased. Sorry!

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early (my parents, well rested, Chuck and I- not so much) and headed for the Sam Adams Brewery tour in South Boston. This was definitely the highlight of my parents' trip and of my life. Just kidding, kind of. The tour is free, and pretty short, and at the end they do a tasting and teach you about the different beers. Our tour guide was hilarious and kind of a smart ass, which made the tour a lot more fun. During the tasting, someone asked him how many beers he drinks a day to which he replied "That's rude. I don't come to YOUR work and ask you how many beers YOU drink a day." Our guide then advised us to take the "Party Trolley" to Doyle's for lunch. My friend Ana had told me that the party trolley was a must, so we decided to go for it. And I'm SO glad we did. Let me set the scene for you: a party trolley with flashing lights, a disco ball and loud pop music, being driven by a possible ex-convict who has the best legit Boston accent you've ever heard who also happens to be hilarious. It was seriously the best 10 minutes of my parents' trip. And then he dropped us at Doyle's where we had the most delicious onion rings I've ever tasted and a tasty lunch and of course, more Sam Adams.

I'm starting to feel like I could have written a much shorter blog post about their visit in just two sentences: "My parents came to see us in Boston. We drank."

After our amazing, life-changing morning, we went to Fenway to walk around and take pictures and observe the atmosphere of Fenway right before a game. Then, we were tired. So we went home, made a Trader Joe's run, and then spent the evening at home watching the Final Four games and stuffing ourselves with cheese and grapes and chips and salsa and WATER.

This guy tried to be nice and duck under the camera so he wasn't in our picture.

 I feel like my parents had a great trip and got a very accurate view of life in Boston: lots of walking, lots of eating, lots of Boston accents, and lots of drinking. Yep. That's pretty much what it's like here.

Spring Break

Last week was Chuck's spring break. We decided a few weeks back that we wanted to get out of the city for the week and go South, hopefully to somewhere a little warmer. So, we did go South but unfortunately it wasn't any warmer than it was in Boston. But that's ok. We had fun anyway.

The first weekend of the break, we drove down to D.C. which is only about a 6.5-7 hour drive. (I know 7 hours is a lot but after driving from Seattle to Boston, 7 hours is like a piece of cake to us.) We stayed Saturday-Monday, left our car parked the entire time and used the Metro and our feet to get us everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Day 1:
The Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

After the monuments, we were starving and wanted to watch some basketball games, so we headed to a restaurant in Chinatown called the Redline which someone had recommended to us. The atmosphere was really cool and there were huge TVs everywhere, but it took so long for them to seat us that by the time we got a table, the restaurant had turned into a club and we were pretty much the only people ordering food. Oh and people were dancing all around us and the bouncer stood right next to our table and kept leaning over me to look out the window. Awesome. We were mad at first but then we just had to laugh. It was pretty ridiculous.

Day 2:
We hit a few of the Smithsonian museums, walked around the Capitol, ate lunch at a hole in the wall place with the locals, walked to the Jefferson Memorial, hit a another museum, and then ate dinner at a place in Arlington called "Ray's the Steaks"- a place our friends and former D.C. residents had recommended as the best place to get an inexpensive steak dinner in the city. They were right. It was so. good.

 Oh yeah- forgot to mention. I'm obsessed with the Metro. It made me never want to ride the subway in Boston or NYC again.

 

Day 3:
We got to the Capitol bright and early (seems everyone else had the same idea) to try to get on a tour of the inside, took a tour of the inside, got passes to go into the gallery to watch the House in session (which lasted 5 minutes and not a single representative was present...), visited the Library of Congress and then last but certainly not least, stopped by the original Georgetown Cupcake to get some treats to take to our next stop- Virginia Beach.

Monday afternoon we drove 3ish hours from D.C. to Virginia Beach to spend the rest of the week with Chuck's sister Shawn and her family. This was our 3rd time in Virginia Beach in 7 months. It's starting to feel like our second (third?) home.

I hardly took any pictures because most of the time we were just doing normal family things. We ate dinner together every night, Chuckie and I took lunch to the girls at school and ate with them in the cafeteria, we played Wii, we played Chess and Scrabble and Clue, we went to the park, we took Caroline to praise team rehearsal at church..... We really tried to take advantage of the fact that they still want to hang out with us and think we're cool. Soon they'll be teenagers and probably think we're boring old people!

On our own, we saw Divergent at the movie theater, walked the mall, had lunch on the beach and then walked the beach even though it was pretty cold, visited a historic house, the deWitt Cottage, on VA Beach that was owned by one of my Grandpa's cousins (and visited by my Grandpa as a kid) and is now the oldest remaining house on the waterfront, became regulars at the Starbucks up the street from Shawn's house, did crossword puzzles, drove to Norfolk and ate lunch and watched a glass blowing class... On our last night in town, the girls had a sitter and the adults went to a local brewery and then a Cuban restaurant. It was the perfect ending to a great vacation!

Oh. And I may have spoiled the family dog, Zoe, a bit much while we were there. This is how she started greeting me in the mornings when I got out of bed. Ready in position for me to rub her belly.

Overall it was an awesome trip.  My only regret, now that I've gone back through pictures, is that we didn't get any pictures of us with the nieces. I guess this just means we'll have to go back to VA Beach sooner rather than later! :)