Liz and Shane in Boston (Part 2)

After some pad thai and a little resting on Saturday afternoon, we started to get our second wind. The LGOs were hosting a "Liquor Treat" Halloween party again this year and we decided that would be a great way for Liz and Shane to meet a lot of our friends. I had warned them about the party earlier in the week, so they came prepared with Halloween costumes. We invited a couple of people over to meet at our apartment before we all headed to the first stop on Liquor Treat and somehow that turned into more than a couple of people and we kind of had a pre-party at our house.

I went as a nerd (most of my costume I borrowed from Liz. Thank God she packed half her wardrobe in her suitcase). Chuck went as Abraham Lincoln, again. Though he was a little more casual version this year.

Liz and Shane went as pageant parents, or as her shirt says "pajent" parents.

Here's our group, minus Abe.

We saw a lot of good costumes at Liquor Treat but here are a couple of my faves.

Pot o' Gold. It's funny because her name is Gold.

Bert and Ernie, snugglin'.

We stayed out late and had greasy pizza at the place on the corner before we went home and crashed.

The next morning, we caught up on sleep because we were pretty tired and it was raining. We made some pancakes and then got ready to head out for a busy day two. Our first stop was a tour of MIT's campus. We walked from one end to the other and Chuck got to show off some cool parts of the school.

Then we played around in a classroom in the business school building because we're really mature adults like that.

Her equation (or as Shane corrected us, her "expression" because it has no equal sign) has an & sign in it. Thank goodness she teaches high school English and not math.

After some delicious lunch at Cosi, we headed into Boston to do the Freedom Trail. It was a little cold but our guide was a stand up comedian (seriously, he broke character and told us that's what he does for a living when he's not pretending to be Isaiah Thomas or William Dawes) so that made it really enjoyable despite the cold.

We then had drinks at the Green Dragon,  the pub where they supposedly planned the Boston Tea Party back in the day, and then went to the North End for a delicious Italian dinner and pastries at Mike's Pastry.  We didn't take any pictures because we suck.

Monday, Chuck had school all day so Liz, Shane and I spent the day exploring Harvard and then ventured out to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

That night, for their final night in town, we had dinner at one of our favorite Boston restaurants, Border Cafe in Harvard Square, with some friends. There were a lot of margaritas and a lot of trivia questions about Disney movies. It was a good time.

Sadly, all vacations come to an end, and after the 4 of us had brunch on Tuesday, Liz and Shane had to leave. We felt so sad when they left and had to eat a LOT of kit kat bars to subdue the pain. We wish they could come visit every weekend but of course, they can't. We had a great time while they were here and made some excellent and ridiculous memories. Best friends are the best.

Halloween and Hurricane Sandy

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We have had a very interesting week so far here in Boston, to say the least.

On Saturday, we celebrated Halloween with the LGOs.

Vampires!

We went the historic route this year- Amelia Earhart and Abe Lincoln.

Lobsters in pots!

A hunter and a deer

The Hamburglar and Sexy Grimace.  They handed out real McDonalds hamburgers!

Captain America got into a battle.

We went to 4 different houses as part of a "Liqu or Treat" and ended at our friend's Greg and Tiffany's house. They had their house decked out in Halloween decorations, a special dance room with a strobe light and fog machine, and tons of amazing food and drinks. They even drove out of Boston that day and picked up a huge thing of ChickFila nuggets for the party! (If you followed the ChickFila drama from this summer, you know the Boston Mayor banned ChickFila from opening any stores here....)  The party was a big success until the neighbors called the cops with a noise complaint and we all got kicked out. I'm 25 years old and have never been to a party that was busted by the cops until now. I found it pretty humorous. Especially considering the party was full of people in their twenties and thirties, and most of them are MIT students. Not exactly the type of crowd you would think has parties broken up by the cops.

On Sunday we relaxed and prepared for Hurricane Sandy, who was scheduled to arrive Monday morning.

I carved a pumpkin!

Chuck and my pumpkin before he took it to the hallway. It was attracting gnats. :(

I also made the baked ziti I talked about in my last post. (It was so good.) Sunday night, we learned that MIT was closing on Monday, just like the rest of Boston and most parts of New England. We were very excited to have a surprise 3 day weekend but also kind of nervous about the oncoming storm.

Luckily, Monday came and went with just some high winds here and there and nonstop rain. We never lost power or anything. We watched the news a lot though.

Around 2 o'clock, boredom set in and I decided to make popcorn balls- a tradition for the Annual Hagan Halloween Party my parents host every year.

Want to make them? They're super easy! (Unless you burn the caramel because you're not paying attention and then have to spend 15 minutes cleaning up the mess you made and unwrap 28 more caramels to try again... What? That didn't happen to me! Or maybe it did. I guess I can add this to my list.)

Recipe:
28 caramels
2 tblsp. water
popcorn (I used about 1.5 bags of popped popcorn)

Melt the caramels in a pot with water on low heat. Pop popcorn. Pour melted caramel over popcorn and mix. With wet hands (so the caramel doesn't stick to your hands), form the popcorn balls and place on a baking sheet or wax paper. The end.

 Since we recently got Showtime so we can keep up on Dexter, we also now have Showtime On Demand. I found that the entire 1st season of Homeland is on there, and a lot of people have told me Homeland is an amazing show, most recently my best friend Lauren. We decided to watch the first episode and, well... that was the end of our day. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we were able to watch more than half of the first season of Homeland in one day.

We were very lucky to not get hit hard by the hurricane. Thank you to all of you who were texting and facebooking me and Chuck to make sure we were ok. We are more than ok and now just feel very sad for all of the people affected by it, especially those whose homes were flooded or burnt down, whose cars were flooded, or who were injured or lost someone they love. I can't even watch the news coverage of all the destruction without crying. Mother Nature sure can be a beast.